Tag: process safety

Behind the scenes: interviews for a TV documentary on engineering

Six IChemE members recently featured in the second series of TV documentary series, Disasters Engineered. 

Aired on the National Geographic channel, the documentary examined various chemical, structural, and mechanical engineering incidents. Each episode looked at the causes of two incidents, why and how they happened, how they affected people, and what changes have been made in the industry as a result.

So, we caught up with three of the members – Zsuzsanna Gyenes, Fiona Macleod and Stephen Richardson – to understand how they felt to be part of the series, and why they feel it is important for the public to see chemical and process engineers giving expert accounts of safety incidents.

Continue reading Behind the scenes: interviews for a TV documentary on engineering

#Hazards30 – 60 years of process safety learning and lessons

It has been 60 years since our inaugural Hazards conference took place, and although this year presented its own challenges, we were pleased to have successfully hosted #Hazards30 in a virtual format for the very first time. With an impressive line-up of plenary speakers and presentations, over 260 process safety professionals were still able to get the full experience of Hazards from the comfort of their home.

Continue reading #Hazards30 – 60 years of process safety learning and lessons

How is COVID-19 impacting process safety management? #Hazards30

COVID-19 has turned the world upside down, posing so many challenges for society.

Now it’s more important than ever for us to share good practice and process safety learnings gained so far during this unprecedented time to ensure together we maintain the safety of our businesses and our communities working within, and living by, them.

Continue reading How is COVID-19 impacting process safety management? #Hazards30

Keeping sight of process safety in these challenging times

In today’s blog, IChemE Safety Centre Director Trish Kerin talks about the importance of continuing to raise awareness of managing major hazards during the pandemic.

Name: Trish Kerin

Job title: Director IChemE Safety Centre

As process safety professionals we know that process safety never takes a holiday, and it certainly doesn’t take sick leave for a global pandemic either. We continue to see incidents occur each week and it is unfortunate to note that the circumstances we find ourselves in because of the pandemic contributed to the cause in some cases. Incidents have taken place on restarting after inadequately planned shut-downs and after handling higher quantities of flammable substances, for example when retooling to manufacture alcohol-based hand sanitisers. We have also seen incidents caused by equipment failure that wasn’t adequately maintained due to the restrictions and due to the inappropriate storage of oxidizing agents.

Continue reading Keeping sight of process safety in these challenging times

Thanking our volunteers for keeping our wheels turning during the coronavirus – UK Volunteers Week 2020

Our dedicated member volunteers around the world are the life and soul of the Institution. Without their efforts we couldn’t fulfil our duties as a qualifying body or a learned society. Or truly be an organisation that is led by members, supports members and serves society.

Their efforts and activities are appreciated by the Institution all year round. And, as part of IChemE’s Strategy 2024, we are working to further improve the volunteer experience to ensure the membership remains a vibrant and thriving community. This is one of President Stephen Richardson’s top priorities, and that’s why at the end of 2019 he initiated a two-year programme to improve support for and better recognise volunteers. We are currently reviewing processes and documentation and planning how we can better align and improve them across the organisation, whilst adopting best practice. We’ll provide further updates on this in the coming months as the programme of work progresses.

As we entered 2020, no-one could have predicted the effect coronavirus would have on individuals, organisations and our health services across the world. At IChemE, we’ve been adapting our procedures so we can still maintain the same standards of services to our members, and our fellow professionals across academia and industry. A huge thank you to all of our volunteers across the world who are leading this effort.

To mark Volunteers Week in the UK (1-7 June), we’re sharing stories from just a couple of our many UK volunteers to highlight their great contributions to help IChemE adapt in this pandemic. They explain why now it’s more important than ever to maintain safe and quality practices in chemical engineering to support the wider community.

Continue reading Thanking our volunteers for keeping our wheels turning during the coronavirus – UK Volunteers Week 2020

Guest Blog: Account from Asia Pacific on the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on chemical engineers in the region

In today’s guest blog, chemical engineer David Platts tells us how he has been working to share knowledge to support chemical engineers in his region during the coronavirus outbreak.

