BP Safety Animations - Making sure that lessons from past major incidents are known and kept alive
November 4th 2008

In discussions with graduates or even experienced technicians it became clear that many had not heard of the major incidents at Flixborough, Feyzin or Piper Alpha, and if they had, few of them received enough information to be able to transfer lessons to their current activities. With this in mind, BP Process Safety experts initiated a project to develop a teaching aid in the form of a book containing analyses of non-process and process industries major accidents against Process Safety elements.

To complement this document (“Incidents that define process safety” ISBN 978 0 470 12204 4), BP began to develop a series of short safety animations on major past industrial accidents. For ease of use, these animations were developed as Flash-Player files, embedded into PowerPoint presentations: this format allows for translation, easy adaptation and the use of the same animation for different themes.

A mixture of animated 2D, 3D drawings and pictures plus a story-telling voice-over commentary are combined to attract the audience’s attention and point out the main issues. All animations have been kept short, detailing circumstances leading up to the incident, the incident itself and consequences. Feedback on the first animations was not only positive, but requests for translations and details of future animations proved that they were effective and popular. Those available within BP have been used for starting management meetings, in training sessions, as preamble to HAZOP or Management of Change studies, as site-wide TV broadcasts and in meetings with contractors.

BP has partnered with IChemE to make these process safety animations available to industry by download. Prices start at £12.00 + VAT for a single viewer, with licences available for academic use, in-company and commercial training. HYPERLINK "http://www.icheme.org/bpanimations" www.icheme.org/bpanimations

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