Lead Process Safety Metrics

Abstract

Metrics have existed for many years across the occupational realm. In more recent times, there has been a focus on the use of metrics to monitor process safety. This has traditionally focused on lag metrics, as these are easier to monitor and analyse than their leading relatives. Excellent publications, such as the American Petroleum Institute Recommended Practice754, Process Safety Performance Indicators for the Refining and Petrochemical Industries, have emerged to provide guidance on how to develop and monitor metrics. Rightly, as defined in the recommended practice, each facility needs to understand what is important for themselves and implement their own leading metrics. This however, has lead to a divergence in what is measure and how it is done. In an effort to enable effective benchmarking, the members of the IChemE Safety Centre initiated a project to develop a suite of common lead metrics. This work, which occurred over a 12 month period, culminated in the release of a guidance document that details lead metrics that can be commonly applied across varied industries. This paper defines the process used to establish the common metrics and shows some examples of the metrics chosen.