This Chemical Safety Board video is worth watching if your factory generates flammable dusts–and things we don’t normally think of as flammable, such as sugar, flour, and polymer resins can be incredibly dangerous. Here is the CSB’s home YouTube page.
Passing an examination, such as those offered by the American Society for Quality, ASCM (formerly APICS), and NCEES requires, first of all, that you know the material. It is almost as important, however, to know how to prepare for and…
Some quality characteristics, such as trace contaminants and trace impurities, cannot be detected at less than the instrument’s lower detection limit (LDL). Zero does not mean zero in these situations; it means only that the amount is below the…
The April 2021 issue of Chemical Engineering Progress includes a Process Safety Beacon article (not yet online) called “Recent Nitrogen Fatalities are a Vivid Reminder.” Nitrogen is not in any way toxic, and 79% of what we breathe is nitrogen.…
From the Process Safety Beacon (always worth reading); plugged lines can be a major hazard source.
Pumps, which are seemingly innocuous pieces of process equipment, can be major hazard sources when their inlets and outlets get blocked. Under these conditions, the pump’s mechanical energy gets turned into thermal energy. See “Ensure Safe Pump Operation” at Chemical…
This is a 47 slide presentation (in pdf format with accompanying notes) on process capability and process performance assessment. It adds the consideration of Ppk calculation for non-normal distributions, a topic that is rarely covered in traditional references. An Excel…
ISO 45001:2018 is an international standard for occupational health and safety (OH&S) management systems. This is a pdf copy of a 1-hour PowerPoint overview including the slides and accompanying notes, and an appendix on the Army’s Hazard Identification and Risk…
“It’s Time to Rebuild Domestic Drug Production in the US” from Industry Week offers compelling arguments for reshoring pharmaceutical manufacturing to (1) develop high wage jobs, the median (50th percentile) being close to $75K, and (2) reduce dependency on unreliable…
Mask brace from FixTheMask.com. This seals a surgical mask (comparable in performance to an N95 respirator, an ASTM Level 1 mask stops 95% of the challenge particles) around the nose and mouth to prevent air from going around the sides.…
