Manuel H.J., Kooi E., Wolting B., 2022, Learning from incidents at Seveso sites: a focus on the safeguarding of containments prior to start of operations, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 90, 637-642.
Learning form incidents is done in many ways. One approach is that companies investigate a particular incident, report the findings within the company and take actions to prevent this incident from happening again. Learning on a broader scale can be enhanced by publishing observations from a single incident with other stakeholders. An even broader approach is to investigate multiple incidents in order to find causes and characteristics that are common to a larger number of incidents. The Storybuilder Major Hazard Chemical Accidents (Storybuilder-MHCA) database can be used for this. This can help to bring focus, so that a limited set of measures can potentially prevent a substantial number of incidents, rather than having to implement separate measures for individual incidents. An analysis of the incidents in the database showed, for instance, that around a quarter of all incidents in the database are linked to failure of the barrier ‘safeguarding containment prior to start of operations’. Safeguarding containment means that equipment items should be emptied before being opened and be properly lined-up before being filled. This paper presents several actions that can be taken to ensure that equipment items are properly safeguarded.
