Safety decision making -- Drawing a line in the sand

Operational personnel in complex process plant are regularly called upon to make decisions that balance the production and safety objectives of their organisation. Hazardous facilities that operate under safety case-style regulatory regimes typically have in place a set of operating boundaries that go some way towards specifying the limits to safe operation. They typically cover restrictions on process parameters and also the required minimum availability of safety equipment. As such, they remove the need in many cases for in-the-moment judgements about safety and production priorities. Focussing solely on the compliance with a pre-defined envelope underestimates the direct contribution to safety from the operating team based on their professional judgement. In practice, there are many possible system conditions that do not contravene the defined operating limits and yet are not safe. This does not mean that the procedure writers are wrong - it is simply a reflection that not every possible unsafe state of a complex, dynamic system can be identified in advance. Research in a chemical plant and a nuclear power station has identified a line in the sand approach taken by experienced operating personnel when abnormal situations arise. This approach could form the basis of a process rule (similar to job safety analysis or permit to work) to assist operational crews in making better decisions.

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