Author: XhWBc49rME

This week’s tip goes back to the old philosophy that knowledge is lost over time. Currently HAZOPs focus on only the hazards of the process. But think about the opportunity that you’re missing in that you have a room full of the best people from the unit and you’re not talking about operability problems. And by operability problems, I mean operational constriction points, physically difficult areas to operate, bad operating procedures, and just bad procedures.  HAZOPs are expensive to begin with, however we need to utilize all the personnel available to get the most value out of the study. It only takes a couple minutes to ask the operators these critical questions and to create action items to look into these issues. Doing this will enhance value for operations.

When inspecting your piping in vessels do you emphasize size changes in elbows after catalyst beds? My experience has shown that a momentum change happens to your process flow and a lot of erosion can occur in the post catalyst bed beads. The issue comes from bed beating, normally a silicone or ceramic structure, that is highly erosive and similar to sandpaper. These points of change of momentum, which are the changes in flow patterns such as expansion or direction, encourage your catalyst beads to impact the surface. This happened to me and I have used this thought to increase the inspection areas consistently throughout operations.

When choosing your audit format, be it checklist or open audit, how do you approach this? Although you may use a checklist to help ensure you are reviewing everything, you must look at the audit with an open mind every time. Even with the most skilled operator, a checklist can get only to the routine and not dive deep enough to get real value. We suggest you review your audits and work with operations or other personnel performing the audit to ensure that everyone is keeping an open mind and looking at all things.

When defining mechanical integrity points are you picking these are the picking spots that correspond to the minimum changes or you picking random points helping you win the lottery of inspection and hit a place that issues can occur. Make sure you discuss this with a mechanical integrity engineer prior to going out and starting inspections and defining these points, because once you defined the points, you lose the historical value of those points.

Have you consciously looked at the outcomes of your audits? If you reframe your outlook on audit findings not as a speeding ticket, but as a notice that you found something before it became a problem, it will encourage greater involvement and discourage cover-ups. Things that are not right are not a good thing for any plant, and identifying potential issues may be looked at by management as not doing due diligence. However, most people’s minds are set on operations and business and not on looking for problems. Those activities are limited to hazard assessments, audits, and investigations. This is when personnel have their minds open to find problems. Think about the opportunity to reward for finding potential problems before they became issues so the problems are able to be addressed. The alternative is to punish for having potential problems that exist and having personnel hide things because they do not want to be caught. Which environment would you rather be a part of?

Do operators read your procedures? Take a look at them and notice how long they are. Are they too long and cumbersome? Maybe it is time to review and revise them to a much more manageable length. Keep the extra information for a policy and keep your procedures to the point. It will help everyone involved!

Along with the element of employee participation, contractors must be included. These embedded workers are as critical as direct employees. In many cases the use of contractors for maintenance activities has led to limited direct employee usage. Think about all the activities in which hazards in the worksite are being analyzed. Are contractors involved with JSAs, HAZOPs and LOTOs? A key piece of information may be missing if they are not!  Remember, every time a change occurs in the plant, the knowledge of the prior people who are in maintenance has been changed. Therefore contract personnel may have important information to help you be successful.

MOCs are difficult to manage and most sites allow them to pile up as priorities shift in maintenance and operations. Many times, MOCs sit around collecting dust and not getting implemented. Think about if these changes are absolutely necessary. Sometimes, upon second review the MOC has hazards or benefits that were not covered initially. If you find the MOC is still valuable, schedule it for completion! However, if the MOC is found to not be as desirable as initially intended, the MOC needs to be eliminated. Keep in mind that an MOC associated with a PHA needs to be reevaluated by the PHA team, and not only the operational management team.