Improving Operations Leaders’ PSM Decision Making

Operations and maintenance leaders are frequently confronted with challenging Process Safety Management (PSM) decisions. Too often, leaders do not possess the necessary data or context to form an accurate, real-time picture, making their decision-making duties even more difficult—often leading to sub-optimal decisions.

Enabling more accurate, more effective data collection can feel impossible for operations and management leaders. During a recent process safety conference, 34 participants, mostly from the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, shared their views regarding why their leaders often struggle to make critical decisions. The following is a summary of a couple of questions we posed and subsequent feedback:

Question 1: “Do your leaders struggle to get a realistic view of their unit’s performance?”

71% of respondents answered ‘yes.’ When asked why they felt their leaders struggled to achieve a realistic view of their unit’s performance:

• 40% answered ‘conflict between short-, medium-, and long-term objectives’
• 28% answered ‘poor metrics definition, collection, and presentation’
• 24% answered ‘organizational filters / personal agendas’

In addition to gathering good data, it takes leadership skills and experience to evaluate options and make high-quality decisions based on the data available—because not all decisions are equally impactful.

Question 2: What type of decisions do your leaders have the most difficulty making?

• 29% answered ‘responding to metrics’
• 29% answered ‘decisions that have cost and/or reputational implications’
• 15% answered ‘emergency/urgent situations; production and safety at the same time’
• 15% answered ‘acceptance of recommendations’

Question 3: What suggestions can you make to your leaders to help improve decision-making?

• 31% answered ‘go to the field and see with your own eyes’
• 31% answered ‘get the data you truly need in as timely a way as possible’
• 28% answered ‘ask the right questions to a diverse group of people’

The data shows that operations and maintenance leaders frequently face challenging PSM decisions that impact safety, production, costs, and people—and that quality, data-driven decision-making is essential for successfully achieving process safety goals and metrics.

The Operational Sustainability^® OESuite^® Process Safety Framework provides an interoperable software solution that enhances PSM decision-making by organizing, evaluating, and sharing data seamlessly across all PSM elements in real time.

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