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Safe, Efficient, Profitable: A Worker Safety Podcast
Joe and Jen Allen of Allen Safety LLC take their combined 40+ years of worker safety, OSHA, EPA, production, sanitation, and engineering experience in Manufacturing Plants including Harvest Plants/Packers, Case Readies and Further Processing Plants, Food Production Plants, Feed Mills, Grain Elevators, Bakeries, Farms, Feed Lots, and Petro-Chemical and bring you their top methods for identifying risk, preventing injuries, conquering the workload, auditing, managing emergencies and catastrophic events, and working through OSHA citations. They're breaking down real safety opportunities, safety citations, and emergency situations from real locations, and discussing realistic solutions that can actually be implement based on their personal experiences spending 40+ weeks in the field every year since 2001. Joe and Jen are using all of that experience to provide a fresh outlook on worker safety by providing honest, (no sponsors here!) and straight forward, easy to understand safety coaching with actionable guidance to move your safety program forward in a way that provides tangible results.
Safe, Efficient, Profitable: A Worker Safety Podcast
Preventing the Collapse of Safety & PSM Programs: What Domino Starts it All?
Allen Safety takes a deep dive into SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) reviews, the blurry overlap of responsibility between teams, and why most documentation isn’t as airtight—or as collaborative—as it should be. The hosts challenge listeners to reconsider how procedures are developed, who reviews them, and how safety personnel can truly become competent stakeholders in the systems they’re expected to sign off on.
This is more than just a compliance checkbox conversation—it’s a real-world, boots-on-the-ground look at the messy middle of safety documentation, with clear, tactical solutions for bridging the gaps.
Your SOPs Might Be a Frankenstein of Mismatched Formats
SOPs are often written by third parties, recycled from other plants, or poorly updated.
Reviewers Don’t Always Know What They’re Looking For
Reviewers are often engineers or refrigeration/maintenance techs, not safety experts.
Emergency Procedures are Too Generic
SOPs frequently assume “perfect world” conditions.
Safety Needs a Seat at the Table—Early
SOPs, task procedures, PPE assessments, and LOTO protocols must all align—and often, they don’t.
Task Procedures Without Collaboration = Injuries Waiting to Happen
If safety writes procedures without consulting maintenance—or vice versa—hazards will be missed.
The Fix: Cross-Discipline Collaboration + Job Shadowing
Build SOPs and task procedures in multi-disciplinary teams—safety, engineering, maintenance in the same room.
History Matters: Use Veteran Operators as Historians
New team? High turnover? Nobody remembers the last snowstorm or failure event?
Don’t Forget Environmental Compliance (RMP)
RMP (Risk Management Plans) are increasingly under scrutiny.
Final Thoughts & Call to Action:
If you’re managing safety, you’re not just pushing paper—you’re writing the playbook for survival. And that means getting out of the silo, out of the office, and into the field with your engineering and maintenance teams. Safety, SOPs, and real operations need to speak the same language—or someone gets hurt.
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Visit AllenSafety.com or AllenSafetyCoaching.com to learn more.
Process Safety & Compliance
Process Safety Management (PSM)
OSHA PSM compliance
EPA RMP (Risk Management Plan)
Mechanical integrity
PSM documentation review
PSM audit best practices
Process Hazard Analysis (PHA)
Emergency shutdown procedures
Welcome back everybody. Safe, efficient, profitable. Today we are going to be talking about trying to break down some of the silos within your PSM programs, your engineering and maintenance teams, and safety here we go.
Speaker 2:All right, welcome back. Welcome back everybody. Am I running this or are you running this one?
Speaker 1:I'm running this one. Ah, I'm running this. I'm a PSM person. There we go, here we go, so the first thing that we're going to talk about is our SOPs.
Speaker 2:Standard operating procedures.
Speaker 1:So standard operating procedures. A lot of times we have these documents and they're called SOPs and they may be any version of third-party Rotem. Internal Rotem.
Speaker 2:We got them from a we contracted that out, so we're good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, somebody else Rotem third-party, Some kind of combination of my old plant and I brought it over and I kind of updated it. But now I left and went somewhere else.
Speaker 2:So you're saying there could be a whole bunch of variables there could be hodgepodge. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 1:I mean, they may even be different formats than the same location. Like they, some parts of the system may have one template, others have a different format and I'll often just review these so that's the deal.
Speaker 1:We're supposed to theoretically review these annually. However, one of the biggest gaps that I have seen in the last several years is that the folks who are reviewing them same folks every year and, generally speaking, I don't know that there's a lot of good documented training on what we're reviewing them for. That's a good point, and most of the time, the individuals that are reviewing them are on the engineering b&e. You know refrigeration side.
Speaker 2:I'm safety. Am I doing this part of it?
