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One of the ten Process Safety Fundamentals
A barrier is a risk control that prevents unintended events from occurring or stops escalation to harmful consequences. We can think about barriers as being either hardware or human barriers. Understanding the role that barriers play, and what could potentially happen if a barrier fails, is important as it allows teams and individuals to understand the influence they have in sustaining barrier health.
🔺 We discuss the purpose of hardware and human barriers at our location.
🔺 We evaluate how our tasks could impact process safety barriers.
🔺 We speak up when barriers don’t feel adequate.
🔺 We perform our roles in maintaining barrier health and alert supervision to our concerns.
🔺 We use an approval process for operations with degraded barriers.
This Safety Moment is based on the US Chemical Safety Board (USCSB) animated film of the BP Texas City Refinery explosion which happened in March 2005.
When the brake release lever on a TEMPSC was activated during an exercise, it was found that the accumulator had failed and held no pressure.
The control valve gland plate loading bolts and nuts became detached from the valve, leading to a loss of containment.