Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 25 (2012) 768e769
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Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jlp
A journey into Process Safety with Trevor Kletz
Richard Gowland
European Process Safety Centre (EPSC), United Kingdom
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: I offer a personal perspective on the Process Safety contributions of Trevor Kletz and how his lessons
Received 28 March 2012 have helped shaped both my career and my own views on the topic.
Accepted 28 March 2012
Keywords:
Trevor Kletz
Process Safety
Inherent Safety
Dow Indexes
HAZOP
LOPA
In 1976, I was a Production Superintendent in a large pesticides
production facility in the Dow Chemical Company. Operating safely
was a fundamental precept in everything we did. We did not always
get it right and I was a novice when it came to Safety and Loss
Prevention. I relied on the advice of a traditional Safety Officer
whose approach to Occupational Safety was inspirational.
However, Process Safety as a concept was something I knew to be
important, but was ill-equipped to manage effectively. Two things
happened to get my attention. Dow released the first version of its
Fire and Explosion Index (F & EI) and someone called Trevor Kletz
began to infiltrate my life with messages about Process Safety
and techniques such as Hazard and Operability study which were
news to me.
I was immediately motivated to understand and adopt what was
on offer. Typically for an engineer who often seems to fall into the
trap of ‘if all else fails, read the instructions’ I began to use these
tools without being well-trained. Over the next few years, my
career moved into new technology introduction. At the same time,
Trevor was infiltrating my world still further. This time it was with
the principles of ‘Inherent Safety’. At the time, the processes I was
looking at seemed to set new records in the field of exotic chemistry
using very toxic and unstable materials. It seemed that the Inherent
Safety principles could not be applied since we were prisoners of
the chemistry routes available.
Then the Bhopal tragedy occurred. One of the reactions of the
Dow Chemical Company was to develop the Chemical Exposure
E-mail address: rgowland-epsc@icheme.org.uk.
0950-4230/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jlp.2012.03.012
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Index (CEI). This directly assessed the risks associated with the loss
of containment of toxic substances. Again, I adopted the CEI, but
was not impressed with the first version which seemed to me to be
insufficiently ‘scientific’ with little consideration of the effect on
dispersion of the released materials’ physical properties.
One of the articles on Bhopal which I read at the time was
written by Trevor Kletz. His talent for exposing the root issues on
process design and plant operation in a simple and actionable way
prepared me for what was next to happen in my career.
I was offered the opportunity to move into Process Safety and to
create a new structure of risk assessment in Dow Europe. Every-
thing I had learned informally about Process Safety by following the
work of Trevor Kletz now became both a resource and a challenge.
Now I need to be trained properly. Trevor told me to go to trainers
at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
(UMIST). This was a great help and we continued to use this
resource to train our engineers.
It was simple enough to gain approval for the structural use of
HAZOP in projects and existing facilities. What was more chal-
lenging was the concept of Inherent Safety. The comments I
encountered usually fell into the category of ‘that’s very interesting
but we’re stuck with the process and its chemistry’. So the tools we
were using consolidated around the Fire and Explosion Index,
Chemical Exposure Index and HAZOP. Once we had a better version
of the Chemical Exposure Index, we quickly realised that these two
Indexes could be used to screen for higher risks so that we could
apply HAZOP in a selective way on projects and facilities which had
the higher consequences for process upsets and loss of contain-
ment. It was at around that time that daylight dawned on my search
for a key to Inherent Safety. It was noticeable that our new and
 R. Gowland / Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 25 (2012) 768e769
modification projects were exhibiting lower Fire and Explosion and
Chemical Exposure Indexes as the messages in Inherent Safety
entered the psyche. It became clear that the Indexes were useful
measures of Inherent Safety.
Dow was involved at that time with the International Process
Safety Group. This industry led group was committed to promoting
Inherently Safer Design. As Dow’s delegate on the group, I was
asked to lead a team to produce a training package on Inherently
Safer Design. This task took about 2 years and proved to be
a learning experience which influenced the rest of my career. We
took liberties with the principles which Trevor had originated by
suggesting how they might be achieved and we even substituted
the word ‘moderate’ for ‘attenuate’ to allow easier understanding.
The resulting work was recognised by the award of the Institution
of Chemical Engineers Franklin medal.
Back in the plants the risk management process was refined
further and HAZOP continued to play an essential role. Even
Inherently Safer Design was effectively practised by the use of the
two Dow Indexes.
769
In the 1990s we saw the emergence of sophisticated risk
assessment methods and standards for hardware and software
design in conformance with standards such as IEC 61511. As one
more tool, we adopted Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) which
seemed to fit well as a follow-on from our HAZOP studies. This
observation remains true today as I work part time for EPSC in what
I thought was ‘retirement’. Meanwhile, Trevor has not stood still. He
has helped us all understand our responsibilities and tasks with the
publication of books and pamphlets and re-issue of the Institution
of Chemical Engineers Loss Prevention Bulletins and continued
observations and lectures on very up-to-date incidents and the
challenges we all face.
A specific area of work illustrates the benefits of Trevor’s work.
Inherently Safer Design and HAZOP show up all the time as part of
or adjuncts to LOPA. The best lead-in I know for LOPA is HAZOP.
Trevor’s work remains highly influential and I cannot imagine
any Process Safety Specialist who can get by without using Trevor’s
tools and admiring the huge contribution to making our industry
safer.