Significant Event Elimination Program Overview

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the Significant Event Elimination (SEE) Program. The objective of the SEE Program is to eliminate the reoccurrence of events which have had the most significant impact, or potential for impact, on the safe operation of the plant. With some additional considerations, the SEE program can address reliability and quality issues as well. As such, the SEE program is an important part of a Continuous Improvement Program. SEE includes a method to prioritize plant events, including “near misses,” based upon their actual or potential safety, health, and environmental impact. The prioritization includes both one-time events and repetitive events. The highest priority events are then analyzed using root cause failure analysis (RCFA), reliability-centered maintenance (RCM), or other appropriate analysis tools. The analysis provides recommendations that can be used to prevent, inhibit, predict, or find future problems, thereby improving the plant. The SEE process consists of two major steps: Event Prioritization (including ongoing data collection and analysis), and Event Analysis. Each of these steps is described in the following paragraphs: