William “Bill” Bridges
Mr. Bridges brings more than 45 years of industrial experience spanning process engineering, operations management, quality control and assurance, and safety evaluation. His distinguished career includes founding Process Improvement Institute (PII), where he served for over two decades as President, Principal Engineer, and Senior Instructor. He also served as plant manager of a chemical-based electronics fabrication facility, as well as extensive work in polymer product and process development, chemical process development, automation and control systems, and pilot plant management.
He received foundational training in process safety engineering and management, health, safety, and environment (HSE), and Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) leadership in 1981, along with formal training in Statistical Process Control (SPC), Statistical Quality Control (SQC), and Total Quality Management (TQM). Since 1986, Mr. Bridges has delivered training programs across a wide range of disciplines, including process safety management, PHA/HAZOP, incident investigation, HSE, TQM, SPC, SQC, and statistical design of experiments.
A recognized expert in human factors, his primary professional focus is on understanding, evaluating, and reducing human error in industrial environments. He continues to develop and refine methodologies for analyzing human performance and improving system reliability.
Mr. Bridges has trained more than 9,000 professionals in PSM-related topics, including over 3,700 PHA/HAZOP leaders, more than 2,800 incident investigators, and over 1,000 individuals in process safety management. He has also trained hundreds of practitioners in areas such as human factors, job safety analysis (JSA), procedure writing, and Layers of Protection Analysis (LOPA).
In practice, he has led more than 210 large-scale (unit-wide) PHAs/HAZOPs and over 100 smaller PHAs. His experience also includes leading more than two dozen process safety and combined HSE/PSM audits, more than 50 investigations of major and moderate incidents, and over 100 additional root cause analyses.
Mr. Bridges is a widely published author and industry thought leader. He is one of the originators of Layers of Protection Analysis (LOPA) and a primary author of the three foundational textbooks on the subject. He has also served as a primary author of CCPS/AIChE textbooks on process hazard analysis and incident investigation, and as a contributing author to Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) publications. His body of work includes approximately 80 technical papers, leadership roles in more than a dozen conferences and technical sessions, and 10 patents. Below is listing of the core textbooks for AIChE/CCPS that were authored or co-authored by Mr. Bridges:
Guidelines for Hazard Evaluation Procedures, CCPS/AIChE, 2008 (3rd Edition) (this is the definitive text on performing PHAs, using HAZOP, FMEA, What-If, and other methods; Mr. Bridges and Mrs. Tew were co-authors)
Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA), CCPS/AIChE, 2001 (this is the original and still the definitive text on performing LOPA; Mr. Bridges and Mr. Art Dowell, III were the primary authors)
Guidelines for Initiating Events and Independent Protection Layers, CCPS/AIChE, 2015 (Mr. Bridges was the main author and Hal Thomas was a key contributor; this is an essential supplement to the original LOPA book which was co-authored by Mr. Bridges and Art Dowell)
Guidelines for Enabling Conditions and Conditional Modifiers, CCPS/AIChE, 2013 (Mr. Bridges was a committee member and contributing author; this is an essential supplement to the original LOPA book which was co-authored by Mr. Bridges.)
Guidelines for Safe Automation of Chemical Processes, CCPS/AIChE, (2nd Edition) 2017 (Mr. Bridges and Hal Thomas were committee members; this is an essential update to the definitive textbook from AIChE on BPCS and SIS design and installations)
Guidelines for Investigating Chemical Process Incidents, 2003 (2nd Edition) (this is the definitive textbook on investigation; Mr. Bridges was a primary author and Mr. Dowell participated on the first edition of this textbook)
Guidelines for Hazard Evaluation Procedures, CCPS/AIChE, 1991 (2nd Edition) (this is the definitive text on performing PHAs, using HAZOP, FMEA, What-If, and other methods; Mr. Bridges and Mrs. Tew were co-authors)