At several recent conferences, representatives involved with the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) have been reporting on the final stages of the Process Safety Incident Database. There was even a "test drive" session at the September CCPS conference in San Francisco. .

Participating companies have agreed to enter a minimum of 10 incidents a year, be they actual incidents or high-learning-value near misses. Data fields such as lessons learned, phase of operation and initiating event are required of all submissions.

What makes this a break-out activity is the ensured confidentiality of data, something that has been missing with previous industry and government attempts. Once data has been entered by an independent contractor, all references to date, time, company, city, etc. are destroyed.

The database manager was given to CCPS by Exxon, and only minor modifications were needed. This made the activity cost effective (only $6K per participant) and ensured a fast track to success. Thus far, 225 incidents have been entered and there are 25 member company participants. The participation guarantees at least 250 incidents a year will be added. Almost everyone who has seen the demonstrations agrees the database is easy to use and training is minimal.

Speakers have stressed that this database is one of the leading tools to improve safety in designing new equipment. As an example, if 40 major incidents involving process heaters indicated that 23 of them occurred during startup operations, the designer would want to make sure that any new unit used state-of-the-art controls and procedures to reduce the probability of human error.

Any company may participate provided they are willing to contribute their own process safety incident data. That would include government sites handling hazardous chemicals, but not regulatory agencies. All access to the data will be through the CCPS.