Leading and Lagging Process Safety Indicators: Measure What Matters

A useful process safety dashboard tells you both what has happened and whether the controls that prevent a major event are working. Injury counts and loss-of-containment events describe outcomes. Inspection quality, overdue safety-critical actions and proof-test performance show whether important barriers are being maintained.
Neither group can carry the whole picture. A site can report no serious event this quarter while critical maintenance slips, recommendations age without owners, or operators work around unreliable alarms. A balanced set makes those conditions visible and gives managers a reason to act.

Start with a major-hazard question

Choose an indicator only when it helps answer a decision the site needs to make. For example: Are high-risk actions closing on time? Are operators finding safety-critical equipment available when required? Do repeated near misses point to a weak procedure or design?
The fourth edition of API Recommended Practice 754, published in August 2026, continues a four-tier framework for process safety indicators. Tier 1 and Tier 2 events are suited to public reporting under the practice; Tier 3 and Tier 4 indicators are intended for site-level use. API RP 754 was written for refining and petrochemical industries and may also help other sectors with hazardous loss-of-containment risks. It is an industry recommended practice, not automatically a South African legal requirement.

Pair outcomes with control health

Keep the indicator set small enough for people to review and use. A facility might combine:

• Outcome measures: qualifying process safety events, releases, fires, explosions and severity, classified consistently against the selected reporting method.
• Barrier measures: safety-critical equipment overdue for inspection or testing, impairments beyond their approved duration, and demand rates where the data are reliable.
• Action measures: overdue high-risk recommendations, time to assess a hazard report, and the share of corrective actions whose effectiveness has been checked.
• Learning measures: near-miss reports with a completed review, repeated event types, and actions communicated back to affected workers.
  For every rate, document the numerator, denominator, boundaries, exclusions, data owner and review period. A number without a stable definition cannot support a fair comparison. Do not compare sites until you know they count events, operating hours and equipment consistently.

Make each measure actionable

Assign an owner, a review interval and a trigger for escalation. If a leading indicator deteriorates, ask what changed in the work or control system. Do not reward low reporting numbers: fewer reports can mean fewer hazards, but they can also mean workers do not trust the process.
OSHA’s guidance on leading indicators recommends using proactive measures alongside lagging outcomes. Its examples include worker participation, hazard reporting and corrective-action response time. OSHA guidance is not South African law, but the measurement principle is useful: track prevention work and examine whether it improves control performance.
MMRisk helps facilities connect indicators to major-hazard scenarios through MHI risk assessment and process safety support. For a review of your current measures, contact our team.