DSCF5083Name: David Platts

Job title and organisation: NZ based Food Industry Consultant (semi-retired)

IChemE role: Member of the Learned Society Committee and Subject Area Lead Food

 

 In discussions with IChemE members in my region, it was evident that although much information published globally was centred on the major economic centres, we too had interesting stories to share regarding our response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Asia Pacific.

Working with the country chairs in Australia and New Zealand, and fellow Learned Society Committee member Alexandra Meldrum, a series of short webinars was planned highlighting how we were navigating the myriad of the challenges brought about by pandemic.

We asked two subject specialists to join us for the first webinar on 23 March. Both presenters shared some thought-provoking content which was extremely relevant to current events, but also challenged us to carefully consider future actions post the pandemic.

Trish Kerin, Director of the IChemE Safety Centre, gave a presentation titled “Decision Making in a Crisis”. Clearly this topic was of much interest to the delegates as we are indeed in a crisis and, for many, this provides many challenges to leadership. A key aspect that I took from the talk was that good leaders need to develop a well-stocked bank account of trust with the people they are leading. This point, I suggest, is highlighted by some of the differing global leadership styles that we are witnessing in many countries.

The second presentation was by Kennie Tsui, Principal Analyst at the New Climate Commission and board member of Engineering New Zealand. Kennie talked in depth about climate change issues going forward. Kennie gave us a vision of what could happen post COVID-19 if we let the brakes off too quickly, referencing the bounce back in emissions following the global financial crisis of 2008. We have a decision to make, follow a new path that leads to meeting our goals for emissions reductions or accelerate those emissions thereby making the challenges even more difficult. A direction that we need to carefully manage – informed and well communicated decisions are critical.

We do hope that those who viewed the presentations found them valuable. If you missed the webinar it can be viewed on the IChemE Safety Centre YouTube channel here.

For the future, please keep your eye open for more webinars as we would like to expand this initiative to the wider Asia Pacific region with more varied content. If you have stories to share, please contact us via the regional members portals for New Zealand and Australia. We would love to hear from you.

 

For more information on how IChemE is responding to the coronavirus outbreak, please visit our Coronavirus Information Hub.

‘Changing communities. Changing lives’ – Marking Volunteers Week in Australia

As a membership organisation that is led by members, supports members and serves society, volunteers are the lifeblood of the Institution.

Without our member volunteers, we simply couldn’t fulfil our obligations as a qualifying body or a learned society. Their enthusiasm and drive to help fellow members, the chemical engineering community and wider society is palpable.

Continue reading ‘Changing communities. Changing lives’ – Marking Volunteers Week in Australia

Challenging ‘change’ and improving process safety – IChemE Process Safety Award Winner 2019

ExxonMobil was the winner of the Process Safety category at the IChemE Global Awards 2019, for their project Delta HAZOP.

With process safety at the heart of all their decisions,  ExxonMobil put in place the Delta HAZOP programme, which builds upon the original ICI HAZOP process used to design and build inherently safe facilities.

In addition, ExxonMobil also use the IChemE Loss Prevention Bulletin to understand the key learnings from horrific events such as the chemical explosion in Bhopal, India.

Watch this video to find out more about this project:

Do you have an award-worthy process safety project that you’d like to enter in the IChemE Global Awards 2020? Find out more and submit your entry by 26 June 2020 at: www.icheme.org/awards

This video was produced by CMA Video.

Sharing lessons to improve competence and capability in process safety – #HazardsAus2019

Chemical and process engineers are key contributors to making working environments safer.

Sharing good practice in this is vital. And so is sharing lessons that have been learned along the way.

That’s why each year we bring leading chemical and process safety experts across Australia and New Zealand together at our conference Hazards Australasia.

This year’s event at the Hilton Brisbane, Australia on 13-14 November 2019 focusses on the theme ‘competence and capability’ and the technical programme features a new panel made up of process safety experts from the regulating bodies across the two regions.

