“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations…”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Practical Process Safety Insights

Real-world guidance, lessons learned, and practical tools from decades of experience in process safety.

By James A. Klein, CCPSC — President, Process Safety Priorities LLC

What’s New

• Process Safety’s Damoclean Sword: Why a Sense of Vulnerability Matters (CEP Spotlight on Safety, Sept. 2026) – Effective process safety programs require both implementing robust risk management systems to identify, understand, and manage process hazards, as well as maintaining a genuine sense of vulnerability — the constant awareness that serious incidents can happen here, today, if we fail to manage hazards appropriately.
• Auditing OD: Help Turn Process Safety Audits into Stronger Leading Indicators for Improved Program Performance (July 2026) – Including OD in process safety audits strengthens their value as leading indicators of performance. Includes downloadable audit protocol and checklist.
• Audit for Performance: Why Compliance Alone is Not Enough (July 2026) – While compliance audits are necessary, they often have two important limitations when used to evaluate overall process safety effectiveness and performance.
• Personal OD (4-Part Series) (July 2026) – Personal operational discipline (POD) – what each individual brings to their work — turns systems into consistent, reliable performance on the floor.
• It Ain’t What You Know… (CEP Spotlight on Safety, July 2026) – Sometimes, we think we know something, perhaps with great confidence, and it’s never really been true, is incomplete, or is no longer true because something has changed.

Recommended Posts

• Sustaining Effective Process Safety Performance (April 2026) – Key factors and practical approaches for long-term success.
• Is Operational Discipline Your Greatest Opportunity for Improved Process Safety Performance (April 2026) – The foundation for excellent performance.
• Keep It In the Pipes – Preventing Loss of Containment (April 2026) – Core strategies to avoid hazardous releases.
• Adaptum aut pereo: Why Robust Management of Change is Essential (April 2026) – Managing change effectively.
• Effectively Use Metrics as Part of Process Safety Feedback Systems (April 2026) – Monitoring and improving performance.
• The Process Safety Professional as Sherlock Holmes (April 2026) – Developing curiosity and investigative skills.
• Common Process Safety Audit Findings (5-Part Series) (April 2026) – Real findings from audits and how to address them.

List of publications with links if available

Featured Resource

Process Safety: Key Concepts and Practical Approaches
by James A. Klein and Bruce K. Vaughen

View on Amazon →