In the process industries, poor safety performance has significant business implications. Plants need a comprehensive approach to the safety lifecycle addressing key requirements ranging from HAZOP studies, to operations and maintenance, and finally revalidation with the plant’s historian and maintenance data.
The most important machine design step is ensuring operator safety. During the design process, hazards are often identified that can be removed, but when a hazard cannot be removed, then various levels of safeguarding must be provided. These typically take the form of machine access guarding and point-of-operation guarding.
How confident are you that a costly, serious safety event isn’t just around the next corner? If your organization has ever been surprised or caught off-guard by a sudden deterioration in its safety performance, it may be that you’re simply not getting the whole picture when it comes to operational risk.