(40ad) You Have a “Safeguard(s)” in Place; Sounds Promising, but Have You Tested It? Act before It Is Too Late.

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that is changing quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks,” said Mark Zuckerberg.

In other words, life and risk are the two sides of the same coin, and you cannot escape them. Whether you like it or not, life is a series of events and trade-offs, with challenges from birth until death. You are considered successful if you navigate and manage the risk. Fundamental concepts are the same when managing risk, whether in adverse life situations or at work in an industrial case. Identifying adequate safeguards corresponding to the risk is a crucial step.

Applying Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) techniques is widespread in the Risk Management process to reduce the risk to a tolerable level. One of the particular critical features of these varied techniques (HAZID, HAZOP, What-If, etc.) is to identify an adequate “safeguard(s)” corresponding to the level of risk in the avoidance of significant catastrophes be it Oil and Gas, Petrochemical, Chemical, Pharmaceutical, Power or any other industry.

Looking at any significant or minor incident report, you will find the causal and root cause of any incident is centered around failing to properly appreciate the role of an adequate safeguard which could be Plant (physically engineered controls), Process (practices and procedures), and People (competency and training). However, the root cause of any incidence is a lack of understanding and application of the nuances of Risk Management techniques at the organization’s various levels that yield a potentially undesirable situation.

Suppose your goal is to improve Process Safety culture and are concerned about preventing incidents. In that case, the focal point of any organization’s Process Safety and Occupational Safety initiatives should be centered around the “SAFEGUARD.” Other terms, such as independent Protection Layer (IPL) and Barriers, are also used to denote a safeguard.

This paper will explore what safeguards are and why they are needed, the hierarchy of safeguards, the criteria for validation, why safeguards fail, how to audit safeguards, and address safeguards in any incident investigation.