Hazard identification safety performance

Paradies, M., Unger, L., Ramey-Smith, A. (1992). Development and TesHng of the NRC s Human Performance Investigation Process (HPIP). In Proceedings of the International Conference on Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis, Human Factors and Human Reliability in Process Safety, New York American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Center for Chemical Process Safety. Pp. 253-260. 

Hazard identification can be performed independent of risk assessment. However, the best result is obtained if they are done together. One outcome is that hazards of low probability and minimal consequences are identified and addressed with the result that the process is gold-plated. This means that potentially unnecessary and expensive safety equipment and procedures are implemented. For instance, flying aircraft and tornadoes are hazards to a chemical plant. What are the chances of their occurrence, and what should be done about them For most facilities the probability of these hazards is small No steps are required for prevention. Likewise, hazards with reasonable probability but minimal consequences are sometimes also neglected. 

Hazard and Operability Analysis (Hazop) (Kletz, 1992) is one of the most used safety analysis methods in the process industry. It is one of the simplest approaches to hazard identification. Hazop involves a vessel to vessel and a pipe to pipe review of a plant. For each vessel and pipe the possible disturbances and their potential consequences are identified. Hazop is based on guide words such as no, more, less, reverse, other than, which should be asked for every pipe and vessel (Table 1). The intention of the quide words is to stimulate the imagination, and the method relies very much on the expertise of the persons performing the analysis. The idea behind the questions is that any disturbance in a chemical plant can be described in terms of physical state variables. Hazop can be used in different stages of process design but in restricted mode. A complete Hazop study requires final process plannings with flow sheets and PID s. 

The design and operation of a process plant form an integral part of safety and systematic procedures and should be employed to identify hazards and operability and, where necessary, should be quantified. During the design of a new plant, the hazard identification procedure is repeated at intervals. This is first performed on the pilot plant before the full-scale version as the design progresses. Potential hazards whose significance can be assessed with the help of experiments are often revealed by this study. 

Additionally process safety requires teams. Teams are often brought together to perform PHAs or hazard identifications, PSSRs, or to review MOC plans. Teams are sometimes used to write and/or review operating procedures. Teams facilitate bringing together the SMEs assigned to a task. Here SMEs can interact to be sure all aspects of the task are addressed. Further peer review teams may be used to ensure that nothing important is overlooked, misinterpreted, or miscalculated. These team activities are consistent with a matrix structure. 

Discussions of achievements with safety professionals whose oiganiza-tions had top scores did not produce any surprises. Incident investigation for hazard identification and analysis gets done best where the organization s culture includes accountability for superior performance. Here is an aggregate Mst of the conoments made in discussions with safety professionals in those entities with the best incident investigation systems ... 

The system safety discipline will require the timely identification and subsequent evaluation of the hazards associated with this operation, before losses occur. The hazards must then be either eliminated or controlled to an acceptable level of risk in order to accomplish the goal of relocating the hazardous chemicals. In short, the system safety process will identify any corrective actions that must be implemented before the task is permitted to proceed. The fly-fix-fiy approach discussed earlier has also been described as an after the fact attempt to improve operational safety performance. In contrast, the system safety concept requires before the fact control of system hazards. 

The job safety analysis (JSA) [also referred to as the job hazard analysis (JHA)], which is a more simplified form of task analysis, has been a longstanding tool for task and function analysis. JSA has been available and utilized in general industry for many years by the industrial safety community. However, many practitioners do not understand or are simply unfamiliar with the connection between the JSA and the system safety tasks of hazard identification and analysis. It has even been suggested by some in the profession that the JSA itself is a type of oversimplified system safety analysis and, if performed earlier in the job development phase, could be used as the basis of a preliminary hazard analysis for a specific task or set of tasks. However, because JSA is often (if improperly) used to analyze a function only after it has been implemented, much of the data is not factored into the system safety process. The primary purpose of the JSA is to uncover inherent or potential hazards that may be encountered in the work environment. This basic definition is not unlike that previously discussed regarding the various system safety analyses. The primary difference between the two is subtle but important and is found in the end-use purpose of the JSA. Once the job or task is completed, the JSA is usually used as an effective tool for training and orienting the new employee into the work environment. The JSA presents a verbal picture of a specific job. 

It should be understood that the performance of an FHA is not always a requirement. Other analytical methods such as, but not limited to, the FMEA and the ETBA, if performed, should have already evaluated most, if not all, of the same hazards that would be identified in the FHA. However, the FHA is a powerful tool in hazard identification and control, and the benefit of its performance should not be overlooked. The FHA is an excellent system safety engineering method that can be used to ensure system operational integrity. 

Quantitative Risk Assessment. Previous sections in this chapter dealt with the identification, measurement, and mitigation of hazards in a chlor-alkali plant. Plant safety and Responsible Care programs define the objectives of continuous improvement in safety performance. The discussion of mitigation immediately above naturally leads on to the larger question of the most direct and cost-effective approach to this improvement. 

Occupational health and safety management tools (including hazard identification and risk assessment, selection and implementation of appropriate hazard controls, developing proactive and reactive performance measures, understanding techniques to encourage employee participation and evaluation of work-related accidents and incidents)... 

MIMAH is a standardised systematic approach for the identification of hazards. MIMAEI is complementary to existing methods, such as EI/ ZOP, FMEA, checklists etc and ensures a better exhaustiveness in terms of hazard- and safety-barrier identification. Bow-ties are the basis of MIMAH methodology in ARAMIS. LOPA is a means of assessing the performance of the safety barriers. 

Seiri refers to the need to separate and retain only those things that are necessary for the tasks undertaken by the workgroup. It requires the identification and removal of superfluous materials and process steps. It directly relates to safety performance insofar as many accidents occur from non-added value activity. Examples of tasks which add cost and hazards without adding value include storage and transportation of product in warehouses. 

Consistent with the obligation to ensure that compliance remains in the workplace (and not with Government) new performance based standards require hazard identification, risk assessment and risk control. Such activities are basic and necessary to a functional system of safety management, but the requirement introduces a subjective element into the process which continues to cause problems and disputes as to whether what has been done complies with the legal requirement (Dell, 2001). 

Led the industry to recognize that safety management and performance standard approach is superior to a prescriptive approach for safety. The HAZOP technique started to gain prominence as a hazard identification tool. 

Eor hazard identification, it is advisable to use questionnaires. In the case of more complex and complicated equipment, experts in the field of machine safety must possess more experience and the methods used must be of higher complexity. Modem technical risk analyses are based on the collection of a vast amount of data that depict the technical conditions of the equipment. The pieces of information are further processed by computers, the central units, and are then compared with the acceptable values saved on the hard disk. The measures are implemented either automatically via the feedback connections of the operating elements, or are performed by the operational staff based upon the respective data. Based on the collected data, the appropriate maintenance is carried out and its strategy is designed to ensure safe equipment operation with respect to other additional goals, such as preparedness, reliability, space reduction, and so on. 

Mishaps involve a set of causal factors that lead up to the final mishap event, and these factors are the actuated hazard conditions. Mishap causal factors can be identified prior to an actual mishap through the application of HA. Mishaps are an inevitable consequence of antecedent causes and, given the same causal factors, the same mishap is repeatable, with the frequency based on the component probabilities. Mishaps can be predicted via hazard identification, and they can be prevented or controlled via hazard elimination or hazard control methods. This safety concept demonstrates that we do have control over the potential mishaps in the systems we develop and operate. We are not destined to face an unknown suite of undesired mishaps, unless we allow it to be so (by not performing adequate system safety). In the safety sense, mishaps are preplanned events in that they are actually created through poor design and/or inadequate design foresight. 

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