Each year since 2016, Sphera has published its Process Safety Report on the state of operational risk and process safety management (ORM and PSM). The report is based on our annual Process Safety Survey, which polls professionals around the world for insights into PSM and ORM trends.
Naturally, things change from year to year thanks to advancing technologies and changing regulations. But there’s one data point that has held steady for years, and that’s our finding on the gap between a company’s process safety goals and its process safety reality. This year again, the percentage of respondents who report a gap between their company’s process safety goals and their on-the-job experience of process safety registers at 66%.
This isn’t the only finding that suggests companies are struggling to optimize their management of process safety. We see a wide range of pain points in our survey results.
- Only 9% of respondents indicate that they’re very confident they’re aware of their assets’ exposure to major accident hazards.
- Less than a quarter (23%) of respondents report that their organization typically achieves all or nearly all required safety-critical maintenance in an average month.
- Training and competency (cited by 41%) and management involvement (cited by 40%) are presenting challenges for PSM.
- Nearly half of respondents point to a loss of experienced personnel as the biggest cause of increased risk.
There are several factors driving this. But some of these challenges, like the awareness of asset exposure to major accident hazards, can be minimized or even solved with digital solutions. Other problems are more persistent — for example, experienced workers will always be moving on or retiring. But here too, technology can minimize the impact of the loss of experienced employees. It plays a useful role in helping new workers understand how policies translate into practice as well.
Technology platforms can also help manage master data and achieve supply chain transparency to ensure that the right spare parts are available at the right time. This helps avoid delays in safety-critical maintenance. Too many respondents report that their organization does not achieve all or nearly all required safety-critical maintenance in an average month. Whether this is due to the availability of parts or to something else, the completion of safety-critical maintenance persists as a worrying problem.
Overall, digital platforms improve visibility, risk assessment capabilities and decision-making, which results in more effective PSM. Weighed against the potential costs of hazards that can materialize when visibility is limited and guardrails are outdated, today’s PSM software solutions are clearly the better option. They allow for predictive and proactive measures that do a better job of safeguarding a company’s workers and assets. This means they also protect its bottom line and reputation.
When companies introduce digital platforms, they can connect the dots across the organization and gain better control. This helps them reduce downtime and their exposure to risk, and these gains allow them to optimize their operations for better business performance.
There’s much more to learn from our 2024 Process Safety Report about the current state of PSM and ORM. The report’s insights help all of us understand the PSM challenges companies are facing, so we can address them to create a safer, more sustainable and productive world.
–Paul
Learn more about Paul Marushka.
