A Simplified, Graphical Representation of Process Safety Competency Development

In this Tip of the Month, we explore how process safety competency can be identified and developed using a simple model for guidance.

This TOTM is the paper that was developed by JMC Instructor/Consultant Clyde Young for a poster presentation at the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) 7^th Global Congress on Process Safety in March, 2011.

Commit to Process Safety is the first pillar mentioned in “Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety Management”, published by the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS).  This pillar is supported by five elements.  One of the elements is Process Safety Competency, which is described as being associated with efforts to maintain, improve and broaden knowledge and expertise.

Competency defined

Competency is a word that is used a great deal by human resources departments, training departments and even government agencies.   Many organizations have expended tremendous amounts of resources identifying and documenting competency levels.  The documentation is sometimes referred to as competency maps that describe the skills required for specific levels of expertise or competency.  In general, these skill levels include awareness, fundamental application, skilled application and mastery competencies.   Training programs and courses usually deliver competencies at the awareness and fundamental application level, but it takes work experience and time in position to acquire the higher level competencies.  Achieving the mastery level competencies of a skill may take years of work and academic achievement.

To become a well rounded professional in the oil and gas industry, no matter what specialty position a person works in, requires varying degrees of competency in many different areas of expertise.  Obtaining higher level competencies is a continuous process of training and performing tasks, sometimes under the direction of a mentor or coach.

Workforce challenges

The workforce in the oil and gas industry is getting older and younger.  Demographics indicate that a large number of workers may be retiring soon and a large number of younger workers will be hired to replace them.  There is and will continue to be, for a considerable time, a large gap in knowledge that can only be partially filled through training.

Newer, less experienced workers can be trained to a certain level of competency.  Working on assigned tasks under the direction of a mentor is supposed to help them achieve the higher level competencies, which make them more productive and valuable to the organization.  With the age gap that exists in our business, these more experienced people are increasingly being asked to perform the technical work that the less experienced people are not competent to do.  This means they have less time to mentor or coach and younger employees are sometimes left to build their higher level competencies independently.  For some applications, this may not be a big problem.  This can lead to a higher level of risk in the workplace especially when it comes to process safety.

Development of personnel within the process safety profession requires skills and levels that are not easily obtained.  People working in other areas of expertise, sometimes called disciplines, will certainly require process safety competencies at appropriate levels to be able to identify and manage the risk associated with the processes we operate in our business.

Being able to describe how and why a person achieves necessary competencies can be difficult.  Choosing applicable competencies from maps or tools is sometimes confusing.  Understanding the relationship among all the skills required is vital to developing personnel in the process safety function.  Perhaps a simple, graphic will help.

Competency pyramid

The pyramid above illustrates a progression for process safety competency.  Throughout the progression, a person may decide to specialize in certain areas.  That does not mean the other skills should be ignored, only that they need to be developed to the appropriate level.   Specialists will require skilled application and in some cases mastery level competency to be proficient.  Everyone in an organization requires at least an awareness level or higher competency in all elements of the pyramid so that when faced with an abnormal situation, the proper action is taken.

Building a base

Consider someone recently hired by a company.  The new hire must receive training and apply the training to all of the company policies and procedures that exist to work for that company.  It’s critical for a person to know things like:  when to come to work, who their supervisor is, how to fill out a time card correctly, how to file an insurance claim, how they fit into the organization’s risk management system, how to work in teams, how much risk the company is willing to accept, and ultimately how to exhibit leadership skills.  New hires who struggle with the day to day procedures of working for an organization will not provide value and may eventually leave.  (See Company Policy level of pyramid)

The training and guidance required for a new hire to become proficient at all the things included in the base of the pyramid can be delivered in several ways.  Formalized orientation training and mentored guidance are some of the most effective methods, but generally a person achieves proficiency here by working for a period of time and gathering knowledge as it is presented.

