Key Terms

Acutely hazardous material: This is any substance that has toxic, reactive, flammable, or explosive properties, and that can lead to death or serious physical harm should exposure occur.

Catastrophic release: This refers to a major uncontrolled emission, fire, or explosion that involves one or more acutely hazardous chemicals and that presents serious danger to employees in the workplace.

Facility: This refers to the buildings, containers, or equipment that contain a process.

Hot work: This refers to any work involving electric or gas welding, cutting, brazing, or similar flame or spark-producing operations.

Major change: This term refers to any of the following:

• The introduction of a new process, new process equipment, or new acutely hazardous material
• Any change in safe operating limits
• Any alteration in a process, in process equipment, or in process chemistry that introduces a new hazard or amplifies an existing hazard

Normally unoccupied remote facility: This describes a facility that is operated, maintained, or serviced by employees who periodically visit the facility to check its operations and to perform necessary operating or maintenance tasks. The following are true about a facility that is classified as a normally unoccupied remote facility:

• No employees are permanently stationed at this facility.
• This type of facility is not contiguous with and is geographically remote from all other buildings, processes, or persons.

Process: OSHA uses this term to refer to any activity that involves an acutely hazardous chemical, including using, storing, manufacturing, handling, or moving such chemicals at the site, or a combination of these activities. OSHA also defines a 'single' process as a group of vessels that are interconnected, or separate vessels that are located where an acutely hazardous chemical could be involved in a potential release.

Process equipment: This is any equipment, instrumentation, control, or safeguard related to a process.

Trade secret: This is any confidential formula, pattern, process, device, information, or compilation of information that is used in an employer's business and that gives the employer an advantage over competitors who do not know or use it.

To learn more about Process Safety Management visit our Cal/OSHA Process Safety Management Online Training web page.