Gas detection drift, hot-work permits near flammables, and process upset monitoring — written against the standards your EHS team is on the hook for.
Built for chemical-plant EHS managers and chemical-plant procurement evaluators; speaks the language a PSM / RMP inspector opens against. Every signal Pactwell reasons across maps to a named OSHA PSM 29 CFR 1910.119 14-element citation, an EPA RMP 40 CFR Part 68 Program 1 / 2 / 3 rule, and — where the dust hazard is on the line — a NFPA 652 combustible-dust standard, so the audit-ready PDF the platform writes at the moment of the breach is the same evidence the inspector opens.
The three surfaces a chemical-plant EHS manager signs for.
OSHA PSM 14 elements, EPA RMP Program 1 / 2 / 3, and NFPA 652 combustible-dust fundamentals are not aspirational — they are the standards your inspection opens against. Pactwell’s sensor + permit + CCTV correlator writes to those standards directly, so the evidence pack the morning of the walk is the same pack the platform wrote at the moment of the breach.
EPA RMP 40 CFR Part 68 · Program 1 / 2 / 3
Risk-management programs, written into the audit trail your inspector opens against.
Pactwell reasons across the regulated-substance inventory, the offsite consequence analysis, and the process hazard the program-level threshold is keyed to. A release-prevention audit is no longer reconstructed after the fact — every sensor reading, every management-of-change window, and every deviation from the operating limit is written to the same log the RMP inspector pulls.
The 14 PSM elements, correlated across the same sensor set.
Operating procedures, mechanical integrity, hot work, management of change, incident investigation — each PSM element has a sensor or permit surface Pactwell already reasons across. The correlator surfaces the deviation the moment one element drops out, and writes the audit pack to the standard the inspector opens, not to a parallel yard system the morning after.
Combustible-dust layer thickness, ignition sources, and the hot-work envelope.
Dust-layer accumulation sensors, ignition-source proximity, and the hot-work permit window the area classifier registered — every open-flame activity within the flammable-vapor envelope is checked against the permit it operates inside. If the permit surface drops out of compliance in the same window, the correlator writes the evidence pack at the moment of the breach.
Skeptical chemical-plant EHS managers, answered
Three objections a chemical-plant EHS manager brings to the demo.
The conversations we lose are the ones where the manager already trusts the bump-test calendar, can point to a paper hot-work permit the auditors closed cleanly, or has weathered a process upset where the correlator arrived after the panel was already cleared. The answers below are the ones we open with.
We already have fixed gas detectors — drift is on the calibration routine.
A bump-test calendar tells you the sensor was functional at the last calibration. It does not tell you the H₂S / NH₃ / Cl₂ / HCl reading was drifting over the quarter while the bump-test still passed. Pactwell reasons across the sensor trend, the alarm-state log, and the maintenance window — surfacing drift weeks before the next scheduled cal, not at the audit window.
Hot-work permits are issued by a paper system; adding cameras slows us down.
The paper permit is fine. The gap is the minute the permit is closed on paper but the camera still sees an open flame inside the flammable-vapor envelope. Pactwell reads the permit registry in real time, points the correlator at the area CCTV, and writes the breach to the live supervisor dashboard — the permit workflow keeps its pace, the audit window keeps its standard.
Process upsets happen in seconds — a correlator can’t catch them in time.
A pressure / temperature / flow divergence fires inside the SIS window and the correlator inherits the response from the same sensor stream the SIS tripped on — not from a polling cycle. The evidence pack is written in the same second the divergence flagged, and the management-of-change log is opened against the deviation before the operator hits the panel.
What gets watched in a chemical plant
Six watch surfaces, each with its own evidence puck.
The matrix below names the surfaces the correlator is tuned to in a chemical plant — from toxic-gas analyzer drift to PRCS entry into a reactor during turnaround. Each card pairs the input combination with the evidence puck Pactwell writes when the combination fires.
Toxic-gas detection drift across the analyzer rack
Toxic-gas-drift puck: sensor reading vs. last calibration envelope with the deviation interval, the alarm state on the day, and the maintenance ticket open against the analyzer.
Combustible-dust puck: layer thickness above the NFPA 654 housekeeping threshold with an ignition source in the same room, with the area-classifier permit window cross-referenced.
Open-flame / hot-work permit near a flammable-vapor envelope
InputHot-work permit registry + flammable-vapor LEL sensor + area CCTV
Hot-work-vs-vapor puck: permit open and LEL reading nonzero with an open flame on the CCTV, timestamped against the permit window the area classifier registered.
Process upset: pressure / temperature / flow divergence on a unit
Process-upset puck: divergence trace from the operating-limit envelope with the SIS state and the operator response timeline in the same second the divergence flagged.
Reactor relief-valve state sustained open above the management-of-change threshold
InputRelief-valve position sensor + management-of-change registry
Relief-valve puck: valve position "open" sustained past the MOC threshold with no MOC window registered, written to the incident-response ticket before the operator clears the panel.
