Analysis risk-management

Mark Cook is a Reservoir Engineer and Petroleum Economist. He has worked on international assignments mainly in Tanzania, Oman, the Netherlands and the UK. His main focus is in economic evaluation of field development projects, risk analysis, reservoir management and simulation. After 11 years with a multinational company he co-founded TRACS International of which he is Technical Director. 

Chemical Process Quantitative Risk Analysis Process Equipment Reliability Data, with Data Tables Technical Management of Chemical Process Safety (Plant)... 

Robert W. Ormsby/ M S / ChE / Manager of Safety, Chemicals Group, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. Air Products Corp. Fellow, American Institute of Chemical Engineers. (Risk Analysis)... 

Government regulations reqmre hazard and risk analysis as part of process safety management (PSM) programs. These are part of the process safety programs of many chemical process facilities. 

Risk analysis is the process of gathering data and synthesizing information to develop an understanding of the risk of a particular enterprise. Risk analysis usually involves several of the five risk management activities shown in Figure 1. CPI companies have many possible applications... 

Covernment and regulatoi y decisions. Sometimes these decisions are based on some type of quantitative risk analysis, and they provide some guidance on society s expectations with regard to risk management. In some cases these decisions will also include some kind of cost-benefit analysis. The current political climate in the United States may encourage more extensive use of risk analysis in the establishment of future regulations. 

In the past, qualitative approaches for hazard evaluation and risk analysis have been able to satisfy the majority of decision makers needs. In the future, there will be an increasing motivation to use QRA. For the special situations that appear to demand quantitative support for safety-related decisions, QRA can be effective in increasing the manager s understanding of the level of risk associated with a company activity. Whenever possible, decision makers should design QRA studies to produce relative results that support their information requirements. QRA studies used in this way are not subject to nearly as many of the numbers problems and limitations to which absolute risk studies are subject, and the results are less likely to be misused. 

Quantitative risk analysis (QRA) is a powerful analysis approach used to help manage risk and improve safety in many industries. When properly performed with appropriate respect for its theoretical and practical limitations, QRA provides a rational basis for evaluating process safety and comparing improvement alternatives. However, QRA is not a panacea that can solve all problems, make decisions for a manager, or substitute for existing safety assurance and loss prevention activities. Even when QRA is preferred, qualitative results, which always form the foundation for QRA, should be used to verify and support any conclusions drawn from QRA. 

The American Chemistry Council, formerly the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA), and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Center for Chemical Process Safety (AIChE/CCPS) have jointly published Evaluating Process Safety in the Chemical Industry User s Guide to Quantitative Risk Analysis. This is a revised and updated edition of Evaluating Process Safety in the Chemical Industry A Manager s Guide to Quantitative Risk Analysis, published in 1989 by CMA. 

Qualitative answers to one or more of these questions are often sufficient for making good decisions about the allocation of resources for safety improvements. But, as managers seek quantitative cost/benefit information upon which to base their decisions, they increasingly turn their attention to the use of quantitative risk analysis (QRA). 

The standard does not require you to take corrective action on every nonconformity or prevent every potential nonconformity. Here it is suggested that the decision to act should be based on the magnitude of the problem and the risks encountered. It is therefore implying that you only need act on the vital few. In fact this is good practice anyway, but to find that vital few you need to collect and analyze most of the data in the first place. Having made your proposals you should then conduct a risk analysis as part of the solution. Before managers will take action, they need to know ... 

A program of research has been supported for several years by the United Kingdom Health Safety Executive (HSE) to address the effects of sociotechnical factors on risk in the CPI. The initial emphasis of this work was to develop a methodology so that chemical process quantitative risk analysis (CPQRA) would take into accotmt the effects of the quality of the management factors of plant being assessed. This work has been described in a series of publications (e.g., Bellamy et al., 1990 Hurst et al., 1991 Geyer et al., 1990 and Hurst et al., 1992). 

The Chemical Process Industry (CPI) uses various quantitative and qualitative techniques to assess the reliability and risk of process equipment, process systems, and chemical manufacturing operations. These techniques identify the interactions of equipment, systems, and persons that have potentially undesirable consequences. In the case of reliability analyses, the undesirable consequences (e.g., plant shutdown, excessive downtime, or production of off-specification product) are those incidents which reduce system profitability through loss of production and increased maintenance costs. In the case of risk analyses, the primary concerns are human injuries, environmental impacts, and system damage caused by occurrence of fires, explosions, toxic material releases, and related hazards. Quantification of risk in terms of the severity of the consequences and the likelihood of occurrence provides the manager of the system with an important decisionmaking tool. By using the results of a quantitative risk analysis, we are better able to answer such questions as, Which of several candidate systems poses the least risk Are risk reduction modifications necessary and What modifications would be most effective in reducing risk ... 

Considerable interest has been generated in hazard identification and risk analysis techniques, which provide a systematic means to help reduce and manage chemical process risks. CCPS has undertaken a series of Guidelines covering many aspects of the subjects to provide the latest information and useful techniques for the engineer in the... 

KrummEV, Rolle CE. Management and application of decision and risk analysis in DuPont. Interfaces 1992 22 84-93. 

Mauro, I.M. and McLachlan, S.M. (2003). Risk Analysis of Genetically Modified Crops on the Canadian Prairies. Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Plant Products Directorate, Plant Biosafety Office Technical Workshop on the Management of Herbicide Tolerant (HT) Crops Report, www.inspection.gc.ca/english/plaveg/bio/consult/ herbtolrepe.shtml 7. Accessed June 17, 2005. 

Kulbir Bakshi, Program Director for the Committee on Toxicology Lee R.Paulson, Program Director for Resource Management Roberta M.Wedge, Program Director for Risk Analysis... 

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