CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS VOL. 56, 2017 A publication of The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering Online at www.aidic.it/cet Guest Editors: Jiří Jaromír Klemeš, Peng Yen Liew, Wai Shin Ho, Jeng Shiun Lim Copyright © 2017, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l., ISBN 978-88-95608-47-1; ISSN 2283-9216 Analysis of Main Accident Contributor according to Process Safety Management Elements Failure Harris Tarmimi Abu Bakar a , Piong Han Siong a , Chin Koy Yan a , Kamarizan Kidam* ,a,b , Mohamad Wijayanuddin Ali a,b , Mimi H. Hassim a,b , Hamidah Kamarden a a Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Chemical & Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia b Center of Hydrogen Energy, Institute of Future Energy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia kamarizan@utm.my Process safety management (PSM) covers the aspect of process hazard identification, understanding the level of risk and hazard reduction to prevent process-related failures. The need for understanding on how the process safety elements fail is essential in improving the quality of the accidents prevention effort. In this paper, the contributions of PSM element to chemical process accident are studied using major process failures in the chemical process industry (CPI). Around 770 major accident cases were collected and analysed from several accident data base such as Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB-US), European Major Accident Reporting System (EMARS), Failure Knowledge Database (FKD-Japan) and Accident Reporting Information Analysis (ARIA). The PSM element failures were ranked in accordance to their frequency and importance in accident prevention. Based on the result, majority of the element failure is classified as design and technical reasons (53 % of total process failures) and the rest is related to management related causes (47 %). The most common accident contributors were identified to be the process hazards analysis (19 % of total process failures), operating procedures (17 %), employee participation (12 %), training (11 %), management of change (9 %), mechanical integrity (9 %), and permit to work (9 %). In depth, analysis on individual PSM elements were made for better understanding on their readiness and its implementation issues in the CPI. Appropriate suggestion for continuous improvement of PSM implementation will also be suggested. 1. Introduction Modernisation in industrial sector with more sophisticated machinery and equipment has create a new hazard if it is not handle with proper approach and management of failure. The trend of accident rate shows a fluctuation trend while manufacturing sector is still recording the highest trend each year (DOSH, 2016). In Malaysia, Process Safety Management (PSM) is not exactly a new agenda, but the implementation of PSM is only voluntary and there is still no evidence of execution enforcement towards implementation. PSM covers the aspect of process hazard identification, understanding the level of risk and hazard reduction to prevent process- related failures (Amyotte, 2007). While some of the company from another section of the world are trying to implement PSM based on their corporate requirement, meanwhile in Malaysia, the awareness of PSM is still very low among our local industries since we are still focusing and grooming the industrial player about the occupational safety and health (OSH) approach instead of PSM. When the industries are more focus on OSH practices as compared to PSM, there will be room for failure such as failure of asset integrity and reliability, weak process safety culture and other process safety failure. We can claim in this scenario that Malaysia are still quite behind in implementing PSM and the knowledge are still very low as compare to United Kingdom, United States and European section which is the result of the lack of research about PSM in Malaysia that make it hard to be implemented in the industries. Analysis of the individual PSM elements in terms of its contribution to the accidents in chemical process industry (CPI) will make a better understanding and preparation of the PSM implementation in Malaysia. DOI: 10.3303/CET1756166 Please cite this article as: Abu Bakar H.T., Siong P.H., Yan C.K., Kidam K., Ali M.W., Hassim M.H., Kamarden H., 2017, Analysis of main accident contributor according to process safety management elements failure, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 56, 991-996 DOI:10.3303/CET1756166 991