Development of Process Safety Management Expert System (PSMES) for UTP Mini Plant of High Gravitational Natural Gas Dehydration Unit

This report is prepared as the final documentation for the proposed final year project entitled ‘Development of Process Safety Management Expert System (PSMES) for UTP Mini Plant of High Gravitational Natural Gas Dehydration Unit’. Process Safety Management (PSM) is a standard promulgated by the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 2000 intended to prevent major accidents hazards from occurring. This standard comprises of fourteen (14) main elements to manage the hazards associated with highly hazardous chemical (HHC).
The main objective of this research is to develop an expert system named PSMES to be used in process plants and other companies which will ensure that they comply with OSHA regulations and requirements. For this project, PSM elements are divided into two (2) major categories; Process Flow Diagram (PFD) Elements and Block Diagram (BD) Elements. The author chose UTP mini plant of High Gravitational Natural Gas Dehydration Unit as the project case study. Furthermore, for this project, the author is developing only 7 (seven) out of 14 (fourteen) PSM elements. These elements are Process Safety Information, Training, Operating Procedures, Management of Change, Hot Work Permit, Incident Investigation, and also Compliance Audit.
The development PSMES utilizes tools such as Microsoft Visual Basic for programming purposes. The concept of the system is initially represented by the frameworks constructed in flow chart forms, designated for each element.
The results show how the expert system is executed using the approved frameworks constructed earlier. The development of this PSMES is expected to assist the company in managing its operation in an effective and convenient manner.