Building safer tomorrow: Modern approaches to industrial safety in chemical manufacturing

Proactive leadership, strong training, and innovation help build an industrial safety culture that ensures long-term success. by Vaijanath Kulkarni, Executive Director & Chief Operating Officer, Galaxy Surfactants Ltd.

As the manufacturing industry continues to drive global economic growth, ensuring industrial safety in manufacturing facilities is increasingly critical. Numerous incidents throughout history have underscored the importance of occupational safety in the chemical industry, such as the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984.

The bustling city was plunged into chaos when over 93,000 pounds of methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaked from a pesticide plant, profoundly impacting the community. This catastrophe serves as a reminder of the need to prioritise safety within the manufacturing sector.

Industrial safety in the chemical industry is crucial for several reasons. It protects human health by preventing accidents and ensuring employees are not exposed to hazardous chemicals. It also helps to prevent environmental pollution by ensuring that chemicals are handled and disposed of safely.

Challenges faced by the chemical industry:

Complexity of operations: Chemical processes often involve intricate procedures and hazardous substances, increasing the likelihood of accidents. With scale increase, this likelihood as well as the impact caused by the incident goes up multifold.
Regulatory compliance: Compliance with stringent environmental safety regulations adds layers of complexity to operations, requiring constant vigilance and adherence to evolving standards.
Human error: Despite advancements in automation, human error remains a significant contributor to industrial accidents, necessitating robust training programs, behavioural-based safety focusing on the mindset of everybody and stringent protocols.
Mechanical integrity: Ageing equipment and infrastructure become vulnerable to failure.
Lack of adequate SOP / check sheet: Adequate SOP/check sheets are always challenging along with subsequent training.

Solutions to ensure industrial safety

To address these challenges, innovative solutions and practices are crucial to ensure industry safety.

Safety culture and top leadership commitment: Building a robust safety culture requires unwavering commitment. It is a combination of knowledge, behaviour, and attitude demonstrated by all employees in the organisation. This journey involves transitioning from a reactive approach, where safety measures are only implemented after incidents, to a dependent stage, where protocols are followed but not fully integrated.

Ultimately, the goal is to achieve an interdependent culture, where every employee takes ownership of safety, proactively identifies hazards, and collaborates to prevent incidents.

Leadership must exemplify industrial safety standards, consistently emphasise its importance, and cultivate an environment where safety is everyone's responsibility. This cultural shift is crucial for embedding safety into the organisation's foundation, ensuring long-term sustainability and resilience.

Process safety capability building: This is an important step to understanding various unknown hazards. Our handholding expert helps in comprehensively covering all hazards by using methods like BHM, PHA, HAC, QRA, LOPA, SIL, etc. This also helps in building and implementing workplace and process safety standards. Overall, this helps to optimise process and workplace safety risks to an optimum level.
Risk assessment: By systematically identifying potential hazards associated with chemical substances and processes, organisations can proactively mitigate risks and prevent accidents. However, the effectiveness of risk assessments is significantly enhanced when employees are actively involved in the hazard identification process. Periodic monitoring of all leading and lagging indicators helps to understand progress.
Training employees: Comprehensive training for employees on handling chemicals safely is crucial. Employees must have firsthand knowledge of their tasks, equipment, and environments, making them valuable for hazard recognition. Along with them, contractors should also undergo a mandatory safety induction program.

Training includes permit systems, emergency preparedness, and hazard identification, covering Safety Cardinal Rules, safety policy, and BBS observations.

Developing and practising emergency response plans: Having robust emergency response plans outlines clear procedures for chemical spills, leaks, fires, or other emergencies. These plans involve assessing potential risks, identifying scenarios, and establishing strategies for containment, evacuation, and communication.

Regular drills help employees familiarise themselves with procedures, test response protocols, and improve coordination among workers and emergency teams.

Periodic auditing system – internal/external: Periodic comprehensive auditing by an internal cross-functional team helps to understand the status of observations as per their risk categories. This helps to correct the observations on levels including people, process, and infrastructure.

External periodic audit of IMS (ISO 14001, ISO 45001) also helps to track the progress of significant aspect–impact related to environment and significant HIRA related to occupational health and safety.

Learning from peers: Participating in industry associations and forums offers opportunities for knowledge-sharing, networking, and collaboration. Engaging with these associations provides access to expert insights, best practices, and emerging trends in chemical handling safety. By sharing knowledge and experiences, organisations can learn from others and contribute to the advancement of industrial safety practices.

By investing in comprehensive employee training and adopting advanced techniques, chemical companies are fostering a culture of safety that transcends regulatory requirements. As a result, they not only safeguard their employees, protect the environment, and mitigate economic losses but also position themselves as leaders in sustainable industrial practices.

Through continued collaboration, innovation, and unwavering dedication to industrial safety excellence, the chemical industry can pave the way for a safer, more resilient future.

Source: https://www.manufacturingtodayindia.com/industrial-safety-in-chemicals

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