Under the title, Lessons for industry safety cases, the panellists will discuss the importance of sharing lessons from process safety incidents and how the recent Work, Health & Safety review could affect process engineers.

Ahead of this panel discussion, we caught up with some of the panellists to understand some of the challenges and opportunities to improve the safety culture in the process industry in Australasia.

Continue reading Sharing lessons to improve competence and capability in process safety – #HazardsAus2019

‘Super-computer’ behind improved process safety – IChemE Process Safety Award Winner 2018

Woodside Energy in Australia was the winner of the Process Safety category at the IChemE Global Awards 2018.

Improving process safety in the organisation was an important exercise for Woodside, and they successfully achieved this by implementing an intelligent research system, Watson HSEQ.

This ‘super-computer’ provides Woodside personnel with valuable process safety insights at their fingertips, and allows them to learn from past experiences more efficiently and effectively.

Watch this video to find out more about the project:

Do you have an award-worthy process safety project that you’d like to enter in the IChemE Global Awards 2019? Find out more and submit your entry by 12 July 2019 at: www.icheme.org/awards

This video was produced by CMA Video.

#Hazards29 – Leading the way forward in process safety by sharing learnings

Last week more than 300 leading industry experts and process safety professionals from around the world attended IChemE’s leading process safety conference, Hazards 29 in Birmingham, UK.

They came together to share knowledge and their learnings from process safety incidents through a range of plenary talks, parallel sessions and workshops.

The message throughout was clear: process safety is a continued priority for all concerned. Sharing experiences, better risk management and competency are integral to mitigating hazards, and improving process safety procedures.

Here are some of our key takeaways from the conference.

Continue reading #Hazards29 – Leading the way forward in process safety by sharing learnings

How do we achieve, maintain and demonstrate competencies for process safety?

Every day, chemical and process engineers are working hard to reduce the huge risks that come with working in hazardous environments and share lessons learnt in regard to process safety incidents.

IChemE and its members are intrinsically involved in sharing lessons through various streams of work; the IChemE Safety Centre, the Safety and Loss Prevention Special Interest Group, and producing journals and publications such as the Loss Prevention Bulletin, to name but a few.

Delegates and exhibitors share safety practices and learnings at Hazards 28 in Edinburgh, UK

The annual Hazards conference is also a key date in the calendar. It brings together hundreds of process safety practitioners from around the world, so that together, they can learn from one another’s experiences to help maintain a clear focus on safer operations and support good practice.

For the first time, at this year’s Hazards 29 conference in May, a new panel discussion has been added to the technical programme to encourage a two-way discussion around some of the challenges facing process safety. The theme of the panel discussion will be: ‘How do we achieve, maintain and demonstrate competencies for process safety?’

To mark World Day for Safety and Health at Work today (28 April), panel members IChemE Safety Centre Director Trish Kerin and Dr Chris Tighe, Chemical Engineering Lecturer at Imperial College London, have shared their insights into how they think we can continue to improve safety processes around the world.

Continue reading How do we achieve, maintain and demonstrate competencies for process safety?

Piper Alpha anniversary and Hazards – process safety matters

LPBcover261.inddThis week we have been looking back, thirty years ago to the day, to arguably the world’s biggest offshore oil disaster – Piper Alpha. The devastating incident killed 167 people. Only 61 survived and were left with serious injuries and trauma.

Our friends at The Chemical Engineer have been sharing Piper Alpha Perspectives all this week, where chemical engineers and process safety professionals from around the globe have been sharing their personal views on the tragedy. You can read them here. 

In addition, our Loss Prevention Bulletin has published a special issue to mark the 30th anniversary.
pw092

The anniversary reminds us that process safety matters, it still matters, and it will continue to matter for as long as the process and hazard industries continue to exist. It matters because we all have a duty to ensure that people return from work in the same state they attended – safe.

This is why the sharing of knowledge is critical in our industry.

