What is Process Safety Management (PSM)?

So, what exactly is Process Safety Management (PSM)?

This is just a quick primer on what is PSM? I will dive into more detail in future articles on how to develop, implement, audit etc.

The Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) describes Process Safety Management (PSM) as:

“The application of management principles and systems to the identification, understanding and control of process hazards in order to prevent process related injuries and accidents”.

You might have seen this image below which outlines the pillars and elements based on the CCPS Risk Based Process Safety framework?

A robust and fully effective PSM Model addresses the management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals (HHC), integrates technology, operating procedures and standard management procedures/ practices.

The primary objectives of an Organisation’s PSM Model are to ensure adequate protection of:

Workforce.
Contractors; and
Visitors.

An Organisation’s PSM Model can be best described as comprising of the following layers:

Inner layer (core) – containing process safety information/ hazard analysis subsequent to hazard identification and assessment.
Secondary layer – develop and implement layers of protection (e.g., ERP, Procedures, PSSR, Training, SCE, SSOW)
Outer layer – sustain and improve PSM efforts (e.g., MoC, HAZOP etc)

PSM involves managing a number of technical, managerial and human factor activities which, if not managed effectively increases the potential for risk exposure.

There are several different PSM Models, however, fundamentally they are all very similar in that they comprise layers for integrating an Organisation’s technology, operating procedures and standard management procedures/practices.