Process Quality Issues as Warning Signs for Future Catastrophes

While process quality problems are undesirable, they are typically more prevalent than Process safety events – releases, fires and explosions. If properly analyzed, process quality issues and operational difficulties can be indicators of potential failures. These failures may be caused by equipment, process or administrative problems.

This paper will use a simple exothermic batch reactor system to demonstrate the issues that can be detected if the quality failure is properly understood. It will also show how metrics on the equipment can be reviewed, analyzed and corrective action taken to prevent both the quality issues and the more serious process upsets.