There is no doubt that the coronavirus pandemic has had a tremendous effect on the world at large, particularly of course on the health and well-being of all its inhabitants, and COVID-19 is clearly going to be a major factor in how human beings interact with each other until mitigation efforts are able to reduce its effects, and the medical community is able to eventually develop a vaccine to control the spread of the virus. In the relatively short period that the virus has been present, individuals and families in all corners of the world have had to rethink their daily lives in order to accomplish everything from fulfilling basic needs to educating their children to participating in normal everyday activities.

In the same respect, many businesses have had to rethink how to adapt many of their processes and activities in order to continue to fulfill their mission while maintaining a business environment that is safe for both their employees and their customers. Safe social distancing practices have greatly reduced the types of vendor-customer interactions that businesses depend on. Air travel and business lodging has been reduced to only being allowed for participants in what are deemed to be “essential” activities, like those for medical practitioners and similar pursuits – activities that most businesses that don’t qualify for. As is the case with many businesses these days, Process Improvement Institute has given significant thought to how to adapt our business processes and activities in order to fulfill our mission, while still maintaining a safe work environment for all. One of the good results from this process has been the realization that since our employees are located around the world, we’re used to working remotely from our end, which has helped us understand how to use those work practices to help create a great path for our customers. We are pleased to announce that we have many adapted processes now in place, and look forward to continuing to help our customers meet their safety, risk, and reliability challenges.

• Conducting “pre-meetings” to trouble-shoot communication issues
• Establishment of a communication protocol to minimize unnecessary interruptions
• Increased preparation time
• Enforcement of the participation of required members only
• Shortening of sessions to minimize burnout
• Optimizing video conferencing equipment, connections, and protocols

• We have made all our Public training courses available via video-conferencing, with the same dates as previously listed
• For classes requiring breakout groups of 5 or so students, the students are grouped in Virtual Breakout Rooms where they can discuss and practice separately from the rest of the online students
• Workshops have been modified to suit the “Virtual Breakout Rooms”
• Made all necessary information (course manual and handouts) available electronically
• Established a Q&A protocol to solve all the student’s questions during or after the course
• Optimal business-grade internet installation at our staff’s home-offices to facilitate a quality distance-learning experience

Same protocols as stated for PHAs

• Arrangements for one-on-one interviews of owners and users of management systems
• Arrangements for document sharing with co-auditors provided from the client

Same protocols as stated for PHAs

• Arrangements for one-on-one review of writers or pairs of writers
• Arrangements for document sharing with writers, which are the SME from the client

SIL determination and selection is normally performed within the PHA as a natural part of identifying IPLs and judging risk control, so no changes are needed for that aspect of SIS work. LOPA and SIL Verification are typically done remotely, outside of any meetings, so there are no changes needed to these services either.