Ageing Assets and Workforce Challenges in Process Safety
Srinivasan Ramabhadran, Managing Director and Board Member, dss+, highlights key challenges in process safety, including ageing assets and workforce demographics. He emphasizes the importance of senior management commitment, independent risk verification, and tailored safety solutions for SMEs. This Chemical Weekly feature positions dss+ as a leader in addressing industry challenges and advocating for a stronger safety culture.
This article was originally published in Chemical Weekly. For the full feature, visit their website: Chemical Weekly News.
Increased complexity of operations and greater societal scrutiny make process safety management even more important
Ageing of assets and demographic changes – twin challenges
Mr. Srinivasan Ramabhadran, Managing Director and Board Member - dss+, a company spun-off from DuPont Sustainable Solutions, pointed to the ageing of assets in the oil & gas, refining and petrochemical industries, as well as of the work force in these industries.
The statistics seem to support these trends. According to a recent Marsh report, 43% of incidents can be attributed to mechanical or asset integrity, which could be linked to aging assets. At the same time, demographic changes for some industries, such as retirement rates as high as 40% of experienced workers in the next 3-5 years, can reduce capability to run and maintain safe operations.
Even as the lost time injury rates in the process industries have fallen and improvements in overall safety performance is evident, spikes in fatalities and major releases continue to occur. “Though there is an awareness of risks and controls, there is lack of alignment on the big risks and appropriate controls,” he noted. “We cannot operate as we did in the past.”
Mr. Ramabhadran called upon senior management to visibly demonstrate commitment to process safety down the organisation, and called for independent verification of critical risks and controls.
Challenges facing SMEs
Later speaking to Chemical Weekly on the sidelines of the event, Mr. Srinivasan Ramabhadran, admitted that the challenges facing the small and medium (SMEs) chemical manufacturers in India are very different from that of large companies, and will need appropriate approaches and solutions.
dss+ is addressing this challenge by rephrasing the problem to the identification of top risks and the critical controls needed to tackle each of them. “We are asking them to address these controls to ensure that they will work efficiently when needed. More and more companies are responding favourably to this approach.”
Mr. Ramabhadran also noted that owner-driven companies are responsive to the reasoning that process safety and reliability go hand-in-hand, and that there is a strong business case for in-vesting in safety. He also stressed the need to create a conducive environment of reporting and added that while every company seems to have the right intent, this needs to progress to commitment. The consultancy, which now has about 150 experts in India, is scaling up and expects to double head-count in the next two years.