Permit-to-Work

Training
Scope
 This training shall focus on
 Emphasising the need and philosophy of the PtW
 Make you aware of areas of the PtW process that
require extra attention
 Provide an opportunity to raise questions and get
answers

Purpose
To ensure:
All work activities, hazards and precautions are defined prior to the
execution of the work
proper planning and consideration
communication between installation management, supervisors and
operators and those who carry out the work.
Monitoring and auditing to ensure safe system of works.
PtW signatory refresher training 2
Kenyan legislation
 Kenya Occupational Health and Safety Act 2007

 96. (1) An employer shall issue a permit to work to any employee,

likely to be exposed to hazardous work processes or hazardous working
environment, including such work processes as the maintenance and
repair of boilers, dock work, confined spaces, and the maintenance of
machinery and equipment, electrical energy installations, indicating
the necessary precautions to be taken.

(2) In this section ‘permit to work’ means a written notice, which sets
out the work to be done, the hazards involved and the precautions to
be taken before the work commences in order to secure the safety
and health of the employee.

Refer also to Piper Alpha Incident where 167 people died

While a PTW by its simplicity implies permissionQ1to2008

carry out 3a hazardous
job, the issuance ??
Why a PtW system
 The Permit-to-Work process can be described as
managing the interface between
 The workplace and its specific conditions, hazards and risks,
and
 The job that has to be carried out, with its own hazards and
risks.
 Managing this interface is
 Very much on sharing of information (communication)
 Getting agreements (communication)
 Formalising the agreements (writing down and signing on PtW)
 Ensuring compliance
trainingRemember :
PtW signatory refresher

This is a legal document.

When you sign it,
you can be held responsible
if something goes wrong Q1 2008 4
 GENERAL FEATURES OF A PTW FORM

Permit title and number

•Location of job and plant identification

•Description of work

Permit to Work –Essential Elements

•Hazards and precautions

•Authorisation and acceptance
•Extension / handover / hand-back
•Cancellation

trainingRemember :
PtW signatory refresher

This is a legal document.

When you sign it,
you can be held responsible
PtW signatory refresher training if something goes wrong Q1 2008 5
 What work requires Permit?
Mis-conception that the PTW system should control all of
the work carried out at a facility can lead to an overload
of the PTW system, which prevents proper attention
given to activities with a higher hazard potential.

1. PTW is appropriate to non-routine activities which may

require some form of Job Safety Analysis prior to work
commencing. Basically high risk activities
2. PTW is required for Maintenance work carried out by
Technical plant operators if it requires positive isolation
of plant.
3. Use a PTW when two or more groups of people (different
groups), need to co-ordinate their activities to ensure
that their work is completed safely.
PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 6
 Work Not require a Permit
Routine Normal Maintenance and production
plant operations; all carried out in accordance
with site approved procedures

Where this is identified on fixed lists approved by

The Terminal Manager.

If it is carried out in an area specified on an

installation layout drawing, approved by Terminal
Manager

Visual inspection of areas e.g going round the

plant area (except in confined spaces).
PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 7
Communication
Workplace Preparation Job

ASI ACCS AA AE

FPS
PtW Issuance

ACCS AJP
Job execution SUPERVISION

Operations Workforce
PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 8

8
Communication
 Communication is a 2-way process
 When you speak, the other must listen
 When you have finished speaking, the other should recap
the essential aspects of the speech
 When the other has finished his recap, you must confirm
that that was correct
 Real life example
 Requester: “Open valve BULLET 101”
 Answer: “Opening VALVE BULLET 103”
 Requester: “OK”
 Question: what went wrong?

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 9

Hierarchy in Permits-to-Work
A JSA / Task Risk Assessment is to be done for all
jobs.
 A Clearance Certificate for every job; and that is
sufficient for low risk and low complexity jobs
 A Safety Permit for any job with some additional
risks
 A Job Safety Analysis for any job with higher risks
or unknown risk
 A Fire Permit for any job with open fire, Confined
Space Entry, or when a JSA was required

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 10

 JOB SAFETY ANALYSIS / TASK RISK ASSESSMENT

Technique for investigating hazards within a task:

•Break the job down into simple steps

•List the steps in a logical sequence

•List the steps in a logical sequence

•Examine each step for potential hazards

The objective is to remove the hazards if possible

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 11

Permit to Work –Essential Elements
Permit title and number
•Location of job and plant identification
•Description of work

Permit to Work –Essential Elements

•Hazards and precautions
•Authorisation and acceptance
•Extension / handover / hand-back
•Cancellation

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 12

Responsibilities AE
ARI
AA
ACCS
Etc.

