Services
Why be an Informed Client?
If you are smart enough to run a business or a project then you are already well informed on commercial and organisational issues...certainly enough to procure studies required for process safety and risk management. Those studies will typically include a list of issues and recommendations to be included in risk logs and action plans for onwards management and this may be seen as enough. Conversely, some regulators require the company to have suitably qualified and experienced personnel. Therefore, someone in the client organisation has to understand the content and context in enough detail to filter the important actions from the trivia, assign timelines and resources and get the work done.
Beyond these considerations,, how can more value be gained from the studies?
- How can we ensure they are representative, with assumptions and limitations understood?
- Are the same or similar studies being used in multiple departments?
- How are the deliverables being used to support decisions and aide operations?
- Are the studies being used as learning opportunities?
An Informed Client understands enough about both the details and limitations of the studies to be able to use the information to support decisions. It’s not about being the expert, it’s about knowing the difficult questions to ask of the experts, understanding the answers, and using them to make decisions. The technical experts are the ones doing the analysis, but they don’t run your project or organisation.
As an analogy, you don’t need to be able to design a racing car to drive it; but to consistently win races you have to understand enough to communicate with the team and make full use of the changes.
There are many excellent providers of training in the tools of process safety (e.g. Asset Integrity, PHA/ HAZOP, QRA), What sets Risk Memory Ltd apart, is the focus on creating Informed Clients that understand how to integrate and utilise those tools to support decisions.
Approach
Holistic Review and Gap Analysis
Risk Memory Ltd will establish the client's current basis of organisational design for process safety and then undertake a gap analysis against either CCPS Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety or UK Energy Institute Process Safety Framework
A report will be delivered on good practices found, gaps or overlaps between elements, and opportunites to improve.
Where a formal corporate or regulatory audit process is in-place this can be used as an independent pre-audit
The overall approach will be to look deeply, then consider broadly to establish if findings are case-specific or more widely representative.
Closing the Gaps
Risk Memory Ltd will work with individual PSM element owners and planning teams to establish an integrated plan to
- deliver timely studies,
- track and action findings,
- develop and maintain competencies and
- reduce risk exposure so far as is reasonably practicable.
Typically this will involve the integration of existing systems and gradual evolution of improvements as opposed to a "silver bullet" or step change
Training and Competency
The primary focus is the overall competency requirements, and development plans, for key roles.
Risk Memory Ltd's preferred approach is a staged- development using industry-standard training alongside directed experience.
Typically this incorporates training from a corporate department or an external provider, with experience development and assessment reflecting the specific organisation or site.
Additional customised training by Risk Memory Ltd can be provided in the broader awareness of- and limitations in- the various tools; plus how to use the results to influence decisions.
This approach is targeted at decison makers at all levels in the organisation.
Leading and Lagging
Risk Memory Ltd can help review and develop leading and lagging Process Safety Metrics to meet the expectations of IOGP/ API
Most companies have well established Tier 1 and Tier 2 lagging metrics and are developing or implementing Tier 3 metrics (challenges to safety systems).
The next stage is considering effective approaches to Tier 4, leading metrics.
The Risk Memory Ltd approach is to adopt an holistic approach. This involves working with all the PSM element owners to:-
- map indivdual elements to the overall safety barriers,
- develop their individual metrics to measure activites that assure or mainitain the barriers
- consider additional metrics that provide leading versions of the Tier 1-3 lagging metrics as per UK HSE HSG254.
- track metrics with clear actions based on changes in values and longer term trends
Emergency and Crisis Management
Residual Risks, including beyond design basis events, cannot be ignored.
Mapping these to emergency response plans via specific scenario plans, general response and crisis managment plans remains a core element of process safety, and of risk management
Risk Memory Ltd can review the current processes focussing on the information flow between the risk study teams and the emergency/ crisis managment teams. This will typically include reviews of pre-incident plans and emergency response provisions in conjunction with the client's experts; and the return-flow of information from exercises and incidents.