Risk Management Planning
Aligning your operations to manage risk instead of just managing data
If your plant continues to have failures and off-spec performance of your utility water systems, it may be because you have unknowingly set the wrong expectations – in short, you have “cultivated a culture of danger.”
Risk management starts an understanding of the unique attributes of utility water systems:
- Single point of failure
- Not a profit center (“overhead”)
- Not a core competency – unless you are an electric power plant
- Lack on-line water quality analyzers, centralized data acquisition, automated blowdown control, automated chemical feed and control
- Have long time constants for process control
- Have larger margins for error than process units
- Often taken for granted; after all, “it’s only water!”
Using the framework of risk management that evaluates the severity and frequency of every non-conformance, plant owners can change the way that you understand your operations – from a set of diffused and decentralized tasks to a culture of accountability for strict conformance to operating procedures, adherence to management of change (MOC) protocol, insistence on good process design, and requirements for validated data and accurate interpretation for corrective actions.
We practice this risk management approach in everything we do – our consulting, our coaching, our training and our expert witness efforts and we teach our clients’ staff to use this framework to understand the risks in their plants.