Rank: New forum user 
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Hello
I have recently been hearing the term 'process safety'. I was interested in getting an idea of what this means to other safety professionals.
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Rank: Super forum user
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As a fire safety professional and process safety engineer, to me Process Safety focuses on the prevention of loss of containment, fire & explosions in relation to Pharma, Bio or other facilities dealing with hazardous materials such as refineries, oil and gas production installations both onshore and ofshore
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Rank: Super forum user 
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It came into particular prominence after the Texas City explosion and subsequent investigations - particularly the Baker Panel report where there was emphasis on how different they believed Process Safety is to normal Occupational Safety, in both its likely consequences (multiple fatalities, massive damage) and how it is best managed.
Personally I didn't find the distinction 100% helpful as in my experience there are some non-process hazards which also have similar potential (e.g. structural collapse). Also there are some 'occupational hazards' (e.g. confined spaces, electricity where equally high-reliability safety management systems are needed to ensure no serious consequences).
An alternative phrase which some use is System Safety, which applies to the 'core discipline' in whatever is being considered. So, for a major structure it is structural integrity, for an aircraft it is high-reliability flying, etc. For a chemical process it includes safe reactions as well as integrity of the containment envelope.
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Rank: Super forum user
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As Ian has highlighted, the term has become prominent after the BP Texas city refinery disaster, primarily because at that time BP management focussed on reactive personal safety performance indicators such as Total Recordable Incidence Rates and Lost Time Incidence Rates at the cost of process safety.
As such, process safety has been "practiced" ever since we have designed, constructed and operated high hazard industrial processes/industries, such as those in chemical, nuclear, offshore etc. However, some of those operating such facilities do not seem to learn from previous incidents and when there are financial pressures, despite the fact that in the long term cutting back on process safety does not pay, the accountant's dominate, because it is all to do with the "ideal" pay back period for capital investments including the ones for process safety improvements, which tends to be around 5 years.
Add to this the complexity the quantititive risk assessemnts that has to takes into consideration aspects of equipment integrity, layers of protection and the amount of redundancy for safety critical controls.
Last , but not least, in the age of globalisation, outsourcing, aquisitions and mergers, not enough attention is given to the "management of change", especially organisational change with disastrous consequences
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Rank: Forum user
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GcM. I know "Process safety" as the other end of "Hard hat" safety. Hard hat safety is what you can see and use RA procedures and PPE to prevent injury, so lifting, grinding, confined space, at heights .etc.
Process safety is about process or batch production plant where the hazards (chenical, flammable +, pressure, temperature ) may not be visible & must be contained for control of the safety risk. You need a different set of analytical tools to identify and control the hazards. Hazop, PHA,
Peter
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