63
December
2014
HYDROCARBON
ENGINEERING
S
everal years ago, a fire at a process plant
located in the US led to several fatalities.
As part of the subsequent investigation,
the company called in Dave Hollaway, an
expert in accident analysis. ‘The plant had a panel
of shut down buttons, one of which may have
prevented the fire’, he recalled. ‘The panel had
four rows of mushroom buttons that could
be activated with the palm of your hand,
each with a small label underneath. When
I asked the operator why he did not
activate the shut down in time, he explained that
he could not tell if the labels referred to the
button above, or below. Precious time was lost
Gordon Cope,
Contributing Editor,
highlights how human factors
engineering has the capacity to
increase plant safety, and save
money.
