Process Safety is a term commonly used in the process industries to describe the safety requirements related to the design and operation of hazardous processes.
This article aims to highlight some key areas of the subject matter. The areas will include:
- Elements of the process safety management system and
- Some process safety areas (Hazid, Hazop, LOPA, DSEAR, etc)
If you need more on process safety, you need to get trained.
Read Also: How to use the risk assessment matrix effectively
14 Elements Of The Process Safety Management
14 elements generally make up the process; the elements are interlinked and also interdependent. The elements are:
- Process Safety Information
- Process Hazard Analysis
- Operating Procedures
- Training
- Contractors
- Mechanical Integrity
- Hot Work
- Management of Change
- Incident Investigation
- Compliance Audits
- Trade Secrets
- Employee Participation
- Pre-startup Safety Review
- Emergency Planning and Response
Some Process Safety Areas Include:
- Hazard Review (PHR) studies
- HAZOP studies
- HAZID Studies
- LOPA (Layer of protection analysis)
- DSEAR (Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations)
- Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) will assess the risk from all process failures as well as fixed plant risk (parts count QRA).
The Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) process includes:
- Fault Tree Analysis
- Event Tree Analysis
- Process Failures- QRA
- Part Count-QRA
- SIL QRA ( see also SIS/ Functional Safety)
- FMEA/FMECA/ FMEDA
- Human Failure Analysis
- Individual Risk Contours
- Societal Risk Implications, etc.
Read Also: 6 Methods of Risk Assessment You Should Know
Common Approach For Project Process Safety Management
The six-stage hazard study is a common approach often adopted.
The stages include:
- Concept: Preliminary Hazard Studies
- FEED: HAZID/Coarse HAZOP, LOPA, QRA, DSEAR
- EPC: Final HAZOP, LOPA, DSEAR
- Commissioning: Verification of safety systems performance
- Handover and Operations: Further verification and overall validation of safety elements
- Continued Safe Operations: A hazard study is usually carried out after 6 months of process operation to ensure suitable performance of safety-related elements has been achieved.
NOTE: This process can be tailored to suit any project by using a more comprehensive list of studies.
The subject matter is a broad area in safety management. If you need to be well versed in it, you need to get trained.
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