The Good, the Bad and the Ugly- Importance of Management of Change (MOC) in Building Siting

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Process Safety Management (PSM) standard, Management of Change (MOC) is required by companies when any changes (e.g., equipment, procedures, staffing or buildings) are made to facilities containing highly hazardous and reactive chemicals. Several incident investigations conducted by the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) over recent years have identified root causes of catastrophic accidents usually have some element of improper or ineffective change management. Although many companies have mature MOC programs which include building siting, there is still some uncertainty as to the effectiveness of their process. This paper will mainly focus on the importance of MOCs related to building siting and presents industry examples of good and bad practices.