IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i15p6152-d392328.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Resilience of Process Plant: What, Why, and How Resilience Can Improve Safety and Sustainability

Author

Listed:
  • Hans Pasman

    (TEES Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center (MKOPSC), and Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

  • Kedar Kottawar

    (TEES Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center (MKOPSC), and Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

  • Prerna Jain

    (TEES Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center (MKOPSC), and Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA)

Abstract

Resilience is the ability to restore performance after sustaining serious damage by a usually unexpected threat. This paper analyzes resilience of process plants as there are oil and gas refining, chemical manufacturing, power-producing plants, and many more. Over the years, plant safety has shifted from retrospective to proactive measures. Safety is important from many points of view, such as protection of workforce and nearby population, but certainly too from an economical and sustainability aspect. Pro-action requires predictive insight of what in the process can go wrong because of internal or external disruptive disturbance. Over the years, to that end, much effort was spent developing risk assessment methods and management. However, risk assessment has proven to be fallible because of various uncertainties and not the least by overlooked or unknown threats. To protect against those upsetting threats, measures can be taken up to a certain limit. These start in designing error-tolerant equipment able to be receptive to early warning signals during operations, responding to those with ‘plasticity’ of mind (that is, an organization and its leadership especially able to think ‘outside-the box’ for coping with unexpected situations), and finally, to deploy effective emergency response and able to recover from damage quickly. The paper presents a summary/review of nearly a decade of research work at the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center at the Texas A&M University to develop the concept and the techniques to realize a resilient plant, so far with a focus on chemical plant. It is, however, still a ‘work-in-progress’; potential is large. Besides the conceptual details, cases are presented that show how human and technical factors, combined in a socio-technical system, can lead to a broader plant safety insight enabling more effective risk control and increased resilience. These cases have up to now only considered warning signals and possible management action, while still limited to internal threats. Hence, aspects of equipment design and recovery should be further considered, also in the light of the dynamics of present-day business environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Hans Pasman & Kedar Kottawar & Prerna Jain, 2020. "Resilience of Process Plant: What, Why, and How Resilience Can Improve Safety and Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-21, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:15:p:6152-:d:392328
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/15/6152/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/15/6152/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hosseini, Seyedmohsen & Barker, Kash & Ramirez-Marquez, Jose E., 2016. "A review of definitions and measures of system resilience," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 47-61.
    2. Corinne Curt & Jean‐Marc Tacnet, 2018. "Resilience of Critical Infrastructures: Review and Analysis of Current Approaches," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(11), pages 2441-2458, November.
    3. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    4. Prerna Jain & Hans J. Pasman & M. Sam Mannan, 2020. "Process system resilience: from risk management to business continuity and sustainability," International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 10(1), pages 47-66.
    5. Bergström, Johan & van Winsen, Roel & Henriqson, Eder, 2015. "On the rationale of resilience in the domain of safety: A literature review," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 131-141.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sun, Hao & Yang, Ming & Wang, Haiqing, 2022. "A virtual experiment for measuring system resilience: A case of chemical process systems," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    2. Chen, Chao & Yang, Ming & Reniers, Genserik, 2021. "A dynamic stochastic methodology for quantifying HAZMAT storage resilience," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Terje Aven, 2019. "The Call for a Shift from Risk to Resilience: What Does it Mean?," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(6), pages 1196-1203, June.
    2. Trucco, Paolo & Petrenj, Boris, 2023. "Characterisation of resilience metrics in full-scale applications to interdependent infrastructure systems," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    3. Yang, Bofan & Zhang, Lin & Zhang, Bo & Xiang, Yang & An, Lei & Wang, Wenfeng, 2022. "Complex equipment system resilience: Composition, measurement and element analysis," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    4. Poulin, Craig & Kane, Michael B., 2021. "Infrastructure resilience curves: Performance measures and summary metrics," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    5. Leslie Gillespie‐Marthaler & Katherine Nelson & Hiba Baroud & Mark Abkowitz, 2019. "Selecting Indicators for Assessing Community Sustainable Resilience," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(11), pages 2479-2498, November.
    6. Gonçalves, L.A.P.J. & Ribeiro, P.J.G., 2020. "Resilience of urban transportation systems. Concept, characteristics, and methods," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    7. Elizabeth Lawson & Raziyeh Farmani & Ewan Woodley & David Butler, 2020. "A Resilient and Sustainable Water Sector: Barriers to the Operationalisation of Resilience," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-21, February.
    8. Tom M. Logan & Seth D. Guikema, 2020. "Reframing Resilience: Equitable Access to Essential Services," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(8), pages 1538-1553, August.
    9. Tortorella, Guilherme Luz & Saurin, Tarcísio Abreu & Fogliatto, Flavio S. & Rosa, Valentina M. & Tonetto, Leandro M & Magrabi, Farah, 2021. "Impacts of Healthcare 4.0 digital technologies on the resilience of hospitals," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    10. Nina Graveline & Marine Gremont, 2017. "Measuring and understanding the microeconomic resilience of businesses to lifeline service interruptions due to natural disasters," Post-Print hal-01631780, HAL.
    11. Yang, Zhuyu & Barroca, Bruno & Laffréchine, Katia & Weppe, Alexandre & Bony-Dandrieux, Aurélia & Daclin, Nicolas, 2023. "A multi-criteria framework for critical infrastructure systems resilience," International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    12. Zheng Zhu & Jingfeng Yuan & Qiuhu Shao & Lei Zhang & Guangqi Wang & Xuewei Li, 2020. "Developing Key Safety Management Factors for Construction Projects in China: A Resilience Perspective," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-20, August.
    13. Adrian J. Hickford & Simon P. Blainey & Alejandro Ortega Hortelano & Raghav Pant, 2018. "Resilience engineering: theory and practice in interdependent infrastructure systems," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 278-291, September.
    14. A.N. Kuz'minov & V.M.Dzhukha & O.A. Ternovsky, 2017. "Methodology of Structural Stability Management for Industrial Enterprises," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(3B), pages 260-268.
    15. Ouyang, Min, 2017. "A mathematical framework to optimize resilience of interdependent critical infrastructure systems under spatially localized attacks," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 262(3), pages 1072-1084.
    16. Mechthild Donner & Anne Verniquet & Jan Broeze & Katrin Kayser & Hugo de Vries, 2021. "Critical success and risk factors for circular business models valorising agricultural waste and by-products," Post-Print hal-03004851, HAL.
    17. Cornelis Leeuwen & Jos Frijns & Annemarie Wezel & Frans Ven, 2012. "City Blueprints: 24 Indicators to Assess the Sustainability of the Urban Water Cycle," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(8), pages 2177-2197, June.
    18. CHEN, Helen S.Y., 2020. "Designing Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains," OSF Preprints m82ar, Center for Open Science.
    19. Jim Butcher, 2006. "The United Nations International Year of Ecotourism: a critical analysis of development implications," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 6(2), pages 146-156, April.
    20. Denise Ravet, 2011. "Lean production: the link between supply chain and sustainable development in an international environment," Post-Print hal-00691666, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:15:p:6152-:d:392328. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.