World Steel Association holds workshop on process safety management

On the occasion of the World Steel Association’s “Steel Safety Day” on April 28, the World Steel Association (WSA) held an international seminar on “Process Safety Management” in Beijing on April 23, 2021, to deepen Chinese companies’ awareness of safety work and to manage process safety more efficiently. To deepen the awareness of Chinese companies on safety work and to manage process safety more efficiently, the World Steel Association held an international seminar on “Process Safety Management” in Beijing on April 23, 2021. The conference was held in a combination of online and offline formats and was attended by 40 representatives from more than 10 companies, including Baowu Steel Group, HISCO, Shougang Group, Baosteel Group, CITIC Special Steel, Hualing Group, VAMA, Shagang, Jianlong, New Tiangang, Hasko, Tata Steel, and Minas Gerais Steel.

　　Process Safety Management (PSM) is a mixture of operational, engineering, and management skills focused on preventing catastrophic accidents and attempted accidents, especially explosions, fires, structural collapses, and destructive releases associated with energy loss or loss of hazardous substances such as molten metals, fuels, and chemicals. The measures required to control these hazards are often complex, and process safety management focuses not only on protecting people within a company but also on the environment, assets, and surrounding communities. In this seminar, we have invited relevant experts to share and discuss the differences between personal safety and process safety, hazard identification and risk analysis, prevention and mitigation barriers, and the effectiveness of barriers.

The World Steel Association held an international seminar on “Process Safety Management” in Beijing on April 23, 2021

The morning seminar started with a presentation on the impact of the epidemic on the steel industry by Zhong Shaoliang, Chief Representative of the World Steel Association Beijing Representative Office.

World Steel Association holds workshop on process safety management

Ms. Zhang Limei, Safety Director from China Baowu Group, shared a presentation entitled “Developing Smart Maintenance Tooling to Reduce Risks and Improve Efficiency”, which was shortlisted for the 2019 World Steel Association Award for Excellence in Safety and Occupational Health.

　　Wang Shang, Safety Director of HISCO, introduced how HISCO conducts safety management in the face of plant relocation and restructuring.

　　Wang Xianhua, President of Wuhan Safety and Environment Institute of Sinosteel, made a presentation entitled “Application of HAZOP on Crude Benzene Distillation System of a Coking Gas Purification Project”.

　　The report of Luo Tengfei, a representative of HASCO, was “Journey of EHS Culture”, focusing on the challenges faced by safety culture in enterprises.

　　The special report of He Xiangui, head of the safety department of Valin-ArcelorMittal Automotive Sheet (VAMA), “Guiding all employees to participate voluntarily – Realizing process safety foresight and pre-control”, specifically mentioned that the company conducts monthly safety hazard inspection for all employees and guides all employees to participate voluntarily, which is fully in line with the practice advocated by the World Steel Association Safety Production Day campaign.

　　Mr. Fernando Teixeira, Chairman of VAMA, attaches great importance to safety work and attended this seminar personally. As the top leader of VAMA, Mr. Fernando expressed his safety message to the steel industry.

　　”Safety is only yes and no, there is no middle ground, and there is no room for any fluke. Only through the deep involvement of managers to establish higher safety standards from top to bottom, can the company realize the transition of all employees from relying on supervision to independent and autonomous safety management stage, and continuously maintain the safety goal of “zero” injury accidents, and finally achieve the level of teamwork safety management stage.”

　　The afternoon presentation was conducted by video, with Carlos Martinez, Project Manager for Process Safety at World Steel, highlighting the specific work carried out by World Steel in the area of process safety, and visiting researcher Rensheng Chu introducing the process safety management maturity analysis tool used by World Steel to the participants. Mr. Kumaer Varun from Tata Steel presented the company’s project “Digitization of Process Safety Performance Indicators (PSPI) for Better Performance Outcomes”, which won the 2019 Excellence in Safety and Occupational Health Award, and Mr. Jan Hoenselaar, also from Tata Steel, presented the company’s barrier management in process safety management. Antonio Neves from Minas Gerais Steel, Brazil, presented the company’s process safety management efforts in the mining sector.

　　Creating a safe and healthy working environment for all employees is the primary responsibility of every company. To achieve the goal of zero accidents in the workplace, the World Steel Association has developed a series of activities, and the Safe Work seminars help steel companies to best achieve this through face-to-face discussions and exchanges between safety experts. In the future, we will continue to hold special safe work seminars to enhance the steel industry’s understanding of the causes of safety accidents through conference exchanges and to improve the safety of the working environment throughout the steel industry worldwide.