Life and achievements
Early life
Trevor Kletz was born to Russian Jewish immigrants on October 23, 1922, in Darlington, England. Since childhood, Kletz wanted to study chemistry; this desire was further encouraged when his uncle bought him a chemistry set at the tender age of eleven.
As a young boy, he had always been interested in science; this saw him join the University of Liverpool to study chemistry, and he graduated in 1944. He chose to work at ICI, one of the biggest chemical companies globally; he first worked as a research chemist. Even though Kletz never went through a chemical engineering education, he gradually found himself solving engineering problems at ICI, which slowly led him to process engineering, the field where he would make most of his impacts.
Early in his career, Kletz got practical experience operating several chemical plants, such as iso-octane, acetone, and tar acids. Such experiences gave him a sense of the difficulties and risks involved in chemical manufacturing.
This approach to complex problem-solving resulted from close interaction with plant operators, where Kletz learned how to apply safety, efficiency, and good communication to solving plant problems. In the formative years, he provided the foundation for his subsequent pioneering work in process safety, especially his approach to avoiding accidents through design.
Legacy
Trevor Kletz is now known as the father of inherent safety, a concept that forms the basis of industrial safety. His conviction that the level of safety in plants depends on the number of hazards introduced a new idea regarding safety among chemical engineers. Unlike most of his contemporaries who recommended superimposing multiple layers of safety measures on existing designs, Kletz encouraged practitioners to redesign processes to reduce or remove hazards from the processes in the first place.
This approach, now called inherent safety, has been embraced by various industries worldwide and is one of the most essential principles of safety management today.
The field of chemical engineering benefitted from Kletz’s work, but his ideas also touched on other areas, such as industrial safety, risk management, and safety culture. He has contributed through his work on HAZOP, a method used to assess the dangers inherent in processes.
His advocacy on using accidents to learn instead of explaining them as due to human error has also transformed how organizations investigate and act on mishaps. Kletz’s books and lectures have taught generations of engineers and safety professionals, and his ideas are still taught in universities and applied in industries worldwide. He passed away in 2013, but his work in process safety will remain relevant for many more years.
Milestone moments
Aug 14, 1961
Appointment as Technical Safety Advisor
In 1961, ICI appointed Trevor Kletz its first technical safety advisor after a series of accidents.
Here, Kletz was required to provide the company with guidance on how to avoid accidents, especially in chemical processes.
His appointment heralded the start of a long career in process safety, during which he would introduce several innovative concepts.
Mar 12, 1968
HAZOP Methodology is a significant part of developing safety and risk analysis
In 1968, Kletz embraced the technique of Hazard and Operability Studies (HAZOP), which was aimed at identifying hazards in chemical plants.
HAZOP changed how engineers worked on safety because the process was now done during the design process, not after an accident had happened.
Kletz significantly promoted HAZOP, and the method continues to form the basis of global process safety.
Mar 12, 1978
The Inherent Safety Concept will be introduced
Kletz, in 1978, wrote a paper that was very influential in developing the idea of inherent safety: What You Don’t Have, Can’t Leak.
The paper concluded that the most effective means of avoiding accidents was ensuring that the processes contained factors that minimized or eliminated risks compared to personal protective equipment.
It became a principle for chemical engineering to design safer plants and thereby reduce the number of accidents.
Mar 12, 1982
Life after leaving ICI and the move to becoming an Author
Kletz retired from ICI in 1982 and then embarked on another career as a writer and lecturer on process safety.
Some of his books, including Learning from Accidents and What Went Wrong?, became reference materials for engineers and safety experts.
The author’s post-retirement activities ensured that his ideas reached a global audience and thus contributed significantly to the development of process safety.