As a thing to be managed and improved safety needs measurement tools as much as finance and production functions do. Injury and illness rates as measures of success or failure of a safety program are based on faulted premises. In chemical process industry with accidents characterized by high severity but low frequency, absence of very unlikely events is not, of itself, a sufficient indicator of good safety management. Performance measure based on system output is symptom of reactive safety culture and need to be replaced with proactive parameters. Leading metrics are more scientific and provide ample opportunity for corrective action before accidents or illnesses take place. These new emerging "feed forward control" tools are more direct and easily understandable to the executives and workers as they reflect management's commitment. The new generation benchmarking initiatives measure presence of systematic management approach to safety and make dollar sense. One must however recognize that these techniques are program specific. The paper further presents how a few of the most effective PSM measurement techniques could be used practically by the process industry on the plant floor, and gives an action plan to mix and match the measurement tools best suited to the organizational need.
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