When the “Walk the Line” process safety practice was introduced by AFPM in 2015, industry evaluations indicated that approximately 30 percent of process safety events occurred because valves or “bleeders” were being left open during execution of various procedures at industrial facilities.
Since that time, Walk the Line has proven to be highly efficient in reducing the number and impact of these bleeders.
During a panel discussion at the 2021 Texas-Louisiana EHS Seminar and Virtual Expo, LyondellBasell’s Lawrence Moreaux shared that while there are various aspects to the Walk the Line process, it is especially efficient when verifying open bleeds.
“You can see elements of shift handover and definitely having good critical bleed management processes for our systems,” said Moreaux, who is site manager for LyondellBasell’s Chocolate Bayou facility. “But more importantly, [Walk the Line] is not just the physical walk; it’s actually making sure that you have independent verification. Sometimes that other set of eyes can be a ‘buddy system.’”
Equally important to Walk the Line evaluations, Moreaux said, is how a facility’s management system is set up.
“Throughout the industry, we really focus on what this could look like for operating discipline, and that it’s more than just the physical walk, although we should never minimize that,” he explained. “It’s important to put our eyes on each bleed, verify which process and instrument diagrams (P and IDs) are definitely good, walk down systems where you can highlight P and IDs, and/or use the latest technology.”
Moreaux noted that tablets or other technology are valuable in completing those types of verifications.
“It’s a combination of field walks, verification of management systems, audit practices and those kinds of systems,” he said.
Avoid ‘normalizing deviance’
Co-panelist Jerry Forest, senior director of process safety for Celanese, pointed out some of the challenges he and his company faced as they implemented and continue to maintain their Walk the Line system, including how paying attention to shift change and operator evaluation rounds are integral.
“How are we doing shift handover? Are we talking about the things that we want them to talk about? Are they doing it in a place that’s conducive to two-way communication, and so forth?” Forest asked.
“It’s actually real common to get front-line supervisors to kind of cross their arms and say, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah - we do that here,’” Forest said. “I would bet [most people] can go into your control room at your company, find an evaluation round where it has a range of zero to 20, and the operator has written down ‘30’ on the column for the last year. So they’re operating outside of the intended range. On evaluation rounds, if you allow that to happen, you’re normalizing deviance, and it just destroys the culture of operational discipline.”
Forest said Walk the Line tools addresses this challenge.
“This Walk the Line model says that whenever you make these tools, you can’t just throw them over the fence at an operator and say, ‘Go forth and do it,’ and then never evaluate it. That’s like having a piece of equipment and not doing inspection testing and preventive maintenance on it,” he said.
When operators are given tools, there must be a level engineering discipline to evaluate the effectiveness of the tool, Forest continued.
“And then, based on the results of this engineering discipline of the evaluation tools, we then go in to planning and say, ‘How can we be more effective with the tool and then modify it to be more effective?’,” he added.
Recognizing this “underlying philosophy of incorporating operating, engineering and management disciplines and continuous improvement” helps organizations overcome these barriers, Forest concluded.
