The last newsletter of Sustainable Safety 2030 contained an interview with Arjan van Dijk. Arjan is the director of Safety Delta Netherlands and started this job with a lot of enthusiasm. In this newsletter, he briefly talks about the start-up phase of SDN and the plans for the coming months. What are the challenges and what gives you energy?
Good morning Arjan, could you briefly introduce yourself and tell us something about your role within the SDN?
As already mentioned, my name is Arjan van Dijk. I have worked for Shell for almost 36 years in various roles, both in the Netherlands and abroad. In my time there I was involved in research, refining, start-up and operations in upstream oil & gas and in safety, process safety in particular. I learned that working safely is the foundation of a successful business. First of all, you want people to go home safely and you don't want to bother the neighbors. Secondly, the complex systems to manage safety risks drive business results just as much. You have to trust those who do the work on the shop floor: the technical-social systems have to work well. Your behaviour as a leader determines how the organisation deals with this. As a leader, you must also dare to make choices. not everything can be done at once.
In July 2020, I was ready to retire. That is when Safety Delta Netherlands came my way. Since October 2020, I have been the company's Programme Director. In the years to come, I want to contribute to the improvement of (process) safety in the Dutch (petro)chemical industry in a practical, accessible and 'value for money' way.
How have you experienced the start-up phase of the past few months?
The first months at Safety Delta Netherlands felt to me like building something from nothing, even though a covenant was signed on 5 October 2020 with a lot of good will from parties. My first task for this 'start-up' was to find resources and manpower. By December 2020 most of the funding was in place and in February 2021 the SDN team started. We are an enthusiastic and creative group of seven part-timers. Our first success was the launch of the SDN User Portal: finding, connecting and innovating in security. We are now busy picking up aspects of the Sustainable Safety 2030 programme that was completed at the end of last year and supporting programmes run by Veiligheid Voorop and sector organisations such as VNCI and VOTOB. We have also made an initial start on the innovation agenda.
What are the biggest challenges in the coming period?
Everyone wants a safe environment. The tolerance of local residents for incidents in the chemical and petrochemical industries is minimal, is expressed in concerns about their own safety if something goes wrong and leads to risk-reducing reflexes by governments. More regulations often do not make things safer. On the other hand, the proper application of existing knowledge does help. Safety Delta Netherlands helps to collect and spread knowledge about (process) safety in the (petro)chemical industry and to find innovations in this field.
In the coming period, we need to demonstrate the added value of Safety Delta Netherlands to people who deal with safety every day. We have to get known and build trust.
We are now mainly looking for questions from the field: What reliable knowledge can we make available (for free) and in what form so that it saves time for people to find solutions to local security challenges more quickly? What knowledge is available in others and can we help share? For which challenges are there no practical solutions yet and can we initiate innovations? How can we more quickly combine the knowledge of parties (industry, regulators and science) and make it available? How can we help to counteract the fragmentation of activities and accelerate improvements through collaboration?
What gives you energy to work with Safety Delta Netherlands?
It gives me energy when people work together, make use of each other's knowledge and experience, want to find solutions to problems and then work on them with passion.
It is precisely the pooling of knowledge that will help to improve the safety of the chemical and petrochemical industries in the Netherlands. It will lead to lasting improvements if, for example, we bring operations or maintenance managers into contact with each other and allow them to communicate with each other about safety challenges and successful or unsuccessful approaches. Connecting and trust are important. Veiligheid Voorop is already doing a good job here within the industry. Safety Delta Netherlands brings together not only industry, but also the knowledge of regulators, research institutes and science. That way, success can be achieved quickly.
And if we take a brief look ahead, what would you like to accomplish before the summer?
Putting Safety Delta Netherlands on the map as a practical, accessible, 'value for money' distributor of reliable safety knowledge for people in companies who deal with safety on a daily basis.
