Event Summary
Changes happen every day—new materials, revised procedures, temporary workarounds, staffing shifts, and system upgrades. This course is designed for engineering, operations, and compliance professionals who are responsible for ensuring those changes are evaluated, communicated, and implemented safely.
Participants will learn how to apply Management of Change (MOC) in a practical, efficient way to support safe operations without unnecessarily slowing work. The course focuses on how MOC fits within API RP 1173 Pipeline Safety Management Systems (PSMS) and how effective MOC prevents unintended consequences before they become incidents, findings, or rework.
The training will provide a high-level overview of PSMS MOC principles designed to avoid unintended consequences. Participants will explore how to properly scope changes, assess risk, identify required approvals, and ensure training and documentation are completed before changes go live. Emphasis is placed on coordination across engineering, operations, and compliance to ensure changes are visible, traceable, and consistently managed across the organization. Using examples, the course will discuss scenarios where use of MOC is necessary and when it is not, also discussed will be common MOC breakdowns and pitfalls, such as missed triggers, incomplete risk reviews, poor communication, and weak follow-through.
Lastly, the course will include a discussion on why post-change follow-up and review are necessary for the safe conduct of operations and continuous improvement.
Attendees will receive 2 Professional Development Hours (PDH) upon completion.
Course Objectives
- Apply the MOC process to evaluate risk, define controls, and determine required approvals before implementing changes.
- Analyze common MOC failures and pitfalls and select strategies to prevent gaps in communication, documentation, and follow-through.
- Coordinate effectively across engineering, operations, and compliance to ensure changes are reviewed, communicated, and understood.
- Verify that MOC actions—including training, procedure updates, and documentation—are completed before and after changing implementation.
- Identify the types of changes that require use of a Management of Change and distinguish them from routine work and minor adjustments.
Who Should Attend
All PSMS stakeholders, leadership, compliance, engineers, general PSMS users, and new hires.
Meet the Instructor
Mark Weesner
P-PIC
Mark has over 45 years in the energy industry, including 37 years with Exxon and ExxonMobil and the last 8 years as an independent engineer/consultant. Mark has wide-ranging experience in engineering, risk management, process improvement, project management, refining and pipeline operations, economic analysis, pipeline safety management systems, regulatory compliance, integrity management, and emergency response. Mark is a certified in advanced Incident Command and Complex Incidents. He served on the API Committee that developed and published Recommended Practice RP 1173: Pipeline Safety Management Systems.
Over the last 8 years, Mark has conducted Pipeline Safety Management System Audits, Assessments, and Maturity Evaluations for both gas and liquid pipeline operators.
