On Tuesday, September 27, Safety Delta Netherlands, in collaboration with partners VNO-NCW/MKB, Stichting Nederland Onderneemt Maatschappelijk! and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Public Works, organized a networking afternoon that SDN on Tour inauguration. The theme of the network afternoon was working together to improve the (process) safety of Dutch Seveso companies and their chain partners: Safety of Dutch Industry NOW and in the FUTURE.

After a word of welcome by Arjan van Dijk (SDN program director), views from industry, regulator and policy were shared in a plenary session.

Willem Henk Streekstra (VOTOB) hopes that the Netherlands will become "the place to be" in terms of safety applications and innovation. He sees cooperation as the key to success, but also warns that it takes a long time and persistence is a requirement to establish a robust eco-system. The people factor is important, more so than technological ingenuity. Innovation must come from the new AND the old industry. The old industry will be around for a long time. Today's earning model is tomorrow's earning model. For the new industry, for example importing NH3 or producing H2 on a large scale, the question is: how does the policy slove it? Industry is looking for a safe climate for establishment.

Nienke de Wilde (DCMR) gave her perspective on safety. In recent years, there has been no improvement in compliance. Every year, inspectors find medium (category 2) and heavy (category 1) violations at 30-40% of Seveso companies. The number of incidents is also not decreasing. Safety can be seen through the lenses of hardware, software and mindware. Inspectors see the aging of installations and the state of maintenance. There is concern about the potential impact on safety due to declining investments. In addition, inspection sees that procedures that establish safety management measures are not always current or known. In fact, a mentimeter test showed that the majority of attendees also believe employees do not always follow procedures. Safety culture was a third area of concern: what is managed when things get "tense" (production or safety)?

Attendees recognize that stagnation is tough and that circumstances (current energy prices) do not make it easier. Solutions lie in cooperation: increasing transparency and reducing mutual distrust, learning better from (near) incidents in one's own system, and learning more from each other.

Victor van de Pas (Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management) talked about the State of Safety, which is the subject of an annual report to the Lower House. One of the goals is to foster understanding among administrators and elected representatives about what we are doing to achieve an even safer living environment. Having indicators to measure safety reliably and representatively helps with this. The Safety Deal scheme is a policy tool to encourage innovations in safety. In addition, the SDN partnership has a role in collecting and disseminating existing and new knowledge about safety.

In two partial sessions, a number of SDN projects were then explained and discussed with great energy by attendees:

• Safety Deal - VakQundig: Quality in safety - [Jan Fraanje, VakQundig]
• SDN Innovation Project - The leader engineer, operator of the future - [Johan van Middelaar, SDN]
• Safety Deal - Using 'big data' to improve environmental safety (Identifying hidden patterns using text mining) - [Esta de Goede, Sitech]
• SDN Knowledge / Innovation Project - Safety Risks of Alternative Powered Vehicles on Chemical Clusters - [Nils Rosmuller, NIPV]
• SDN Knowledge project -Pilot performance indicators - improved sectoral data collection and interpretation - [Paul Rocchi, Safety First]
• Safety Deal - Professionalizing Internal Supervision - [Egbert Stremmelaar, Innovat.ION]
• SDN Knowledge project - Better learning from incidents- [Corine Baarends, Quirine Consulting]
• SDN Knowledge Project - Pilot SDN Quick Scan Process Safety Management- [Denise Harkema, SDN]

Examples of SDN projects are here.

During the closing networking drinks, there was an extensive exchange of ideas on cooperation and SDN projects.

It was a successful start to SDN on Tour!

Safety Delta Netherlands will launch SDN on Tour in September 2022. Through SDN on Tour we want to better adapt available knowledge and innovation in process safety to the needs of companies in the Dutch industry. We achieve this by visiting your organisation, but also by visiting networks and companies.

During our visit we would like to explain which trends and developments in process safety could be of interest to you, now and in the near future. In addition, we would like to hear from you which challenges are currently taking place in your environment, where we can think along with you for a solution without any obligation.

For SDN on Tour, we are still looking for locations to visit. Would you like the SDN to visit your company, organization or network?
Contact us without obligation via info@safetydelta.nl for more information and/or to schedule an appointment.