Facilitated Self-Assessment ― An Approach to Measuring PSM Systems

摘要

The FSA has been very successful in fulfilling its objectives. It has been a tool to bring increased emphasis and priority on elements of the program where minimum standards have not been met. By compiling and analyzing the results for each specific business, and also for North America, we have been able to identify common program weaknesses so that they can be addressed. Manufacturing management has been very satisfied with the program and has also resisted efforts to extend the time between assessments. They desire an annual scorecard for a site's process safety program. Individual site scores have continued to improve both in achieving minimum standards and in overall ratings. Sites have become very competitive particularly within their own business area. They want to achieve the highest rating. This has both positive and negative aspects, but it has helped to increase emphasis on process safety. Doing the FSA can be time consuming. At smaller sites it can usually be completed in about two days. Larger sites may take up to 5 days or require two facilitators. Since we are all faced with fewer resources, extending the interval between assessments has been recommended. As stated before, this has been resisted by manufacturing management. However, the assessment intervals have been extended from the initial annual schedule. As the process has become more ingrained in our process safety culture, the assessments have become more quality focused. In 2001 key areas were chosen for more in-depth review to ensure that not only was the required information or program in-place, but that the quality of those elements was appropriate. Also over time our approach to the minimum standards and best practices has become more systems specific as opposed to compliance specific. We still include the compliance points but we have added more systems requirements: the plan, do, check, act, cycle. The FSA has been a very successful tool for Rhodia to drive process safety management program improvements. We expect it to continue to be successful in the future and have looked at expanding its use to other HSE areas.