Safety was often top of mind at this year’s Honeywell Users Group (HUG) Americas Symposium in Phoenix, brought up several times throughout the week and emphasized in the many of the new launches. “Safety’s important to you; safety is absolutely essential to us,” said Darius Adamczyk, president of Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS), during his industry perspective presentation Monday morning. “We’re very proud of our record, which is substantially below industry rates. It’s a record that’s very important for us.”
Unfortunately, on a broader scale, industry seems to be getting complacent about safety. Pulling up a graphic looking at the fatal work injury rate, Adamczyk showed that industrial safety has now plateaued after years of improvement. “My guess is that it’s actually getting worse and not better,” he said.
It becomes an issue of small-numbers math, says Frank Whitsura, vice president and general manager, process and automation solutions, for HPS. “You can lull yourself into thinking you’re safe,” he says. As it turns out in refineries, for example, the biggest indicator of a safety incident is no incident. “People get lulled into complacence.”
When Adamczyk speaks of safety, he considers security—and cybersecurity—part of that equation. There needs to be a pretty big awakening within industry on both points, he said in a separate interview. “It’s not just process safety, but overall plant safety,” he said.
Potential intrusions on a plant are important considerations, particularly in less politically stable countries. So a decision to take a plant to a safer state should involve both safety and security concerns. Depending on geography, Adamczyk said, “the line between safety and security becomes really small.”
When it comes to cybersecurity, in particular, nobody is immune. American businesses have already lost some $400 billion due to cyber attacks, Adamczyk said. These aren't just special cases like Stuxnet, where Iran's nuclear program was specifically targeted; much of it is just everyday information hacking or simply employee sloppiness.
Given the criticality of many of the facilities represented at the Honeywell Users Group, cybersecurity is something everyone needs to be thinking more about. "I think this is an area, frankly, that we’re under-addressing," Adamczyk said. "I hope it doesn’t take a big crisis to get people to invest and protect their facilities."
Jason Urso, HPS's chief technology officer, reiterated security's relation to the whole safety question while introducing the company's latest cybersecurity-related products. "I urge each of you to start treating cybersecurity the same that you do process safety," he said.
Honeywell previewed the Cyber Security Dashboard during HUG week. Designed to help simplify the task of keeping automation systems up to date with cybersecurity requirements, the dashboard consolidates all data onto a single view for better visibility, and makes it easy to drill down to more detailed content. Alerts will advise personnel when they need to update antivirus protection, manage patches, and take care of other ongoing network security-related tasks.
According to data from the ASM Consortium, 42% of process incidents are linked to improper operation or action, Urso said.
Part of improving operator competence comes down to alarm management—getting the number of standing alarms down to the recommended nine. “When you need operators to make excellent decisions, they’re simply overwhelmed by alarm floods,” Urso said. Honeywell takes a systematic approach to alarm management, he added. “We help you manage alarms over the lifecycle. Operational alarms stay consistent with engineered alarms.
Safety issues are exacerbated by the loss of key skills that come along with the aging of the workforce and employee retention issues, Adamczyk added. "We still know that operator error is the No. 1 cause of safety issues," he said.
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