IChemE helps to support the sharing of knowledge through the IChemE Safety Centre (ISC), which provide resources such as interactive case studies; journals such as Process Safety and Environmental Protection (PPSE) and the Loss Prevention Bulletin; expert networks such as our Safety and Loss Prevention Special Interest Group; dedicated medals that recognise excellence in process safety, such as the Franklin Medal and the Lees Medal; relevant training courses, partnerships with international process safety centres such as the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center; and and by qualifying Professional Process Safety Engineers.

IMG_9315In addition to all of this, our Hazards conference – held annually in the UK and Australia and every two years in South East Asia – is our flagship event for sharing process safety knowledge.

Hazards 28 took place in May, with Hazards Australasia being brought to a close just last week. Here’s a recap of both conferences, and a sneaky peek at some of the key talks.

Continue reading Piper Alpha anniversary and Hazards – process safety matters

Be inspired to advance process safety worldwide

Each year hundreds of professionals gather to be a part of our flagship process safety conference Hazards.

Process safety is fundamental to chemical, biochemical and process engineers. IChemE’s three-day event encourages them to come together and discuss: the current best practice, the latest developments, lessons learned in the process industry, and how to make operations even safer.

The conference was first held in 1960, and is now is an annual event. Hazards brings together around 100 presenters from leading industry practitioners, researchers and regulators, as well as keynote speakers invited from industry.

Continue reading Be inspired to advance process safety worldwide

10 things chemical engineers learned from #Hazards27

Risk will never be eliminated, but it can be greatly reduced.

Our flagship process safety conference Hazards continues to build momentum and we were pleased to welcome over 300 delegates to Hazards 27, at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham, UK, last week. Various speakers, workshops and exhibitors from across the world gave excellent insight, advice and tips into the ways to review process safety practices, and useful services and products that could help improve process safety performance.

One of the most anticipated talks of the conference is the Trevor Kletz memorial lecture. Last year, Mr Justice Haddon-Cave gave some great insight into the RAF Nimrod enquiry, and how it could be applied to engineering. This year Formula 1 Analyst Mark Gallagher took to the stage, drawing parallels between risk management in the world of motorsport and the process industries.

Continue reading 10 things chemical engineers learned from #Hazards27

Tackling big chemical engineering projects #ichemeawards

We are now midway through our round up of this year’s IChemE Global Awards 2016 winners. Produced in association with Morgan Sindall, we have got a special interview video for every single winner.

awards-tables

So far we have seen some life-changing products that will make a difference all over the world, as well as chemical engineering projects designed to benefit resource-poor communities in developing countries.

Today we go to the big projects in chemical engineering that require strategy, innovation and teamwork. These winners are demonstrating great chemical engineering in its purest form. All of the projects below have demonstrated a key chemical engineering skill, systems thinking, and a drive for achieving the best results.

Take a look at their work below and don’t forget to leave a comment.

Continue reading Tackling big chemical engineering projects #ichemeawards

IChemE Global Awards success stories that make you proud to be a chemical engineer

Awards Global logo_webRecently we announced the finalists for the IChemE Global Awards 2016. The ceremony takes place on 3 November in Manchester, UK – and we can’t quite believe how quickly Awards season has come round again!

Each year our Awards judges have the tough task of narrowing down the hundreds of excellent entries to a select group of exceptional finalists for each category. We have seen some fantastic projects over the years, and 2015 was really special. 16 well-deserved winners were handed trophies at the Global Awards evening, which took place on 5 November 2015 in Birmingham, UK.

Read on to find out what some of our 2015 finalists have been up to since the ceremony, and re-cap some of the best moments of the night.

1. Ohio State University congratulated by President Obama 

Photo credit: Ohio State University (mae.osu.edu/news)
Photo credit: Ohio State University (mae.osu.edu/news)

Bharat Bhushan and Philip Brown from Ohio State University, US were awarded the Water Management and Supply Award in 2015. To win the award they developed a special mesh which uses a unique coating and tiny holes to separate oil from water. The ground-breaking work, designed to help clean up oil spills, was even noticed by the President of US, Barack Obama, who sent the researchers a congratulatory note.