Speaker 1:And they're not the experts. So when we talk about reviewing SOPs. It may be correct for the engineering side. They've got nothing to do with any of our safety programs at all.
Speaker 2:But what if you have lockout, tagout?
Speaker 1:Well, what if you've got weather? What if you've got lockout? What if you've got elevated?
Speaker 2:What if you've?
Speaker 1:got a whole lot of things going on.
Speaker 2:Okay, now I understand.
Speaker 1:A lot of times our SAPs are written for perfect weather, nothing's going wrong. We have an emergency section, but it only gives us one set of scenarios, right, and it always works. Yeah, anytime I talk to my operators, I'm like, well, here's the leak, what are we going to do? And they're like, you know, well, got this SOP. And I'm like, so, does this SOP address this specific leak? And got this SOP. And I'm like, so, does this SOP address this specific leak? And there's all kinds of discussion and a teetered debate and what really boils down to is that common is I can't write emergency shutdown or emergency stop for every single leak that there ever could be, and the ones that are listed may not work for everything that could. That's associated with that unit that you'd pull that SOP to.
Speaker 2:So what should you do? What should you do if you figure that out?
Speaker 1:so that's when we start evaluating. Maybe we need to broaden the scope of what we're right. Maybe we have more than one emergency shutdown. Maybe we start writing additional plans, free plan. Maybe we start having alternates written in there. And then the other piece of it is is that you know, and engineering, maintenance, refrigeration operators, they're not safety experts. We're employing a safety expert at the facility because that's their lane and I mean I don't have to have psm knowledge be safety and right.
Speaker 1:We've got to pull them in, so they have to be a stakeholder in the sop review and discussion in terms of things even like definitive maintenance right and some of those last procedures that we do Well.
Speaker 2:do you want my lockout in your SOP?
Speaker 1:So that's the next piece, right. So other gap is that we're going to start seeing things in some of these templates that reference some stuff like for lockout procedures refer to. Now, sometimes I've seen the full on lockout in there. I would never advise against that. That's me, my opinion. I would just not write your lockout procedure within your sop.
Speaker 2:But we'll start seeing things like refer to lockout procedure, refer to the ppe assessment, refer to and who wrote the lockout procedure, and half the time, I'd say actually more than half the time, don't have that, or I wrote it as a safety person, but I don't have the psm background or utilities wrote it as a safety person but I don't have the PSM background or utilities wrote it and they don't have the safety background.
Speaker 1:So either way, the document could have significant gaps. Is what I want you to know. Ppe assessment for my refrigeration folks If it doesn't cover the entire scope of what they could be doing, it likely could have gaps if I didn't have engineering and safety in the room having a discussion.
Speaker 1:Same goes for my task procedures. If we didn't do a task evaluation or pre-job hazard analysis or whatever you want to call it, when we're talking about the hazards associated with that task and writing out that task procedure, safety wasn't involved, or if safety wrote it without refrigeration involved, we're going to see gaps, and so that's what we're really kind of seeing is that we've got to start getting those two groups in a row, almost like building a community.
Speaker 1:We got to be friends, we got to get in together and we've got to review these documents as one, because we're both stakeholders in the same document because, we've got to make sure the PPE assessment dovetails with the confined space assessment, dovetails with the lock procedure, dovetails with our SOP and our task procedures, and that they all say the nice same happy thing right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because most of the time they're all saying something different, because if you're, if you're process or procedure says one thing, mine says the other. How do we train?
Speaker 1:Well, that's really what it boils down to is that I'm going to be training folks on task procedures and SOPs If there's no safety considerations in them, how can I mean? I'm giving them some kind of general awareness, monthly safety training, but in terms of for them to really know how to safely do their job because there is a lot of gray area we're just kind of expecting them to figure it out and freelance, and that's why we're seeing injuries. In my opinion, we have to tell them because they're new.
Speaker 2:How are?
Speaker 1:they going to know? They don't know what they don't know.
Speaker 2:That's right. So you're talking about you may have to change a little onboarding. You may have to change a little bit of procedures.
Speaker 1:You need to change about who's actually reviewing it, what kind of training they have yeah, the reviewer needs to have some training on what they're reviewing it for and we've got to pull safety. And I know that they feel overwhelmed and they may not want it and they say this is not my problem, but in order they're the expert for that subject but, yeah, they the subject matter expert, and so they may not be able to advise on whether that's the correct shutdown in terms of the refrigeration technical piece.
Speaker 1:But when you have a discussion about here's the risk that I'm being exposed to or you talk through the steps you have to do. They should be able to identify Well, here's where you're going to be standing. Oh, we need to fall protection. How are you going?
Speaker 2:to tie off to Well, here's where you're going to be standing.
