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Everyone has heard of major industrial accidents. If you’re one of the lucky majority, these accidents seem to happen far away to people we don’t know. In our desensitized world where bad things are on the news every day, thinking of these industrial accidents can seem a bit mind numbing. However, as engineering professionals we should not let our guard down. Our Process Hazard Assessments (PHA’s) are practical and can save you money.
As the saying goes, you cannot improve what you do not measure. Risk management starts with taking stock of what you have. This has traditionally meant sending junior personnel to the field to log equipment for input in a large database. Beware of an opportunity wasted to maximize field data capture. By sending a team of process safety oriented professionals to the field making use of 360 degree data captured, you are well positioned to analyze risk and then implement recommendations without multiple site trips.
Now, should any process related incident occur, one of the best defences you can have is a proper Process Hazard Assessment (PHA) report. In Canada within the legal doctrine of reasonableness, a proper risk assessment will either detail the event and what steps were in place to mitigate it or show that the event was not reasonably foreseeable. This can be the case with major accidents, but also minor incidents and liaising with regulators.
PHA reports can provide invaluable data to many other disciplines and it’s important that this data is actually utilized. One can prioritize the preventative maintenance of safety critical devices listed in these risk assessments. The lessons learned can flow to the next project, where an inherently safer design is not part of a costly late recommendation but rather the initial basic design.
When viewed in a nuanced way, the recommendations for change stemming from a risk assessment usually pay for the risk assessment itself. When one annualizes the costs of a potential incident, the countermeasures deployed should be seen as a cost savings. Yes, there is an up front investment. However, the benefit is a safe and reliable operation well into the future.
To determine if a safety upgrade will pay for itself, conduct an ALARP (As Low As Reasonably Practicable) justification exercise. This will either underscore the benefit of the upgrade and assist in justifying it, or provide a level of due diligence if the upgrade is not commercially viable.
Consult one of our experts for guidance in process hazard assessments or data capture projects today.
Carsten Acker, P.L.(Eng.), FS Eng (TÜV Rheinland)
Director of Operations
[email protected]
587-777-3055
www.watchmenise.com
Watchmen Instrumented Safety Experts is a Functional Safety Engineering company with specialized expertise in preventative and mitigative instrumented safety. This includes Alarm Management, HAZOP & LOPA facilitation, SIL / SIS Consulting, and Fire & Gas Systems Engineering.
Contact Intrepid Group at 1-800-543-9152 or [email protected] to learn more!
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