Process safety management (PSM) deals with the identification, understanding, and control of process hazards to prevent process-related injuries and incidents. Explicit incorporation of the principles of inherent safety in the basic definition and functional operation of the various PSM elements can help to improve the quality of the safety management effort.Numerous inherent safety examples, both technical and nontechnical, are given in this paper. Existing qualitative and quantitative tools that already include, or could incorporate, inherent safety are described. Recently developed inherent safety tools for quantitative hazard identification and assessment are identified from either the literature or the current authors' work. Qualitative protocols for incorporating inherent safety into PSM elements are also presented. The language of inherent safety, although largely unused in PSM documentation, has a key role to play in enhancing the effectiveness of PSM.
A methodology has been developed to enable the explicit use of the principles of inherent safety in an incident investigation protocol. The usefulness of this approach is demonstrated by application to the Westray coal mine explosion that occurred in Nova Scotia in 1992. This process-related disaster resulted in the deaths of 26 workers, destruction of the underground workings, and bankruptcy of the parent company. The purpose in presenting this case study is twofold: to validate the methodology and to identify the inherent safety considerations that could have prevented the incident. These findings have application beyond the realm of coal mining, extending well into the world of the chemical process industries.
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