Managing Process Hazards in Lab-Scale Pilot Plant for Safe Operation

Abstract

In spite of the OSHA Laboratory and Hazards Communication Standards, incidents which result in injuries and property loss continue to occur in the research and teaching locations. Application of Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) of OSHA Process Safety Management (PSM) to laboratory pilot plant operations has the potential to further reduce risk associated with this location. However, a major challenge is unavailability of the easy and effective system to comply with PHA requirements. This study presents a system to manage the implementation of PHA in pilot plant namely Process Hazards Management for Lab Scale Pilot Plant (PHM-LabPP). It provides organized strategies to manage and track information, documents, recommendations and corrective actions related to the process hazards. Application of PHM-LabPP at High Gravitational Natural Gas pilot plant as a case study is examined and discussed. The implementation of this system could help end users to overcome inadequate of managing and controlling process hazards in pilot plant that had contributed to numbers of accidents.