Potential Impacts to Process Safety Management from Mergers, Acquisitions, Downsizing, and Re-Engineering
Abstract
Significant potential impacts to process safety management performance can be generated by corporate organizational mergers, acquisitions, downsizing, and re-engineering. This paper explores a selection of consequences (favorable as well as unfavorable) and presents possible options for addressing this new and broad based challenge. Loss of in-house PSM expertise and surge capacity is a prime example. Demographics indicate a bell curve of experienced personnel in the process industries are approaching normal and early-retirement age. Rapid expansion of the process industries in the 1960's and 1970's brought in a large group of workers. Retraction of the process industries in the late 1980's significantly reduced the number of people entering this segment of the workforce. These two events have combined to generate a bell-curve distribution of experienced personnel, who are now leaving the industry as a result of downsizing, mergers, and other re-organizations. Retention of this experience is a serious challenge to successful management of process safety. There is an increasing likelihood lessons learned may be permanently lost.
Description
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Citation
Philley, Jack (2001). Potential Impacts to Process Safety Management from Mergers, Acquisitions, Downsizing, and Re-Engineering. Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center; Texas &M University. Libraries. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /193803.