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[January 2007]
Safety Issues and Lessons from 2006
The high profile incidents of 2006 were:
- BP Texas Oil Refinery disaster
- BP crude Oil Pipeline leak in Alaska
- Buncefield Oil Depot disaster
The common factor was the unacceptable discharge of hydrocarbon fluid.
In the case of the BP refinery, an old installation, it was designed to discharge gas to a blow down to atmosphere in an emergency; a practice that is no long acceptable in present day plant design. The emergency was the result of maloperation. The disaster was the result of the siting a temporary construction facility next to the blow down. It could be said that failure to maintain the blow down area as a hazardous area and up date the facility was the cause of the disaster.
In the case of the BP pipeline leak it was the result of pipe containment failure due to corrosion. Corrosion of a pipeline is a well recognised hazard and the failure to monitor the need for maintenance caused the disaster.
In the case of Buncefield it was the result of the failure of the tank high level shut down system. Apparently the failure was the result of an ineffective maintenance procedure.
Any disaster is usually the result of a co-incident of errors but there is always an initiating event where human error and maintenance is usually the culprit.
In a Safety Case; hazards have to be identified and acceptable measures to control the risk have to be shown. A satisfactory management organization to manage risk and to control a disaster has to be demonstrated. Maybe more attention needs to be placed on the maintenance of safety critical items, the frequency of test and the training and use of acceptable procedures.
Dry and Boring
It has been reported that the general impression that the media has of
engineering is that it is dry and boring. They don’t bother to read anything if they know it is to do with engineering.
For anything to be safe, reliable, and successful, requires meticulous attention to minute detail. Well experienced engineers know this too well as is said “The concept may be brilliant but the buggers in the detail”.
Engineers put up with the boring detail when they are inspired by the concept that is to be achieved. To design and build a process plant requires the detail design and fabrication of thousands of pipes with a mire of different sizes and materials. Get something wrong and a piping failure and disaster like Flexboro could happen.
Michael Angelo spent many years on his back dabbing spots of paint on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, very boring and hard work. He convinced his patron that the end result would make it worth while.
Engineers, when talking to the management and the media, must learn to skip over the mundane boring details of their work and focus on the resultant concept.
In talking about safety and reliability maybe it is more important to focus on the consequences of doing nothing than on the boring facts on what needs to be done.
CDIO
No one wants to study science and engineering these days, students think its dull and boring compared to media studies or being a pop star.
CDIO stands for “create design implement and operate”. This represents a drive to make undergraduate studies more relevant and interesting and so produce students better prepared for modern industry. See the cdio website for further details. In the past engineering graduates coming into industry were well drilled in the principles of engineering science. Industry then had to drill them in the mundane boring details of execution and administration. After about ten years, they then had to learn about how to be creative based on what they had experienced. They knew all about the constraints that could be imposed by the details of execution. They knew how to manage the work processes that were needed to meet their ends.
CDIO will aid a new dimension to the education of engineers. Let’s hope that it will help to reinforce the need for attention to detail and that it will not distract from their need to be well drilled in understanding the science.
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