Evaluating Process Safety during Covid-19
As lockdown restrictions ease throughout the world, many industries are finally seeing the light… relieved after months of staying in limbo to gradually opening their doors to resuming on-site operations.
During this frantic reopening, 2 industrial accidents in Vizag and Tamilnadu… claiming several lives and injuring several others, emphasizes the need to upgrade process safety to acclimatize newer ways of working and new risks that goes far beyond the containment of Covid-19.
The Covid pandemic has shifted the barometer in measuring hazardous processes in facilities and operations. Ascertaining risks now takes into consideration new changes in lifestyle, mental health, behavioral shifts, and technical factors caused due to the lockdown.
Risks to consider when reopening industries:
- Wearing face masks can cause twitchiness and discomfort that can hamper alertness.
- Reduced support personnel and social distancing norms can leave us stranded when in an emergency.
- Employees returning to work after months of furlough or bring laid off might exhibit signs of low morale or insecurity – impairing their presence of mind to risks on the job.
- Adapting to change in temperatures especially when working outdoors after months of being indoors.
- Lack of onsite audits and risk assessments can compromise process and machinery efficiency.
- Safety hazards posed due to lack of maintenance of electrical, mechanical, or chemical equipment before full-fledged production is initiated with human resources.
- Leaks, damage, or wear and tear of storage facilities that stockpile harmful substances.
- Unavailability of Management of Change (MOC) process to review, propose or instruct workers of changes in your facility.
Steps to reduce the impact of process safety incidents:
- Involve and communicate to workers about newly discovered threats – Improving detection and reporting of incidents and near-misses.
- Analyze and conduct a Pre-Startup Safety Review (PSSR) to define safety limits before initiating full-fledged operations.
- Enable preventive measures are in place to contain Covid-19.
- Frame procedures to maintain critical safety controls during emergencies even with the lack of personnel
- Re-evaluate your safety systems for adequacy under evolving circumstances.
- Put into effect a cyclic audit and risk assessment program that measures the alignment of processes and equipment to safety protocols – consistently during the reopening phase.
In the face of evolving threats, revising your process safety to include new risks arising from technical factors, human factors, and organizational factors enables your organization to navigate through the new normal with caution.
This post first appeared on the Safetymint Newsletter. To get the newsletter articles delivered to your email, sign-up below:
Joshua Martyn was a content manager at Safetymint, crafting helpful contents that enlighten readers and EHS professionals alike, about fresh trends, technologies and perspectives from the world of safety.
