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Home / Industries / Chlor-Alkali / Tracking System

Action Item Management Database System

The Challenge

The OSHA PSM and EPA Risk Management Plan regulations require process hazard analyses, management of change procedures, incident investigations, procedure development, and compliance audits. Each of these items will generate recommendations and improvements that need to be accomplished for regulatory compliance. OSHA and EPA require evidence of compliance progress and recordkeeping to ensure that no recommendation is accidentally overlooked. Plants subject to these regulations are frequently snowed under by the number and complexity of the recommendations. It is not infrequent to find a hodge-podge of spreadsheets, tables, competing lists of recommendations, and file cabinets full of paperwork. A single prioritization process is necessary to be certain that the most important action items are being acted on first.

The Solution

Andritz Automation has developed a database system for prioritizing, tracking and compiling action items associated with plant audits and activities. The example data base was designed for the needs of a pulp mill in managing the audit action items stemming from OSHA's Process Safety Management (PSM) regulations. These regulations impact activities in a variety of operating areas, cover numerous hazardous chemicals, and involve a variety of personnel who are assigned to complete the corrections. The database allows all PSM activities to be combined into one system rather than a multitude of different files and systems. It allows for a very simple way of storing and sorting past accomplishments and future action items.

Although specifically designed for the PSM needs, the data base is flexible and can be used to track recommendations from a variety of audits including financial, security, accident prevention, or environmental compliance. The pulp mill sorting matrix is shown in Table 1. Illustrating the flexibility of the system, Table 2 shows a similar sized matrix of data configured for a chemical plant. As can be seen, the results can be quite different.

Table 1: Database Configured for a Pulp Mill

Category Levels Possible uses or Plant Subjects tracked
Classification
3
 Presently used to show capital type projects or items funded by plant expense.
Area
5
 Presently used to designate the Power and Recovery, Fiberline, or Chlorine Dioxide Operating areas of a pulp mill.
Element
14
 Presently these are the 14 elements of the OSHA PSM regulations including such items as Safety Information, Operating Procedures, Incident Investigations, etc.
Chemical
7
 Presently used to separate items into those involving chlorine, caustic, acid, chlorate, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, etc.


Table 2: Database Configured for a Chemical Plant

Category Levels Possible uses or Plant Subjects tracked
Subject
5
 This sorting category can cover audits pertaining to Safety, Security, Financial, Environmental, or other subjects of interest.
Type
3
 Each of the audit subjects above can have three subtypes including as an example: External Audits, Internal Audits, or Community Requests.
Area
14

This sorting category would offer differing input screens depending upon the choices made above. For example:

  1. If a Safety Audit is chosen, the Area input screen would present the 14 elements of the OSHA regulations including such items as Safety Information, Operating Procedures, Incident Investigations, Compliance Audits, etc.
  2. If a Security or Financial Audit is chosen, the screen choices could be different, such as Overall Site, Purchasing, Accounting, or Operations.
Chemical
7
 The next category allows sorting by the chemical involved such as chlorine, caustic, acid, chlorate, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, etc. For non-chemical audit items, a "None" or "Not-Chemically Related" button selection may be used.

The Database is very user friendly that anyone can use with a minimum of training. Plant employees can access the database and perform queries on the data and generate many reports on the stored data and future actions. A few examples of the querys include:

  • What is the most important action item to tackle next?
  • What action items are still waiting for completion?
  • What action items have been assigned to Person X to do?
  • What action items were done during the last X months?
  • What is left to correct for chemical X?
  • How many Security items are left to do and what is the most important one?

Varying levels of security may be set to allow wide access to a Read-Only version while restricting the ability to actually modify information within the database.