Operational Excellence

The material on this page is extracted from Chapters 1 and 15 of the book Process Risk and Reliability Management. It shows how Process Safety Management develops into Operational Integrity, which, in turn, becomes a part of Operational Excellence.

Process Safety Management (PSM)

Operational Integrity Management (OIM)

Figure 1 shows how Process Safety Management can be used as a foundation that, when merged with other management activities, creates  Operational Integrity Management.

Figure 1
From Process Safety to Operational Integrity

The first oval in Figure 1 is called Process Safety Management (PSM).

Operational Integrity Management (OIM) is built on this PSM foundation by incorporating information from the many other technical initiatives that companies have been pursuing during the last two decades in order to improve safety, environmental performance and profitability. A partial list of such initiatives includes:

• RAM (reliability, availability and maintainability) programs that focus on achieving maximum profitability;
• HSE programs covering the broad spectrum of Health, Safety and Environmental work;
• Statistical Process Control;
• Quality standards such as ISO 9000; and
• Occupational and behavior based safety programs that help improve the actions and behaviors of individuals.

Each of these topics - along with many others - can be thought of as contributing toward the development of operational integrity, i.e., the facility performs as expected in an atmosphere of ‘no surprises’. The facility exhibits integrity in all aspects of its operation.

Operational Excellence

In addition to the incorporation of a wide range of management techniques that are shown in Figure 1, operational integrity can be applied to a much wider variety of industries than was the case with traditional process safety management. OIM can be used not only in chemical facilities and refineries, but also in transportation, pipelines and offshore oil and gas.

Operational Integrity Management can be used as the basis of Operational Excellence programs as shown in Figure 2. Operational integrity is made up of technical initiatives; operational excellence incorporates non-technical management systems that can affect safety and operability. These include distribution, inventory management, outsourcing, supply chain management and procurement.

Figure 2
Operational Integrity to Operational Excellence