Synergy Journey Phase 1 Process Safety and Culture Assessment
A major producer of polypropylene relied on deep operational experience to maintain its strong safety performance, achieving over 17 million safe work hours in 2020. However, leadership recognised that the nature of polypropylene production—high temperatures, pressures, energy, and hazardous materials—carries inherent risks with potentially catastrophic consequences. They set out to fuel growth by synergising insights and action around safety.
The Challenge
Despite a solid track record, the absence of incidents could not be treated as predictive. The client needed a more systematic, future‑proof approach to managing process risks while improving the capabilities and culture of the operations team.
Formalising process safety management and improving the process safety culture across the organisation would help ensure consistent, sustainable, and integrated safety practices that go beyond operational experience to address the full spectrum of process safety hazards.
The dss+ facilitated a workshop to align senior leadership on the need to advance process safety management.
The dss+ Approach
dss+ facilitated a workshop to align senior leadership on the need to advance process safety management.
Next, the dss+ team conducted a process safety assessment to identify opportunities for improvement. This included a review of existing systems and practices to manage process safety risks on site, as well as an evaluation of the overall safety culture to support system implementation.
As the final part of the assessment phase, dss+ engaged the senior management team to better understand prevailing operational realities and the culture on the ground. During this session, dss+ facilitated the creation of a process safety vision for the client and co-developed a multi-year process safety transformation roadmap that would drive toward process safety and risk management excellence.
Impact
Together, our client and dss+ identified four process safety management initiatives, including:
- Risk containment to mitigate catastrophic incidents
- Development of leadership and frontline operational risk management competencies
- Technical and capability enhancement around process safety management
- Governance, integration, and accountability for strengthening safe operations
A three-year process safety management transformation roadmap outlined how these initiatives would proceed.
Leadership Perspective: Voice from Senior Manager
“I am surprised by the operational reality shown in the assessment. This assessment helped us understand the current state of how we manage process safety risk and the cultural perception of the frontline team to help us plan for improvements.”
- Senior Manager
Discover all 2 phases of the project.
Phase 1: Process Safety and Culture Assessment