Effective process safety programs consist of three interrelated foundations—safety culture and leadership, process safety systems, and operational discipline—designed to prevent serious injuries and incidents resulting from toxic releases, fires, explosions, and uncontrolled reactions. Each of these foundations is important and one missing element can cause poor process safety performance.

Process Safety: Key Concepts and Practical Approaches takes a systemic approach to the traditional process safety elements that have been identified for effective process safety programs. More effective process safety risk reduction efforts are achieved when these process safety systems, based on desired activities and results rather than by specific elements, are integrated and organized in a systems framework. This book provides key concepts, practical approaches, and tools for establishing and maintaining effective process safety programs to successfully identify, evaluate, and manage process hazards.

It introduces process safety systems in a way that helps readers understand the purpose, design, and everyday use of overall process safety system requirements. Understanding what the systems are intended to achieve, understanding why they have been designed and implemented in a specific way, and understanding how they should function day-to-day is essential to ensure continued safe and reliable operations.