PRCS entry into a reactor / sump during turnaround
PRCS puck: entry permit live, atmospheric monitor in alarm, attendant badge absent beyond the threshold interval — written to the same audit pack the inspector opens.
Inputs → outputs
Sensor + permit + CCTV, mapped to the standards the inspector opens.
The matrix below pairs the inputs Pactwell reasons across — toxic-gas sensors, dust-layer accumulation sensors, the hot-work permit registry, the LEL analyzer, the relief-valve position sensor, the PRCS permit registry, and the CCTV feeds covering the hot-work and reactor envelopes — with the chemical-plant signal each combination reasons over and the compliance output the audit-ready PDF references.
Inputs
Toxic-gas sensor (H₂S / NH₃ / Cl₂ / HCl)Bump-test / calibration calendarAlarm-state logArea CCTV at the analyzer
Chemical-plant signal Pactwell reasons across
Sensor reading drifting outside the calibration envelope over the preceding interval while the alarm-state log shows zero trips — drift that the bump-test calendar would still pass at the next routine cal.
EPA RMP 40 CFR Part 68· §68.71 Process hazard analysis — sensor & detection controls on regulated substances
Inputs
Hot-work permit registryLEL flammable-vapor sensorArea CCTV over the hot-work envelopeGas-detection alarm state
Chemical-plant signal Pactwell reasons across
Hot-work permit is open for the area, an LEL reading is nonzero (or has crossed the alarm threshold in the same window), and the area CCTV shows an open flame inside the flammable-vapor envelope without the permit cleared.
Compliance output
OSHA PSM 29 CFR 1910.119· §1910.119(j) Hot work — permit and permit-vs-atmospheric envelope on PSM-covered equipment
EPA RMP 40 CFR Part 68· §68.65 Management of change — and hot-work envelope vs. regulated-substance handling
Plant management-of-change log· Job paused; area cleared; permit & atmospheric envelope re-verified before restart
Dust-layer thickness above the NFPA 654 housekeeping threshold with an ignition source in the same room, and no area-classifier permit open that authorizes the dust layer for the shift.
OSHA PSM 29 CFR 1910.119· §1910.119(e) Mechanical integrity · §1910.119(j) Hot work — insofar as the dust hazard intersects PSM-covered equipment
Inputs
Reactor pressure / temperature sensorProcess flow sensor on the unitOperating-limit envelope (per procedure)SIS state & operator response timeline
Chemical-plant signal Pactwell reasons across
Pressure, temperature, or flow diverges outside the operating-limit envelope during a unit run, the SIS state registers the trip in the same second, and the operator response begins but management of change has not yet been opened.
EPA RMP 40 CFR Part 68· §68.69 Process information · §68.71 Process hazard analysis — deviation from operating limit on regulated substances
Plant incident-investigation record· Divergence trace + SIS state + operator timeline captured before the panel is cleared
Inputs
Relief-valve position sensorManagement-of-change registryReactor pressure / temperature sensorCCTV on the reactor sight glass
Chemical-plant signal Pactwell reasons across
Relief valve position sustained "open" above the management-of-change threshold interval, with no MOC entry registered for the underlying deviation, while pressure / temperature trend is still inside the viable envelope.
EPA RMP 40 CFR Part 68· §68.73 Operating procedures — release event & reporting threshold on regulated substances
Inputs
Confined-space entry permit (PRCS)Atmospheric-monitor logEntry-attendant badge readerCCTV at the PRCS access point
Chemical-plant signal Pactwell reasons across
PRCS permit is live for reactor / sump entry, the atmospheric monitor reads above the entry-threshold (or reads zero / fault), the attendant badge is absent beyond the threshold interval, and the access CCTV shows personnel inside the envelope.
EPA RMP 40 CFR Part 68· §68.85 Incident investigation — insofar as PRCS intersects RMP-covered equipment during turnaround
Plant incident-investigation record· Atmospheric & attendant gap timestamped against the live PRCS permit, audit pack written at the moment of the breach
Compliance citations are written against the published PSM / RMP and NFPA standards — OSHA PSM 29 CFR 1910.119 (Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals), EPA RMP 40 CFR Part 68 (Risk Management Programs for Chemical Accidental Release Prevention), and NFPA 652 (Standard on the Fundamentals of Combustible Dust). Pactwell capability claims cross-check against the competitor matrix and the enterprise FAQ.
Run the correlator on the highest-risk unit
Two doors in, depending on where you sit.
If you already have the toxic-gas sensors, the LEL analyzers, the hot-work permit registry, the relief-valve state sensors, and the CCTV feeds covering the hot-work envelope online, start free at /signup and run the same pilot the matrix above is written against — connect sensors, register permits, point Pactwell at the SCADA / DCS feed, and watch a flagged event arrive inside two weeks. If you’re still evaluating the shortlist, the door for that is open too.