Measuring Process Safety Culture and Identifying Gaps Through PSM Element Focused Interviews

In recent years, the measurement of process safety culture has gained significant attention from organizations, particularly as they face challenges in implementing their process safety management (PSM) systems. Organizations typically either adopt standardized PSM systems from established sources, such as CCPS, Energy Institute, DuPont, or OSHA PSM, or they develop their own customized safety management system (SMS) processes. These PSM systems share similar structures and common elements that constitute the PSM framework. Through numerous incident investigations, which have identified both root causes and contributory factors, organizations have recognized that many incidents share contributory causes related to safety culture. Consequently, major organizations have developed various methods to evaluate their process safety culture. Their primary goal is to identify common issues and gaps within organizations' safety culture and to design programs and initiatives to address and rectify these deficiencies. These methods generally rely on two approaches: administering safety climate surveys to employees or conducting process safety culture assessments through targeted interviews. This paper aims to highlight the limitations of relying solely on surveys to measure process safety culture and to identify common shortcomings in the current interview-based process safety assessment approaches. It also seeks to outline the essential steps for conducting a comprehensive process safety culture assessment. This approach has been implemented in approximately 40 plants across various industries, including chemical manufacturing, oil and gas, food manufacturing, and metallurgical plants. The paper also details critical steps such as formulating interview questions, selecting appropriate interviewees and auditors, and effectively reporting assessment results.