AIChE

Pilot Plant
Benchmarking Study
Environmental Health & Safety
Section
Daniel J. Pintar UOP (Presenter)

Benchmarking Team
Members

Current Team
Bob Duggal, Afton Chemical
Rich Palluzi, ExxonMobil
Dan Pintar, UOP
Joe Powell, Shell
David Edwards, Zeton
Sean Murray, Zeton

Previous members
Shiah Cherney, ChevronTexaco
Paul McKenzie, BMS
Kate Threefoot, DuPont

Sub-Industry Within the

CPI

Type
Speciality Chemical
Commodity Chemical
Pharmaceutical
Oil & Gas

#
16
4
7
4

Pilot Plant Safety:

Survey Results

Does your company have a

formal safety program?

100% of responding companies answer

YES!

What type safety program do

you have?
What Type of Safety Program?
Percent of Respondents
11.1

Safety Excellence
Behavioral Based
55.6

37.0

Type Safety Programs

Safety Excellence
Behavioral Based
Both

#
15
10
3

Both

% of Surveyed Companies Using

Metric

What type of safety metrics

does your company use?
Safety Metrics Being Used by Surveyed
Companies
90.0
85.0
80.0
75.0
70.0
65.0
60.0
55.0
50.0

Type of Safety Metrics Used

Hours Since Lost Time
OSHA Recordable
Lost Time Case
Near Miss

#
18
25
24
26

Employee Safety Incentive

Program
Percent of Companies with a
Safety Incentive Program

Types of Recognition Programs Used

5.9

Cash

40
60

Yes
No

41.2

35.3

Recognition
Both
Other

17.6

Employee Safety Incentive Program

Yes
No

#
18
12

Type of Incentive Program Rewards

Cash
Recognition
Both
Other

#
7
3
6
1

Safety Record Injuries,

OSHA, Lost Work Case Rates
OSHA Recordable Rate
Number of Respondents

12
10
8
6
4
2
0
0

<1

<2

Lost Work Case Rate

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
0

<1
Lost Work Case Rate

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
0

<1
OSHA Rate

Injury Rate

Number of Respondents

Number of Respondents

Injury Rate Per Year

1+

Emergency Response
Team
Percent of Companies with an
ERT
10

Who Staffs the ERT - Percentages

14.3

14.3
7.1

Yes
No

Does your PP organization have an ERT?

Yes
No

#
27
3

Central Safety Staff

Site Wide

64.3

90

Pilot Plant Ops Staff

Who staffs your ERT?

Pilot Plant Operations Staff
Central Safety
Site Wide
Pilot Plant Ops + Central Safety

PP Ops + Central
Safety

#
4
2
18
4

How do you review new

processes for EH&S?
How do you review new process for EH&S

13.3

Formal Process Hazard

Analysis
Informal Review

86.7
Review new Processes for EH&S Issues
Formal Process Hazard Analysis
Informal Review
No Review
Other

#
26
4
0
0

Safety Review Process to

Control Changes to Pilot Plant
Safety Review process to Control Change on a Plant

3.3

Safety Review Process to control mods

Formal Process
Informal Process
No Review
Other
Combination of Formal/Informal/Other

#
24
2
0
1
3

10.0

0.0
6.7

Formal Process Hazard Analysis

Informal Review
No Review
Other
Formal/Informal/Other

80.0

Other
Change control procedured

depends on significance of modification, small ones have informal review, introducing

new chemical or piece of equipment would be formal
Management of change process
Same as new processes, but also major/ minor modification review and review
inspection.
Management of Change

How do you document

changes to pilot plant?
Document Change to a Plant
Percent of Responses
6.7

6.7
10.0

Updating P&ID
Updating Oper
Procedures Only
Both
We do not document

76.7

How do you document change?

Updating P&ID
Updating Oper Procedures Only
Both
We do not document

#
2
3
23
2

Do you allow unattended

operations of pilot plants?
Do You Allow Unattended Operations of pilot plants
Percent of Responses

23.3

Yes
No

76.7

Allow unattended operation of pilot plants?

Yes
No

#
7
23

If you allow unattended operations, what type of safety

review process is used for these types of units and are
their any special safety interlocks or safety requirements?

9 responses to this question

Comments..
We allow, but currently the vast majority would be more correctly classified as
Minimally Attended Operations
Procedure defines operations that can be run unattended - stirring reactions,
distillations with no over-distilling hazards, etc
Detailed hazard and risk analysis including safety shutdown system design and
operation
Full management of change (MOC) process and training; risk analysis required.
Automatic shutdown
Alarms to alert staff on site or in the area
A risk assessment process, but this is only the case for fully automated continuous
unit
PHA
No special safety interlocks only past history/records
Formal review with safety staff and engineering staff. Pilot plant specific safety
interlocks are required for unattended operation
No unattended operations

What have been the biggest changes in the

areas of pilot plant safety over the last decade
for your organization?

~30 responses were received

A common theme was the advent of more
formalized safety programs. Examples:

Formal safety reviews/PHA (8 comments)

Change Management MOC (4 comments)
Formal safety training (4 comments)
PSM/Scale/Scope of Work (3 comments)
More formalized safety program guidelines/corporate requirements
(2 comments)

Increased use of automation/alarms/interlocks was a

common theme (4 comments)

What have been the biggest changes in the

areas of pilot plant safety over the last decade
for your organization?

Some others comments:

Catch tank installation for containment of runaway reaction
effluent
Formal thermochemistry review process for every batch made in
the pilot plant
Solids handling/exposure
Increasing amount of HSE regulations we need to comply with
that historically seemed to only apply to larger manufacturing
sites
The scale of the experiments has increased. Thus the chance of
a serious incident is greater due to an increase in magnitude
We have modified our safety procedures to more closely handle
pilot plants as continuous operating laboratory units.
Instituted a Safety Relief Valve database

What are some of the drivers of

the changes in safety programs?

Increasing amount of regulations/compliance

requirements is an obvious driver of these changes
Safety performance is a measure of corporate
performance and is factored into strategic plans
The goal of 0 injuries, 0 environmental incidents
Social aspects that help drive these changes
Sustainable Development
Being a good corporate citizen
Emphasis on Safety is Job#1

What other issues associated with "Pilot Plant

Safety" are of significance to your organization,
and would be of interest to you in future
benchmarking studies?

Safety staffing - dedicated safety staff (of FTE) per operator/technician and per pilot unit
Types of review procedures:
Pre-start up safety analysis
Types of safety review systems
Chemical review along with an equipment operation review.
Automation/safety system related:
Safety shutdown implementation philosophy.
Unattended/minimal operation. Remote monitoring from main plant control rooms for
safety issues as backup to unattended operation
Personnel Safety
Solids handling
Handling Extremely hazardous chemicals
Monitoring adherence to operating procedures (requires routinely auditing of operators
as they perform their jobs).
Industrial Hygiene Monitoring of new processes.
People from other organizations working in the pilot plants.
Area electrical classification philosophy

What other issues associated with "Pilot Plant Safety"

are of significance to your organization, and would be
of interest to you in future benchmarking studies?
Continued

Pilot Plant versus Prudent Lab versus Manufacturing Facility standards

Managing a Pilot Plant within a Manufacturing Facility with different
standards. What control should Manufacturing have over how a
pilot plant operates?
Managing between Pilot Plant and Prudent Lab
The degree to which commercial process MOC concepts should
apply to smaller scale R&D pilot plants
Statistics/Metrics
Incident Reports, including Near Miss reporting
Current Safety statistics
Root cause analysis for all Safety Incidents/Injuries/Accidents
Corrective actions completion % & response time
Current training and training tracking
Reliability