(57by) Bringing New Life to Process Safety

 
Abstract:

Whilst
risk cannot be eliminated, it can be better managed.  The world of Process
Safety Management continues to evolve as organizations find better ways of
managing risks. In the simplest form, managing the risk is to reducing inherent
process risk to the tolerable level.

First
step in managing risks is to identify source of Hazards and quantifying risk
associated to Hazards. Traditionally organizations heavily rely on expert
judgment and brainstorming methodologies like HAZOP for finding operational and
design risks. In addition, quality of such analysis are directly related to the
precision of assumptions and information from operation and maintenance of the
equipment under control.

In
this session we will explore how organizations are using new techniques such as
dynamic risk visualization, cumulative risk techniques, operational risk
assessments and cyber Hazop’s to advance the boundaries of process safety
management.

This
paper will explore how existing systems and data sources, risk visualization
and intelligence techniques are being used to bring static process safety data
to life. Flat “1 dimensional” information such as lists, forms and databases
are now being transformed into “2 dimensional” dynamic information such as plot
plans, barrier models, risk matrix, bow ties etc. that provide greater context
of relationships between information. 

This
information will resonate with engineers and technician who rather working with
meaningful information of operation and maintenance systems instead of some
abstract numbers and concepts that need extensive expertise in the reliability
engineering.   

We
also will look at how advances in Operational Risk Assessments and Cumulative
Risk allow operators to determine in real time if the overall cumulative risk
is tolerable before actions are taken, devices are removed from service,
maintenance activities are deferred etc. In other words, leading indicators and
metrics will be in disposal of operators to proactively facilitate decision
making for managing risk. This could avoid incidents that developing in the
operation due to degradation of control and safety systems or deviations from
initial operation and maintenance procedures and may lead to severe incidents.

And
finally, since new technologies and architectures for instrumentation, control
and safety systems introduced new risks of cyber intrusions and attacks that
need to be considered in the risk management and the world of security
standards (ISA 62443-3-2 Security Risk Assessment and System Design) and safety
standards (ISA-TR84.00.09-2013 Security countermeasures related to Safety
Instrumented Systems and Associated IACS) advanced in the last few years, we
will look at how Cyber Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) techniques are being
applied to provide the same systematic approach to security as traditionally
applied to safety.

“Good
process safety management does not happen by chance and require constant active
engagement”, in this paper we suggested novel approaches that can revive and improve
the process safety.