Sam Aigen, CCPSC (Principal Engineer, Group Leader DC Business Unit) is a process safety professional with over 15 years of experience. Sam’s utilizes his expertise in PSM and deep passion for operational excellence programs to analyze clients’ maturity level and provide bespoke recommendations to implement and enhance PSM programs across diverse clients including major global corporations.
Sam began his career at ExxonMobil where he gained a deep technical understanding of process operations, maintenance, design, and optimization, which assists in identifying potential hazards and root causes as well as effective mitigations. His experience in unit troubleshooting and debottlenecking assists in identifying a wide variety of potential root causes when performing incident investigations. His experience also includes maintenance supervision, which provided him with real-world insights into the hazards of field maintenance and operations.
Since joining AcuTech, Sam has become an expert Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) facilitator and is experienced with conducting all hazard assessment methodologies including HAZOP, What-if, LOPA, and SIL Assignment. In his time at AcuTech, he has conducted over 200 PHAs in all process industries, including upstream, midstream, downstream – refining and chemicals, pharmaceuticals, LNG, hydrogen, ammonia/ agricultural, mining as well as marine operations. Sam has also been conducting remote PHAs since 2015 and now predominantly conducts his studies remotely due to client preference, flexibility and cost optimization.
In addition to his PHA expertise, Sam also has extensive experience conducting dispersion modeling, facility siting studies and quantitative risk analyses (QRA) [in both Phast and Safety software]. He has performed modeling for all sizes of studies, including modeling a single relief device, investigating the potential impact of wind on releases above the leeward side of buildings, and managing a QRA for an entire 200+kbd refinery.
Sam is also an experienced Process Safety Management (PSM) and Risk Management Program (RMP) auditor. His functional field experience uniquely positions him to identify key findings and issues, and to offer strategic recommendations to enhance the safety of industrial facilities.