Continue reading IChemE Global Awards success stories that make you proud to be a chemical engineer

10 minutes with…Professor Ian Wilson, new Editor-in-Chief of Food and Bioproducts Processing

This week our IChemE journals have much to celebrate. The latest figures from Thomson Reuters have revealed two journals, which we published in partnership with Elsevier, have increased Impact Factors.

The most improved journal was Food and Bioproducts Processing, which went from a score of 2.474 to 2.687. This is fantastic news for the contributors, and of course the editorial team, which has recently expanded.

Joining Food and Bioproducts Processing is Prof. DI Wilson. He takes over from long-standing editor Ken Morison this week, and joins Nigel Tichener-Hooker as joint Editor-in-Chief.

So how does he plan to make the role his own? We caught up with him to find out.

Biography

Happy Ian

Name: Ian Wilson (DI Wilson on papers – I’m called by my second name)
Education:
Undergraduate, Chemical Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK
PhD, Chemical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Job Title:
Professor of Soft Solids and Surfaces, University of Cambridge, UK
Joint Editor-in-Chief, Food and Bioproducts Processing
Membership Grade: Fellow
Special Interest Group: Food & Drink
Research interests: How processing microstructured materials such as foodstuffs determines their structure and properties. This has led me to work in rheology, fouling and cleaning, and heat transfer.

Continue reading 10 minutes with…Professor Ian Wilson, new Editor-in-Chief of Food and Bioproducts Processing

Ten things we learned at Hazards 26

IChemE’s flagship process safety symposium, known far and wide simply as ‘Hazards‘, goes from strength to strength. From its modest beginnings in Manchester, England in the 1960’s the event has grown into an international brand attracting delegates to conferences in Europe, Australasia and South East Asia.

Last month we welcomed over 300 delegates to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre for Hazards 26, a three-day event that featured some notable keynote speakers, who offered some powerful insights on a wide range of process safety topics.

Those who were fortunate to have a ticket for the biggest process safety event in Europe this year, went back to their day jobs armed with valuable lessons in how to improve process safety performance.  But for those of you who couldn’t attend, here’s a flavour of the key messages that were delivered by the keynote speakers and some of the big names who were present in Edinburgh.

  1. We forget the past at our peril

Haddon-Cave 1

Continue reading Ten things we learned at Hazards 26

“It’s about valuing diversity”, an interview with Dame Judith Hackitt for #InternationalWomensDay #IWD2016

Today is International Women’s Day, and to celebrate we decided to put a chemical engineering leading lady in the spotlight – Dame Judith Hackitt.

Judith Hackitt, who was IChemE’s second female president (2013-2014), has had an eventful 2016 so far. The Chair of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), was made Dame in the New Year Honours, and has recently announced her new appointment as Chair at the EEF, the manufacturers organisation.

We sat down with her to look back on her career so far, and get her perspective on the gender debate, and the future of chemical engineering.

IChemE AGM 20 05 13

Thanks for joining me today Judith. You have had quite an impressive career. I’m sure you’re a bit sick of this question but what was it like to be made a Dame in the New Year’s Honours List?

Well on a day-to-day basis it doesn’t make any difference, I’m not using the title anywhere and everywhere and insisting people call me Dame Judith! I was at home on the day the letter arrived, it was first of all a big surprise but also a massive honour. It’s hard to describe but you feel like it’s something special. I really am genuinely honoured to be offered this, and it was a delight to write back and say yes, of course I’d accept.

Continue reading “It’s about valuing diversity”, an interview with Dame Judith Hackitt for #InternationalWomensDay #IWD2016

The wisdom of Trevor Kletz – the ‘founding father’ of inherent safety (Day 353)

Trevor Kletz
Photo Credit | tce
Trevor Kletz

The name, Trevor Kletz, needs little introduction to anyone who has been involved with chemical process safety over the past forty years. Trevor died in 2013 at the age of ninety.

