Which statement best describes Management of Change (MOC) in process safety?

• A. To schedule machine maintenance.
• B. MOC is the formal process to review and authorize changes to equipment, processes, procedures, or facilities to prevent introducing new hazards or increasing risk.
• C. To train new operators.
• D. To be a maintenance scheduling tool.

Answer: (B)

Management of Change is the formal process used to review, approve, and document any proposed change to equipment, processes, procedures, or facilities before it is implemented. The goal is to prevent introducing new hazards or increasing risk as a result of the change. This means identifying what is changing, assessing potential safety, health, environmental, and operability impacts, verifying that existing safeguards remain adequate or updating them as needed, and communicating and training affected personnel. It also involves updating documentation such as procedures and drawings to reflect the change.

This is broader than routine tasks like scheduling machine maintenance, which is a maintenance activity rather than a formal safety review; and it’s more than training new operators, which happens after changes or during onboarding but is not the change approval itself. It isn’t merely a maintenance scheduling tool, either; MOC is specifically about ensuring that any modification to equipment, processes, or facilities does not introduce new risks or alter existing risk levels unsafely.