“I’m a conservative, but I’m not a nut about it.” George H.W.Bush We’ve all heard it. “You need to be conservative, just to be on the safe side.” It’s an article of faith in the safety community. Like all articles of faith and other religious beliefs, any deviation is heresy with the potential for excommunication. [...]
“But the important thing about learning to wait, I feel sure, is to know what you are waiting for.” —Anna Neagle Many safety instrumented functions (SIFs) are deliberately designed to wait before tripping. Like a sergeant commanding his troops to “Wait for it!” the SIF designer is anxious that the SIF not trip prematurely. Some [...]
“The Ford Pinto—the barbecue that seats four.” –Johnny Carson This month, February 2018, will be the 40th anniversary of the California jury verdict in the Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co. case. The jury awarded Richard Grimshaw $2,516,000 in compensatory damages and $125,000,000 in punitive damages, although the trial judge reduced the punitive damages to $3,500,000. [...]
“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.” George Orwell, 1984 We’ve all done it. We’re talking about something terrible and rather than calling it what it is, we choose words that are softer, less harsh. Or we call it something that completely hides our meaning. Instead of talking [...]
“If we accept there is no such thing as ‘zero risk’ then we should not spin the meaning of words with assertions such as ‘all accidents are preventable.’ – Dr. Rob Long In terms of process safety, one definition of risk is, “[The] combination of the frequency of occurrence of harm [the likelihood] and severity [...]
“Unless you go forward then you are going back.” - Greg Lake Check valves (CVs) are routinely installed as safeguards against reverse flow. Just as routinely, check valves are dismissed as safeguards during process hazard analysis. If check valves are of no value, then there is no point in installing them. On the other hand, [...]
“A spark neglected makes a mighty fire.” Robert Herrick During a process hazard analysis (PHA) and a layer of protection analysis (LOPA), the scenario of an external plant fire frequently arises. From our experience facilitating PHAs and LOPAs, we’ve found that a common cause for this is a pooling of flammable liquid or oil getting [...]
“Red Shirt: In Star Trek, red-uniformed security officers and engineers who accompany the main characters on landing parties who often suffer quick deaths.[” Wikipedia I didn’t see the NBC television series, Star Trek, until it went into syndication, when it became a staple of television viewing for everyone I knew while I was in college. [...]
“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” Aldous Huxley We’ve all seen them; factories are scattered across the landscapes of America. There’s probably one in or near the town where you live, where you work, where you raise your children. I live near one and [...]
“Safety is a common denominator across all aspects of life, hence knowledge should always be shared. It is not a matter for industry it is a matter for humanity.” Doug Bourne, technical director at PM Lucas Six months ago, if you would have asked me to define the phrase “tolerable risk”, I would have stared [...]
