Safety Management
Process Safety Management
ABS Group has extensive Process Safety Management (PSM) experience in various industries. Our engineers understand which PSM activities and features are practical and efficient. We have helped clients implement PSM programs that satisfy regulatory requirements and fit a specific company's organizational culture. We will work with you to customize a comprehensive PSM program or specific elements of a PSM program that fit your operations.
Process Hazard Analysis
We are a recognized leader in conducting efficient and value-added process hazard analyses (PHAs) for a broad range of industries. Having served hundreds of major corporations and performed thousands of initial PHAs, PHA revalidations and related studies, our engineers are respected experts in their field. We can work with your staff to provide a full range of PHA services using a variety of methodologies, including HAZOPs, What-if/Checklist, FMEA and fault tree analysis, and our LEADER™ PHA software solution.
Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA)
Many of our customers have found Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) to be a cost-effective addition to PHA revalidations. Our LOPA approach is based on risk assessment fundamentals used by ABS Group personnel for over 30 years. We apply these fundamentals to help private industry and government clients make informed risk management decisions. From identifying safety barriers to determining the probability of failure to verifying safety integrity levels (SILs), our team has your needs covered.
Safety Instrumented System (SIS) Studies
ABS Group can assist process industries with confirming that the functional safety of their safety instrumented system (SIS) conforms to the requirements of ANSI/ISA-84.00.01-2004 (IEC 61511 Mod). Specifically, our personnel can assist in evaluating the need for a safety instrumented function (SIF), evaluating potential system architectures and analyzing the SIS to determine its predicted performance, from both a risk reduction and reliability standpoint. Learn how to design, specify and evaluate performance of SIFs within a safety instrumented system in our Safety Integrity Level training course or request access to our Safeguard Protection Analysis webinar.
Human Factors Engineering
ABS Group's multidisciplinary human factors engineering (HFE) subject matter experts strive to be the world-leading focal point resource for HFE analyses and support. We help industries with highly complex operations conduct analyses, simulations training and forensic investigations, helping them reduce and mitigate hazards, failures and economic losses from human error. Integrating HFE design practices and principles can result in facilities, installations and assets that are more cost-effective, safer and easier to operate and maintain.
Emergency Management
We can perform a comprehensive review of your organization's existing emergency plans, policies, standard operating procedures and protocols to better understand how the organization responds to and recovers from accidents, disasters and emergencies. Using standardized data collection templates, we will verify that all appropriate data are collected to assist with defining the roles, responsibilities and actions necessary to prepare for an event, mitigate its impact, respond when it occurs and recover when the event has ended. Standard hazard identification and risk assessment methods are used to define the hazards and vulnerabilities associated with a variety of onshore and offshore assets.
EMERGENCY SERVICES INCLUDE:
- Establishing performance criteria and measures
- Developing and auditing emergency preparedness plans
- Educating crisis management teams
- Corporation crisis management
- Emergency preparedness exercises, table top sessions in-house or field simulations
- Emergency management training in our modeling and simulation training center
Health, Safety and Environment
ABS Group is committed to helping you reduce risk, increase safety, secure regulatory compliance and improve health, safety and environmental (HSE) performance. Our holistic approach to HSE considers the complex interaction between technological, human and organizational factors so we can provide you with the total risk picture. This knowledge allows organizations to drive positive performance while safeguarding personnel, assets and the environment. We can also assist you with gap assessments and auditing your HSE plan for compliance to codes, standards, regulations and best practices.
Hazard Identification
Hazard analysis is the first and, in many ways, the most important step in a risk assessment. If a hazard is not identified, its contribution to the risk cannot be estimated. Only those hazards that are identified are likely to be controlled with any confidence. Our experts use a variety of methods such as HAZID, HAZOP, FMEA, what-if and checklists, as well as software solutions such as THESIS BowTie™ for risk management and LEADER™ for process hazard analysis, to efficiently and systematically identify workplace hazards. We also teach courses on how to identify workplace hazards, enabling employees to better understand and control the dangers in the workplace.
Safety Culture Assessment and Training
An effective safety culture is one in which people do the right thing, all the time, even when no one is watching. To drive this level of performance, factors like management beliefs, values, myths and company policies and procedures must be aligned and reinforce those values. Responding to unsafe behavior with corrective actions and activities like training and communication that build employee involvement and buy-in are powerful influences that strengthen an organization's safety culture.
ABS Group has assessed a diverse range of corporate safety cultures in a variety of facilities, including onshore and offshore operations. In these assessments, we apply a standard set of organizational attributes to measure safety culture effectiveness. We combine surveys and interviews with physical reviews of documented performance to compare perceptions with practice. Based on these findings, we can develop training programs that increase process safety knowledge and help build a sustainable safety culture at all levels of an organization.
Safety and Environmental Management Systems (SEMS)
The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement's (BOEMRE) regulation 30 CFR 250 requires offshore owners, operators and contractors to implement a Safety and Environmental Management System (SEMS). From developing SEMS metrics to providing an annual review of your SEMS program, ABS Group offers these customized services to help you comply with the mandatory requirement:
- GAP analysis and upgrade of existing HSE, ISM or API RP 75 program to comply with SEMS (operators, drillers and contractors)
- SEMS implementation plan and effort/cost estimate
- Design and develop a written SEMS policy, program and associated procedures
- Third party audit of SEMS compliance
- SEMS element implementation assistance
- Integrate SEMS compliance with classification and ISM certificate process
- Integrate SEMS compliance into offshore capital project management process
Expert Witness
ABS Group has numerous registrations with internationally recognized entities, governments, trade associations and professional societies. Our Safety, Risk and Compliance engineers can serve as expert witnesses, attesting to the compliance of regulatory safety requirements, best practices for maintaining safety, the quality of safety management systems, typical industrial hazards in high-performance assets, safety culture and appropriate methods for investigating an accident.
Technical Advisory
We have a variety of technical and regulatory specialists on staff who are familiar with every aspect of assessing and managing safety in industrial environments. Our technical advisors typically have more than 25 years of field experience, which enables us to provide proven solutions to your safety and risk issues. We also work closely with technical committees, industry groups and federal regulators, which informs our depth of understanding for how to guide you through the regulatory compliance process.
Related Services
Risk Management
We provide a number of techniques to identify and analyze hazards, including utilizing the THESIS BowTie™ Software 6.3 standalone and THESIS™ Enterprise software solutions. These tools enable companies to manage hazards locally and across the corporation as well as demonstrate compliance clearly across all levels.
Contact a THESIS™ specialist to learn more.
Incident Investigation and RCA
We are an experienced, trusted provider of comprehensive incident investigation and root cause analysis (RCA) services. We can manage your overall organizational response–leading the cause analysis effort, providing scene management and interfacing with regulatory and legal stakeholders. Need help now? Call our Rapid Response number, 1-331-303-2272, or email us at iirca@absconsulting.com.
- Incident Response Services
- Evidence Collection and Forensic Analysis
- Toxic Exposure Assessment