HS&E

HSE MANAGEMENT

Health, Safety and Environmental management is incorporated in all activities of the engineering profession as it is exercised within ASPROFOS, for a multitude of reasons, the most fundamentals being:

  •  the care towards life,
  •  the respect we owe to ourselves and to our colleagues and fellow men, 
  •  the economic feasibility of the projects we deal with,
  •  the legal aspects we abide by, including the norms, codes and practices adapted by engineering professionals in their daily activities, duties and obligations.

HSE management in Engineering is therefore be applied as a minimum to the following five broad areas:

  •  Specifications
  •  Feasibility studies and Engineering Design activities
  •  Erection and commissioning
  •  Operation and maintenance
  •  Changes during operation

Operation of industrial units or plants yields compliance with all internationally accepted specifications and standards and requires conformity to the following four essential elements:

  •  Identification of safety functions required for the safe shutdown
  •  Assignment of a safety integrity level (SIL) to each function
  •  Use of the safety lifecycle for the engineering design
  •  Verification of the SIL achieved for each safety function.

ASPROFOS is a fully integrated engineering company and therefore remains coherent to the essential elements described above, exercising keen precaution during the design phase and acquainting all essential elements alluded above to the clients. 

ENGINEERING CODE OF PRACTICE

In applying the engineering code of practice, ASPROFOS incorporates into the various design projects the following:

  •  Public safety: Giving priority to the safety and well-being of the community.  This principle constitutes a highly valued attribute in assessing obligations to the clients, employers and colleagues.
  •  Risk Management: Taking reasonable steps to minimize the risk of loss of lives, injuries or damages of any nature.
  •  Workplace and construction site: Minimizing potential dangers involved in the construction and manufacture of engineering products and processes.
  •  Public and Community well-being
  •  Conflicts of interest
  •  Confidentiality

Practicing engineering is a highly esteemed privilege. It is entrusted to those qualified who have the sound responsibility for applying engineering skills, scientific knowledge and ingenuity towards the advancement of human welfare. Toward this end, ASPROFOS exercises a continuous effort to disseminate into the corporate structure the following fundamental principles of engineering conduct:

  •  truth,
  •  honesty and trustworthiness in their service to the society,
  •  honorable and ethical practice showing fairness,
  •  courtesy and good faith towards clients, colleagues and other collaborators.

ASPROFOS engineers take into consideration social, cultural, economic, safety and environmental aspects and strive toward the optimum use of the world's resources, to meet long term human needs.

SAFE ENGINEERING DESIGNS

A safe design is the combination of all those procedures and principles that are used by engineers to design processes safe against accidents that could in turn lead to human death or injuries, long term health effects, damage to the environment or malfunctioning in general.

Safety is the antonym of risk. A design is safe to the extent that it reduces risk. Safe design aims at minimizing risk in the standard sense of this term.

Within ASPROFOS, safety is a concern in virtually all engineering design processes. Engineers understand safety in the context of engineering design. All engineering designs subsequent to erection of complex plant units have complied with the issue addressed and in this context ASPROFOS takes pride.

DESIGN STRATEGIES IN ENGINEERING

There are four main design strategies in Engineering practice which are used to achieve safety in operations of potentially dangerous industrial plants. These strategies are adopted by ASPROFOS and meticulously followed throughout.

1. Inherently safe design:

This minimizes the inherent dangers in the process as far as possible. Potential hazards are excluded rather than enclosed or coped with. For instance, dangerous substances are replaced by less dangerous ones and fire proof materials are used rather than inflammable ones.

2. Safety Factors:

Structures should be strong enough to resist load and disturbances exceeding those for which structures have been designed for. A common way to obtain such safety reserves is to employ explicitly chosen numerical safety factors. If a safety factor of two is employed in a foundation, then the foundation is calculated to resist twice the maximum load to which it will be exposed in practice.

3. Negative feedback mechanisms:

This is introduced to achieve an automatic-shutdown in case of a device failure or when the operator looses control. Examples are safety valves that relieve steam when the pressure is too high in a steam boiler.

4. Multiple Independent Safety Barriers:

Safety barriers are arranged in chains, so that each barrier is independent of its predecessors (if the first fails, the second remains intact). The first set of barriers prevent accidents whereas the second set limit the consequences of an accident.

The following elements constitute bad engineering practice and therefore, are totally avoided:

  •  The faulty belief that if something is not specifically stated in the standards, there is no need to worry about it.
  •  The attitude that if the minimum requirements are fulfilled, the process is safe and complies with the standards.
  •  The importance of good engineering practice is ignored.
  •  The general practice to let economics dictate the design, disregarding safety protection requirements.
  •  The neglect of human factors, such as errors in calculations.
  •  The focus on capital investment rather than on lifecycle costs.
  •  The focus on the safety integrity level (SIL) and not on prevention.

We, at ASPROFOS believe that safety is an essential ethical requirement in engineering practice, and strategies for safe design are used not only to reduce estimated probabilities of injuries, but also to cope with hazards and perplex events that can neither be assigned occurrence probabilities, nor foreseen.

ETHICAL OBLIGATIONS IN ENGINEERING PRACTICE

Ethical issues such as confidentiality are a necessary obligation for engineers exercising soundly their profession. When lack of confidentiality is suspected, professional ties between clients and engineers undergo ruptures which constitute detriments to the expenditure undertaken. Examples of fundamental values linked to the ethical practice expected may be:

  •  Protection of lives and safeguard of people.
  •  Professionalism, integrity and competence
  •  Commitment to the well-being of the public and the community
  •  Sustainable management and care for the environment

ENGINEERING PRACTICE REQUIREMENTS

ASPROFOS engineers do:

  •  attribute paramount importance to the Health, Safety and Environment issues.
  •  practice only in their areas of expertise or field of competence, carefully and diligently and always in conformance with laws, norms, standards, codes, rules and regulations.
  •  examine the social and environmental impact of their actions and projects, including the use and conservation of resources and energy.
  •  declare their interests clearly.
  •  sign and take responsibility for all engineering works which they prepare or supervise.
  •  act as faithful agents for their employers or clients and maintain confidentiality, avoid conflicts of interest and disclose unavoidable conflicts.
  •  commit to life-long learning.
  •  promote responsibility, commitment and ethics, as well as educational issues related to the health, safety and environment.

HSE SUSTAINABILITY MANAGEMENT

Sustainability Management is inadvertently linked to the survival of humanity in the long term. It recognizes that decisions made today must assure the quality of life in present as well as in future generations.

Failure to identify risks and the inability to address or control such risks can result in massive costs, both humane and economic.

A critical fault may endanger a few people. A catastrophic fault may endanger, harm or kill a significant number of people. However, engineering errors or inability to incorporate the HSE management in practice spells catastrophe.