(54ah) Process Hazards and Process Risk Investigation (as a prerequisite for operational discipline)

Process
Hazards and Process Risk investigation as a prerequisite for operational
discipline

In the field of safety and risk, it is widely known
that Hazards and Risks are not the same.

Hazard and Risk studies provide the necessary
information to adequately manage and control safety during the different phases
within the lifecycle of a process plant from design to demolition. This
information is required to control the risk during exploitation and as a
knowledge database for a controlled management of change.

In 2014, because of a fatal accident, Umicore decided to change the
approach of Hazard and Risk identification. Umicore divided the Hazard and Risk
investigation into two different analyses.

The knowledge gathered during the process hazard assessment
analysis (or PHA) is used in the further development of the chemical or
physicochemical process in general, performing the process risk assessments
(PRA), defining the required risk reduction measures (RRM) to achieve the
acceptable risk level, developing the operational safety procedures, strengthen
the management of change program in later lifecycle phases and to control
knowledge management. In the PRA the translation
of the identified hazards into risks in normal and abnormal operation
conditions is further investigated. 

In this paper, the authors will give a comprehensive overview
of this unique combination of methods they use to investigate Hazards and link
them to the Risk assessment, operational files, management of change and
knowledge management to bring about operational excellence. They will also
share the best practices including their in-house developed tool that assisted
with consistency in adequate documentation of all identified hazards, risks
analyses and risk reducing measures.

Marc Massant       
    Umicore

Chris Israni             
    ERM