Define normal

Oil and gas are hydrocarbons.  In order to perform technical work in this industry, people will require a certain level of competency about the physical properties of hydrocarbons.   This includes how they act at different temperatures, pressures and flow rates.  Hydrocarbon products will burn and release energy at different pressures and temperatures.  There is a certain amount of risk associated with hydrocarbons and managing this risk requires that all personnel obtain a competency level associated with hydrocarbons that is commensurate with the job. (See Properties of Hydrocarbons level of pyramid)

Working with hydrocarbons requires equipment.  Equipment includes piping systems and their components, pumps, compressors, turbines, columns, heat exchangers, control loops and hundreds of other things.  Personnel need to understand that to reduce the risk associated with working with hydrocarbons, equipment suitable for the application must be chosen.  There is also a certain amount of risk associated with the different types of equipment involved.  The risks associated with centrifugal pumps are different than the risks associated with positive displacement pumps.  Now consider the types of jobs associated with equipment and the competency levels required to perform those jobs.  Engineers might need to have a skilled application competency level to choose the equipment suitable for the application, a fundamental application competency level may be sufficient for operations personnel and a person performing maintenance may require a mastery level competency, depending on the complexity of the equipment and the job to be performed.  (See Equipment level of pyramid)

All processes within the oil and gas industry consist of equipment, designed to contain, move and process the raw materials.  The composition of the raw materials and the desired output determines the type of process used.  This could include dehydration to remove water, separation and stabilization, or fractionation to separate the components of natural gas liquids.  In addition to the main processes, several utility functions will exist in a facility to provide air, fuel and electricity according to the specifications required.    (See Processes level of Pyramid)

One of the key basic principles of oil and gas is that they consist of many components and can be processed into products that can be sold.  This is done by controlling flow, temperature, and pressure within the chosen equipment that makes up the processes.  To do this safely and efficiently normal operating parameters must be established and operating procedures must be implemented.  To ensure normal operations, equipment must be installed and maintained according to best practices in the industry.  Because there are inherent hazards associated with hydrocarbons it is crucial that the products be contained within the equipment of the process.

All processes that handle hydrocarbons are designed a certain way.  Specific equipment installed to make up a process, with specific parameters for flow, pressure, and temperature.  Process safety begins with defining what normal should be.  The operations and maintenance level of the pyramid defines how an organization keeps a process within normal.  (See Operations and Maintenance level of pyramid)

What could go wrong?

Consider the definition of risk as defined in “Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety Management”, published by the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS).  Risk is a combination of three things.  What can go wrong?  How bad could it be?  How often could it happen?

Up to this point in the competency pyramid, a good base is being built for anyone working in the oil and gas industry.  Just as a firm foundation is required to build a pyramid, a good foundation is required to prepare anyone working in the process safety field to identify and mitigate hazards.  Organizations expect personnel to be able to identify a hazard and then develop a strategy to reduce the risk associated with that hazard, but many times personnel do not have the basic competencies required to even see a hazard, let alone reduce the risk.  This is the reasoning behind the competency pyramid and the concept that certain competency levels must be attained before risk can be addressed.

There are two types of hazards to be identified under the concept of, “What could go wrong?” These are process hazards and personal hazards.  While it is generally agreed that personal injury rates do not necessarily correlate to process safety, there are issues associated with personal safety that do carry over to process safety.  The most critical is identification of personal hazards while performing routine work.  Experience has shown that personnel have a tendency to focus on personal hazards when performing a job hazard analysis and fail to identify potential process hazards that could lead to an injury.  This is the reason why the foundation of the competency pyramid is important for all personnel.

Identifying process hazards is usually performed by following an established methodology, like hazard and operability study (HAZOP), bow tie analysis, or what if/checklist.  But each of these methodologies requires that a competent team of people perform the analysis.  It is unlikely that hazards associated with a process can be identified (What can go wrong?) if the team does not possess higher level competencies associated with the base of the pyramid.  (See Hazards level of pyramid)

How bad could it be?

The next question in identifying risk is, “How bad could it be?”  The next level of the competency pyramid, analysis, is associated with this.  It is fairly simple to calculate this once it has been determined what could go wrong.  There are formulas available to perform calculations on how big the fire will be, the distance associated with explosions and what a toxic cloud might look like.  In some cases, these are specialty skills and require much higher levels of competency.  It may be enough for most process safety professionals to know that these types of tools and skills are available and some knowledge of how they work.  Personnel in all disciplines should at least be aware that analysis has been performed and what the results are.  These analyses tie directly to the emergency response layer for planning purposes. (See Analysis level of pyramid)