He is greatly missed but his impact on the chemical engineering profession was enormous and his name is rarely uttered along without the words ‘hero’ or ‘guru’ as well as ‘teacher’, ‘mentor’ or ‘friend’, in the same breath.

Trevor spent his entire career at ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries), and by the time of his retirement in 1982 he had created a safety culture within the company with a major positive impact on accident statistics.

This success was attributed to his powerful intellect on one hand, but also to his exceptional communication skills. Trevor’s ability to reduce complicated issues to simple fundamentals was the stuff of legend.

Continue reading The wisdom of Trevor Kletz – the ‘founding father’ of inherent safety (Day 353)

Ten differences between process safety and occupational safety (Day 166)

Work safetyOne of the most important roles that chemical engineers can play is improving safety.

A good example of this is the IChemE Safety Centre (ISC) which sets up a new impetus and framework for process safety.

Despite the good work of chemical engineers in mitigating dangerous events, they still occur.

Often the reason given for these incidents is a lack of understanding of what process safety is and how it differs from occupational safety.

For example people often use this to explain why the BP Texas City refinery explosion and fire, which sadly killed 15 people and injured 180 more, occurred. It has been suggested that there was too great a focus on reducing the high number of occupational safety incidents, rather than the more infrequent but much more serious process safety incidents.

I have put together this list of ten differences between process and occupational (personal) safety to help dispel this (however it should be noted that this list is my opinion and there is a lot of overlap between process and occupational safety – hence the confusion!):

Continue reading Ten differences between process safety and occupational safety (Day 166)

When 99.9 per cent just isn’t good enough (Day 108)

99.9%Have you ever wondered why we make mistakes? Well, according to a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, called Joseph T Hallinan, he thinks ‘humans are pre-programmed to make blunders’. He’s even written a book about it called ‘Why We Make Mistakes’.

Hallinan is a former Wall Street Journal reporter who began to shape his theory while researching a story on anaesthetists.

Hallinan discovered they had a mixed safety record, but noted their safety record was vastly improved by a simple change to their equipment that cancelled out human error. The change was the introduction of a valve that could only turn one way to deliver anaesthetic to a patient.

Continue reading When 99.9 per cent just isn’t good enough (Day 108)

A global ring of safety (Day 80)

Step by step, day by day, country by country, something special is happening in the world of process safety. In chemical engineering hubs around the world, process safety is being taken to new levels led by a network of IChemE members.

There are now nearly 70 chemical engineers enrolled or registered as Professional Process Safety Engineers based at strategic locations on five continents.

They are the vanguard and champions of a long-term IChemE initiative to improve safety and give greater recognition to one of the most important – if the not the most important – discipline in the chemical engineering profession.

Locations of Professional Process Safety Engineers
IChemE’s Professional Process Safety Engineers are now located on five continents

Continue reading A global ring of safety (Day 80)

Educating a safety culture (Day 26)

Burning buildingImprovements in process safety education should never stand still, so it was good to hear from one of IChemE’s members based in the US this week, Deborah Grubbe, who contacted me about the development of some new technical software called The PSM eBook.

The eBook was commissioned by the chemical engineering team at Purdue University in the US. They decided to introduce process safety management more formally into the undergraduate curriculum.

Continue reading Educating a safety culture (Day 26)

Flixborough remembered (Day 5)

Forty years ago, today, the explosion at the Flixborough Nypro Chemicals site near Scunthorpe, UK, killed 28 people and injured 36 others.

Flixborough - taken from HSE websiteIt resulted in the almost complete destruction of the plant. Further afield, the blast injured another 53 people and caused extensive damage to around 2,000 buildings.

With the exception of the Buncefield fire in 2005, it remains the biggest post war explosion in the UK.

At the time there were no specific UK regulations to control major industrial hazards. The incident also exposed weaknesses in the understanding of hazards, the design of buildings, management systems and organisation.

Continue reading Flixborough remembered (Day 5)