

Process Safety with Trish & Traci
chemicalprocessingsafety
Sharing insight from recent process-safety incidents to avoid accidents at chemical processing plants.
Episodes
Mentioned books

9 snips
Oct 14, 2025 • 25min
Henry David Thoreau of Process Safety – Trevor Kletz
Trevor Kletz transformed process safety with revolutionary HAZOP advocacy and intrinsic safety principles. His approach highlights the importance of learning from accidents and simplifying designs to avoid complexity. The hosts discuss how Kletz shifted the focus from blaming human error to creating resilient systems. They also dive into the significance of storytelling in organizational memory and encourage a return to basic design principles for safer outcomes. Kletz’s legacy continues to inspire safety practices and innovations.

Sep 23, 2025 • 18min
Hidden Hazards: 10 Common PHA Oversights
When OSHA's Process Safety Management (PSM) standard took effect in 1992, it promised a new era of systematic hazard identification. Three decades later, process safety professionals are still witnessing the same critical oversights repeatedly compromising facility safety—oversights that have contributed to near misses, and far worse, major incidents.
Editor-in-Chief Traci Purdum reads an article from Felicia Miller, senior principal engineer at ABSG Consulting and Darshankumar Lakhani, senior manager in engineering at ABSG.
Original article: https://www.chemicalprocessing.com/safety-security/risk-assessment/article/55311485/hidden-hazards-10-common-pha-oversights

Sep 9, 2025 • 33min
How Equipment Reliability Impacts Process Safety
This episode explores the critical role of equipment reliability in chemical processing, focusing on three major incidents: Longford, BP Texas City and Buncefield. Trish highlights how faulty instrumentation, poor maintenance and overlooked management of change led to catastrophic failures, fatalities and environmental impacts. The discussion emphasizes safety-critical elements, maintenance KPIs and the importance of accurate instrumentation.

Aug 26, 2025 • 6min
Process Safety: The Dangers of Blindly Following Instructions
Workers who challenge flawed procedures can improve safety and production. In this episode, Trish Kerin reads her latest column, which details how a trip to Tasmania with her sister turned getting lost into a process safety lesson of not blindly following procedures.
Enjoy as our favorite Australian safety guru guides you through the Bass Strait to Cataract Gorge.

10 snips
Aug 12, 2025 • 49min
Challenge the Illusion of Safety
Join Alex Fernando, a strategy and risk expert with a wealth of experience in high-risk industries, and Warren Smith, a data science pro focused on organizational development, as they dive into eye-opening insights from analyzing over 10,000 incidents. They reveal how misclassifying serious incidents can hinder safety learning. The conversation highlights the urgent need for a cultural shift in leadership, urging a focus on why procedures aren't followed rather than blaming individuals. They also stress the importance of aligning safety practices with real-world challenges faced by workers.

9 snips
Jul 15, 2025 • 26min
Lessons From Deadly Permit-to-Work Failures
Dive into the critical world of permit-to-work systems and their role in safe equipment handling. Discover the chilling lessons from the Piper Alpha disaster, revealing key failures that led to 167 fatalities. The discussion emphasizes the importance of clear communication, documentation, and compliance in preventing catastrophic accidents. Humorous anecdotes from the hosts about their travels add a light touch, while the serious focus on safety management keeps the conversation engaging and essential.

Jul 8, 2025 • 6min
Process Safety: Serve Up the Tim Tam Slam
Mastering Tim Tam timing mirrors process safety's critical risk-reward balance. Get it right and you’ll reap rewards.
As the bickie became gooey in my fingers, I knew the moment was now — time to slam that Tim Tam.
A Tim Tam is an Australian bickie — or cookie, to those of you in the U.S. It was created in 1964 by Arnott’s and is an iconic Aussie treat. It consists of two rectangular bickies with a flavored cream filling that is coated in chocolate. A Tim Tam Slam is a unique way to consume the bickie. The steps are as follows:

7 snips
Jun 24, 2025 • 37min
Lessons Learned from the Columbia Disaster
Reflecting on the tragic Columbia disaster, the discussion reveals critical engineering oversights and how complacency within NASA led to devastating consequences. Key insights focus on the normalization of foam strikes and missed communication opportunities. The podcast emphasizes the importance of rigorous safety standards and accountability in high-risk industries. Additionally, it advocates for fostering a culture of curiosity among leaders to enhance safety practices and avoid future incidents.

Jun 10, 2025 • 12min
Taming Static Electricity in Glass-Lined Reactors
On a sunny summer day in 2007 near Wichita, Kansas, a tanker truck was offloading naphthalene into a stainless-steel tank at a solvent tank farm when the container spontaneously ignited, catching fire and exploding, shooting projectiles in the air. This led to the evacuation of thousands in a nearby community. While there were no casualties, the explosion destroyed the entire storage facility, luckily not causing any injuries or fatalities in the nearby community.
An investigation determined that electrostatic charge buildup had caused a spark that ignited a solvent-air mixer in the vapor space in the vessel receiving naphtha from the tanker truck.
In this episode, Traci Purdum, CP's editor-in-chief, reads an article from authors Tom Patnaik and Christian Stentzel -- both of Thaletec. The article was published May 21, 2025.

May 27, 2025 • 26min
AI and Machine Learning Transform Compliance, But Humans Still Key
Risk assessment should still be a manual process, but AI can streamline data collection to enable sound engineering judgments.
In this episode, Trish and Traci welcome guest Dheerajkumar Narang, whose research examines how AI and machine learning can enhance process safety compliance. Traditional compliance methods are time-consuming and fragmented across different systems, while AI can automate data collection, identify leading indicators and predict compliance outcomes. Key challenges include system integration with legacy infrastructure and maintaining domain expertise for regulatory updates. AI should streamline processes to allow operators to focus on critical tasks.