Redefine normal

It is never appropriate to identify a hazard without doing something to eliminate or mitigate it.  The next level of the pyramid addresses competencies on choosing, sizing and installing appropriate levels of protection to eliminate the hazard or reduce the consequences of a hazard.  A process safety professional can choose from a selection of appropriate safeguards with the philosophy of hierarchy of controls in mind.  Each of the controls in the hierarchy, engineering controls first, administrative controls next and finally personal protective equipment, will require specific levels of competency to insure that the appropriate controls are chosen.  Examples include pressure safety valves (PSVs), emergency shutdown (ESD) systems, blast walls, fire walls, scrubber systems for toxic materials, and even something as simple as spacing of equipment.  (See Mitigation level of pyramid)

The next level of the pyramid addresses competencies that are required to plan for emergency situations.  It is difficult to plan for an emergency if it is not understood what could go wrong and how bad it could be.  This is why all the other levels of the pyramid must be addressed prior to emergency planning.     (See Emergency Response level of pyramid)

How often could it happen?

The incident investigation competency level helps address the third question when defining risk, “How often could it happen?”  By investigating incidents and near misses according to established procedures, data is collected that can be used to identify trends and deviations from normal.  If these trends and deviations are consistently identified  and addressed, risk is reduced.  If it is discovered that competency gaps contribute to incidents, skills in the lower regions of the pyramid can be developed to reduce the likelihood of a catastrophic incident.   (See Incident Investigation level of pyramid)

Day to day activities

Near the top of the competency pyramid, a process safety professional should now have the skills required to manage all of the activities associated with process safety in the organization.  Management of change is an example element of the overall management system that exhibits the inter relationship among all the elements and how important it is for personnel to have appropriate levels of competency in all aspects of process safety.  (See Process Safety Mgmt. level of pyramid)

If process safety is defining and keeping the process within normal parameters, all personnel within the organization should have appropriate levels of competency to work within the system that has been developed.  Contractors will be chosen, modified processes will be started and management will be monitoring the system to insure that risk has been reduced to as low as reasonably practicable.

Many organizations have begun addressing the competency gap that is created as the workforce ages and less experienced people are hired.  The boom and bust cycles of the oil and gas industry have been seen for years.  Within most facilities, there are usually a few key individuals.  These are usually older, more experienced people.  They are the ones who have the ability to see a problem, identify the cause and then do something to fix the problem.  This is the competency level that everyone in the organization should strive for.  However, this takes time and experience.  Management has a responsibility to see that appropriate resources are available to make this happen.

Capstone

The capstone of the pyramid represents a troubleshooter. This position requires a significant number of skills, at varying levels of competency to be able to design an effective process safety management system, to identify deficiencies in a system when auditing and make appropriate recommendations to address the deficiencies.   An effective process safety management system should be balanced according to the resources that are available.  A process safety troubleshooter will have the skills and experience to not only identify deviations from normal system requirements, the troubleshooter will also be able to determine the most effective way to bring the system back to normal. (See TRB level of pyramid)

Sometimes it is difficult for personnel to identify competency gaps and suggest plans for developing the skills required to fill those gaps.  This simplified, graphical pyramid of process safety competency has proven to be a key learning point when conducting training about risk based process safety.  Participants have commented that break downs in an organization’s process safety management system can be identified and addressed by using the pyramid to identify competency gaps and developing strategies to address those gaps.

“The main product of the competency element is an understanding and interpretation of knowledge that helps the organization make better decisions and increases the likelihood that individuals who are faced with an abnormal situation will take the proper action.”  This statement from the CCPS book, “Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety”, describes anyone working in the oil and gas industry.  For those considered to be process safety professionals, taking the proper action to address an abnormal situation can insure that the risk associated within the industry is reduced to an acceptable level.

The pyramid isn’t just for process safety professionals.  All personnel within an organization will be able to use to the pyramid to obtain at the very least, a snapshot of where improvement is needed.  Senior managers, line managers, operator and maintenance personnel alike should study the pyramid to identify areas of improvement and create development plans for themselves and their direct reports.

If you would like a copy of the paper that was presented, please contact John M. Campbell & Co. and request a copy.

To learn more about managing process safety systems, we suggest attending our PetroSkills HSE course,  HS 45- Risk Based Process Safety Management or schedule a session of our two day Process Safety Case Study for Operations and Maintenance – OT 21,   To enhance process safety engineering skills we suggest any of the JMC foundation courses or our, PS 4 – Process Safety Engineering course.
By: Clyde Young