Speaker 1:Oh, we need to fall protection.
Speaker 2:How are you going to tie off to? Well, you need this people because that's safety stuff, but it's not going to be an SOP.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Nowhere in the SOP is say use the ladder and tie off air.
Speaker 1:So I think what it all really boils down to at the end of the day is and y'all have been saying this for a long time but poor refrigeration and maintenance and B and E sometimes they get forgotten about a little bit because of most of our programs are really great about being perfect or production, but because there's so much dynamic changes and different jobs that we're doing on the refrigeration and the engineering maintenance side, we don't always capture that real good and then, like, those documents don't, don't have anything in them, our programs don't really align with what they're doing, what their procedures say, and now we're just opening ourselves up to a lot of risk of people getting hurt as well as the citation.
Speaker 2:So I have engineering degree and experience, fought leaks, dealt with amputations, all these things. You know what Wouldn't know anything about any of the stuff you said unless I job shadowed them like I did. Yeah, one of the things I did when I became a safety person. I didn't know, so I would just go on project day and I'd watch what they did. I didn't get paid extra for that, I just went because I was like if I'm gonna be part of this and be responsible for it, gotta understand. I understand I watched him do round.
Speaker 1:I still do that today, so so solutions right. So, solutions we talk about. I think training is is the biggest thing, right? So safety can't really identify the hazards if they don't know what recreation and maintenance and boiler and utilities and all that for that matter, is actually doing. So one thing is absolutely I'm a proponent of safety people getting refrigeration training. I think that it's very helpful to understand physically what's going on with the system. But the second piece is absolutely job shadow. Job shadow on weekends, job shadow.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Overhauls on the system, when they're doing pump downs, when they're doing startups, when they're doing line breaks, when they're just doing their rounds, when they're just doing their rounds, when they're changing check-in valves, phas, let's get involved for PHAs. You know, I realized the other day if we've got people who have only been at the facility for a year or so safety engineering, my operators maybe none of them were there for the last mechanical integrity, or the last snowstorm or the last crazy event?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they may never. They may not know that they oh, that's fine, like no, there was everybody may have turned over, so no, that's right. The history at some of these locations that this actually happened so sometimes would you pull a another location to help you with some of those processes I absolutely would so.
Speaker 1:If there is that's, that's another option. So solutions is shadow. Who's there? Yeah if you find that you've got a greener team and they are a little bit newer, then yeah, absolutely. Start pulling in people from district locations that maybe do have a little bit more tenure, or maybe we're on some of the calls when they heard about some of this stuff going on at your location.
Speaker 2:That's how we get on. Some of the calls is to help almost be we're historian.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You know, look at maybe getting some refrigeration training. Joe and I obviously we do some get up to speed type training stuff with our safety and psm teams. I always want to make a point that, just because you have someone managing documents right, we're a document manager. We make sure that certain checks and balances which is about it is in place and it is needed.
Speaker 2:We've got to make sure but that's two different, different thought patterns we've got the compliance side and, yes, we have the document.
Speaker 1:But that person may not be the technical expert and they may not be able to really sign off and say it's correct. They can just say that we have it, but they don't know if it's hold on.
Speaker 2:What if we're dealing with RMP?
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's a good one.
Speaker 2:Will we get environmental involved?
Speaker 1:Yeah, environmental is absolutely going to potentially be a stakeholder.
Speaker 2:Okay, especially like a PHA. Worst case scenario.
Speaker 1:Yep, we want to evaluate our PHA, get ready for worst case scenario. That may mean that we are starting to update our RMPs.
Speaker 2:I will tell you that's a big one, that we're seeing a lot of people maybe re-evaluate what their RMP says. We're going to do an episode later on that, but yes absolutely so they're really kind of taking a look at.
Speaker 1:So maybe training that we had for safety maybe it needs to be a little bit heavier in PSN so that they understand. Because, again, safety has got to sign off on documents. That goes back to the signing Absolutely who can sign what and are we really qualified? So I think the biggest thing is we've got to sit down in the same room, we've got to really have those joint conversations together and then a lot of job shadowing is really helpful so that we understand the utilities and refrigeration side the same way that we understand.
Speaker 2:Can't regulate it if you don't understand it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really really hard to identify the hazards and prevent the injury if we don't understand what's going on.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. These are our opinions.
Speaker 1:If you want some support in person, like I said, we do PSM mini audits, some compliance audits from the PSM side, Do some training with safety for understanding the PSM system and all that Helen-safetycom you can check us out over there for in-person things. Otherwise, you can find us on LinkedIn. All of the socials and Allen safety coachingcom is a really great. In between got over a hundred different episodes commercial free. You can rewatch them unlimited times and you get free unlimited email based coaching with Joe and I.
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