A resilience-oriented framework for managing process safety and process security

Abstract

Process safety and process security share the common goal of protecting people, assets, and the environment, yet they remain largely fragmented in regulation and practice. This separation obscures the coupled nature of accidental and intentional risks in the chemical process industry and creates blind spots in how safety–security interactions are managed. To address this challenge, this study develops the Resilience-oriented Process Safety and Process Security (RoPSS) framework, which integrates both domains through four resilience capabilities (Anticipation, Absorption, Adaptation, and Ascension) embedded within a six-step management cycle. The framework introduces Ascension as an evolutionary capability that consolidates restoration, learning, continuous improvement, and prevention, extending resilience beyond recovery toward longer-term system strengthening. A structured catalogue of 50 performance indicators, organized by disruption type, resilience capability, and indicator category, provides measurable means to assess both operational and governance resilience. These indicators were defined and refined through focused expert elicitation, including an importance-availability assessment used as a formative step for indicator prioritization. An illustrative example in a chlor-alkali plant shows how RoPSS supports integrated disruption mapping, shared objective setting, and resilience-enhancing strategies. Overall, the framework offers an expert-informed conceptual basis for managing coupled safety–security risks and provides a foundation for future empirical evaluation, industrial application, and resilience benchmarking.