This July we joined an important industry event: The Walk the Line Workshop in Houston, a safety focused summit organized by AFPM’s Advance Process Safety group held at The Royal Sonesta Houston, TX. This year’s workshop was focused on Operational Readiness, bringing together colleagues from across the industry to discuss best practices and network. With a mixture of small group breakouts and general session presentations, the goal was for companies attending to leave with a written Walk the Line action plan to take back to their sites. Day 1 was focused on information exchange and day 2 was comprised of workshops.
To open up, the group chair discussed Walk the Line goals and priorities for this year, sharing industry data around process safety events.
After that, CpChem, Sinclair Oil and LyondellBasell shared three Walk the Line cases. LyondellBaseel shared 3 instances where they have used common sense approaches to reduce safety events, such as using coloured tags for drain valves. CpChem and Sinclair Oil then shared their current journey in relation to Walk the Line best practices.
What were our key takeaways?
After some in-depth and highly relevant talks, here at Voovio we came away with a series of key takeaways. We also heard, based on member feedback what key priorities were for other professionals in the industry, such as:
- Freeze protection
- Dead legs
- Atmospheric tank overfill
- Start Up modes
- Loading and unloading
The group shared in several instances the growing need to start paying attention to the role of the human in process safety. Interestingly, AFPM even has a Human Reliability subgroup that sets out to improve human performance in operations with information and tools that aid in reducing the likelihood and consequences of human errors. See AFPM’s 2021 annual report for more information.
Images from the AFPM Walk the Line Workshop:
We look forward to participating again next year and hope to meet you there!
