Why Spend Resources on Root Cause Analysis? Refinery Closes due to Environmental Incidents

Limetree Bay Refinery in St. Croix is closing, due in part to environmental releases and safety issues:

Controversial St. Croix refinery ceases operations

While they also had other issues, lawsuits and fines have plagued the refinery for years. After attempting to restart this year, they were ordered by the EPA to suspend operations due to “an imminent threat” to people’s health. How would you like to have your business labeled as an imminent threat?

As the economy ramps up and we restart full production, don’t assume everything is ready to go. Take a look at your training and onboarding programs.

• Are your employees ready to go?
• Is your equipment maintenance completed?
• Do you have a good investigation policy in place?

A restart of production is one of the most dangerous times in a company’s lifetime. Make sure you have the right people in the right places, with a strong improvement program in place. Now is not the time to cut training budgets; in fact, just the opposite is probably warranted.