ASI
FPS
2.AE

1.AA

3.AJP
PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 13
Roles and Responsibilities - 1
Most important roles and responsibilities
 Generic
 AA:

 Initiates the PtW process, describes the requested work,

assesses the hierarchy of PtW conjointly with ACCS, selects,
assigns and briefs the AJP for the job
 In case of Safety Permit: initiates the Safety Permit, initiates
a conjointly workplace visit / inspection with AE, ASI, ACCS
and AJP
 In case of JSA: initiates the JSA meeting, including invitation
to FPS
 Confirms readiness of engineering precautions

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 14

Roles and Responsibilities - 2
Most important roles and responsibilities – (contd)
 Generic
 AE:
 Describes work method and engineering precautions, and
certifies equipment to be used
 Reviews the JSA
 ASI:
 Reviews the JSA
 Describes precautions from process/utilities point of view to
be taken by operations and by AJP
 Confirms readiness of precautions taken by operations, which
may require gas testing at the end of the preparations

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 15

Roles and Responsibilities - 3
Most important roles and responsibilities - (contd)
 Generic
 ACCS:
 Decides conjointly with the AA on the hierarchy of PtW
 Confirms having understood all precautions as defined by
earlier signatories
 Visits the workplace with AJP and confirms that all prescribed
precautions have been taken
 Briefs fully the AJP and confirms that the AJP has understood
all aspects of the briefing
 Gives permission to AJP to carry out the work by issuing the
Clearance Certificate

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 16

Roles and Responsibilities - 4
Most important roles and responsibilities - (contd)
 Generic
 AJP:
 Declares having understood all aspects of the briefings from
AA and ACCS
 Declares to ensure adherence with all prescribed precautions
by his workforce
 Shall abort the job immediately when any relevant condition
changes, and report to ACCS and AA
 This demands from the AJP to be permanently on the job
 FPS:
 In case of Fire Permit: gets full briefing from ASI and assesses
the adequacy of the precautions; permits the execution of the
work
 In case of JSA: is invited and shall participate at his own
discretion

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 17

Roles and Responsibilities - 5
Most important roles and responsibilities - (contd)
 Specific
 Gas Testing:
 Executes any required gas tests upon request of ACCS, prior to
daily commencement of the work, and at any other time as
per ACCS’s request

 Authorised Engineer:
 Execute required electrical isolations/de-isolations as per PtW
and Isolation Certificate descriptions

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 18

Two partners in the scene
 Ultimately only two partners control thoroughly
the safe execution of the job
 ACCS, who factually permits the work by issuing the PtW
and
 AJP, who supervises permanently the execution and local
conditions
 All other stakeholders in the PtW-process are
providing – often essential – information to the ACCS
and AJP to enable them to execute the
abovementioned control
 Apart from providing information, they also have an
important role in confirming adequacy by supervision

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 19

Supervision
 Throughout the PtW procedure most signatories
have responsibilities to “Ensure …”
 That requires from each of them to exert supervision

How much, how frequent?

 As frequently as is needed to confirm compliance:

 Increase the frequency when experience shows regular
deficiencies, and address the source of the deficiencies
 Reduce the frequency when no deficiencies are observed
But keep always a pre-defined minimum level of supervision

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 20

Gas testing procedures
 ASI identifies the gas testing requirements
 Explosive atmosphere, toxicity, oxygen deficiency or
enrichment
 Considerations
 What is the gas generation scenario
 How long is the gas test validity, is continuous monitoring
required
 ASI executes initial gas tests to confirm operational
readiness of the worksite/equipment
 AGT executes regular/daily gas test prior work
commencement upon ACCS request

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 21

Procedures
 Relevant documents associated with PTW
 Method Statement
 JSA
 Tool box talk
 Gas test results
 Checklists
 Work Instructions
 Some activities require a Rescue Plan or a Mitigation
Plan to be drafted for the activity (e.g. Confined Space
Entry (at times will be attached or be part of JSA)

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 22

Ambiguous hazards
 But neither one of the PtW signatories should
narrow down his field of vision too much to his own
area of attention
 Hazards sometimes cannot be classified unambiguously
under “Engineering” or “Operational”

So, identify

 The gaps between “Engineering” and “Operational”

hazards
Help the other partner in the process

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 23

… and what does that tell us?
 That only telling people “Behave safely” or “Take
care” is not sufficient
 We must do that, and that is what Tool box talks and
Weekly Risk Assessment are for
 Supervisor, how often do you challenge performers in the field
with the questions
 “When did you do your last “SAWA AUDIT / OBSERVATION CARD”,
and what did you observe?”

 Make the working conditions & working

environment safe
 Many precautions on the PtW are there to reduce the
chance of that human error

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 24

Accident prevention

 Accident prevention is all about

 Recognising hazards and threats that can release these
hazards
 Recognising the effects when these hazards are released
(incident, consequences)
 And to bring in barriers to prevent the incident (controls) or
to mitigate the consequences (recovery measures)

Keep that in mind when you identify precautions on the

Permit to Work

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 25

And one barrier ≠ sufficient

 As the world is not perfect, our

precautions and measures sometimes will
fail
 Try to be comprehensive by thinking of the
“unthinkable”
but
 Don’t over-evaluate your skills and don’t be
too optimistic, put more barriers in place

Remember that almost every incident had

several barriers that failed
PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 26
All barriers breached …
Threat C = Control RM = Recovery Measure Consequence
R
C
M
C R
M
R
C
M

R R R
Threat C C C
Conse- Consequence
Event M M M
quence

R
C M
R
C
M
R
C Incident with M
Consequence(s)
Threat
PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 27 Consequence
In other words …

 are imperfect, and show holes

Barriers
(escalation factors)
 When the holes align, you have an
incident

so

 Try to identify how your well-intended

barrier can fail, and take appropriate
action
PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 28
… the holes getting aligned
Clear ACCS instructions

Competent AJP
PtW poorly completed

Unit operator isolates

New AJP equipment

JSA completed
One valve missed

JSA not read by

workcrew

EXPLOSION
!!!!!!!!

PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 29

Optimising Safety

 Together we can make our working environment safer

Thank you,
be Safe
PtW signatory refresher training Q1 2008 30