WPAC Report Consider ‘what ifs’ How process hazard analysis can help the pellet industry By Gord Murray, WPAC executive director O n Nov. 8, a group of 37 Canadian wood pellet producers, insurance risk engineers and representatives of WorkSafeBC gathered in Richmond, B.C., for a one-day training course called Introduction to Process Hazard Analysis for the Wood Pellet Industry. The Wood Pellet Association of Canada Safety Committee organized the event, which was spon-sored by WorkSafeBC. Jamie Merriam of ACM Facility Safety, an electrical engineer and process safety management expert was the instructor. Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) is just one of 14 elements of process safety man-agement (PSM) which include: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Process safety information Process hazard analysis Operating procedures Training Contractors Mechanical integrity Hot work Management of change Incident investigation Compliance audits Trade secrets Employee participation Pre-startup safety review Emergency planning and response PSM mainly applies to manufacturing industries and is focused on identifying what could go wrong and what safeguards must be implemented to prevent hazard-ous events from occurring. Unlike occu-pational health and safety (OHS), which focuses on individuals, PSM focuses on safeguarding or eliminating hazards asso-ciated with often-complex processes. The wood pellet industry has made significant progress in improving safety by focusing on OHS, but that alone is not enough. The Canadian wood pellet producers, insurance risk engineers and representatives of WorkSafeBC gather in Richmond, B.C., for a one-day training course called Introduction to Process Hazard Analysis for the Wood Pellet Industry. WPAC Safety Committee believes that the next quantum improvement in safety per-formance will come from implementing PSM across the wood pellet industry. To this end, WPAC has begun rolling out PSM training modules. The first, Intro-duction to Management of Change, was held in June 2017. PHA was the second train-ing module. WPAC has two more modules planned for 2018. PHA is a key element of process safety management. PHA includes a set of proce-dures for carefully reviewing what could go wrong and what safeguards must be implemented to prevent hazardous events from occurring. PHA provides information to help employers and workers to make decisions that will improve safety. A PHA analyzes the potential caus-es of fires, explosions, releases of toxic JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 8 Canadian BIOMASS
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