Advancing Process Safety Programs

AFPM’s online Safety Portal serves as the hub for all Occupational and Process Safety programs. Access to the Safety Portal is available to all member operating companies who have a signed Corporate User Agreement with AFPM. Individuals will need to have an active user profile with AFPM to gain access to the portal.

Viewing various sections of the portal will depend on an individual’s access level. Once permission has been obtained, users are able to submit/view events and metrics, review and suggest Hazard ID/Practice Sharing Documents, view Regional Network meeting materials and access reports and references.

Staff Contact: Anna Scherer

AFPM staff facilitates plant-level discussions to encourage peer-to-peer networking, create a forum to exchange ideas, and enhance process safety performance of all sites in the region. Agenda items typically include appropriate sharing of process safety practices, lessons learned from industry events, industry standards, regulatory challenges, hazard identification and special topics as needed.

Process Safety Staff Contact: Mawusi Bridges

The mission of this program is to collect, analyze and share data and learnings from industry events to accelerate process safety improvement. This includes QA/QC of API 754 datasets, analysis of 754 datasets for trends and changes, API 754 interpretation assistance and AFPM Event Sharing Safety Portal Database support. The AFPM Event Sharing database provides a mechanism for industry to share causal factors and lessons learned from API Tier 1 and 2 Process Safety Events, as well as key findings and near misses. The event sharing database is located within the AFPM Safety Portal.

Staff Contact: Mawusi Bridges

The program seeks to provide information and ready guides for potentially overlooked and not widely known process safety hazards, share process safety hazards lessons learned from industry related events and improve process safety awareness.

While the industry has specific standards (e.g., API, NFPA, ASME) that highlight and identify hazards, these standards address only a small portion of all the activities and practices. This program fills the gap between existing industry standards and associated practices utilized by industry. We encourage companies to review the documents currently posted to the Safety Portal and to suggest topics for future development.

Staff Contact: Jasmine Beasley

The goal of this program is to capture and share knowledge that could be used by others when developing new practices or improving existing ones. Shared practices may have been used by an industry member, but this does not mean it should be used or that it will produce similar results at any other site. Rather, it is an option to consider when implementing or adjusting programs and practices. We encourage companies to review the documents currently posted to the Safety Portal and to suggest topics for future development.

Staff Contact: Jasmine Beasley

Independent and credible teams of process safety experts are available to assess a site’s process safety systems. The program is focused on higher-risk activities and is designed to promote learning from sharing of experiences and proven practices; provide benchmarking opportunities through the use of industry-developed protocols, and serve as a feedback mechanism for analysis of performance data to identify trends and patterns.

More Information: https://www.api.org/products-and-services/site-safety

Staff Contact: Colin Frazier (American Petroleum Institute)

The purpose of the MISG is to reduce the process safety risks associated with the operation, inspection and maintenance of fixed equipment. The MISG works to further understand opportunities to improve implementation of MI programs, increase awareness of those opportunities and provide the industry with information and tools to improve performance. MISG identifies areas that present the most risk based on APS data analysis and the experience of MI subject matter experts. 

Staff Contact: Matii Chindori-Chininga (American Petroleum Institute)

The purpose of the HOP subgroup is to reduce the process safety risks associated with human performance. The HOP subgroup works to identify opportunities to improve human performance, reduce the potential for human error and reduce the likelihood that such mistakes will lead to process safety incidents if and when they do occur. Based on identified opportunities, the HOP subgroup compiles Practice Sharing documents and/or develops “tools” to improve process safety performance.

Staff Contact: Derek Reese (American Petroleum Institute)

Walk the Line is a practice sharing program that provides a variety of tools to help ensure that operators know with 100 percent certainty where energy will flow between two points in a process.

More Information: Visit the Walk the Line page of the AFPM Safety Portal

Staff Contact: Mawusi Bridges