(144b) Ensuring Your Process Safeguards Stand Ready! How to Make Sure You're Relying on the Right Safeguards in a Process Hazards Analysis

Process Hazards Analysis (PHA) is an essential part of an effective Process Safety Management system, but it is easy to end up with an inadequate analysis and a false sense of security. Identifying potentially hazardous events, and ensuring that there are adequate safeguards in place to prevent the unthinkable from happening, is a critical step in keeping people safe and preventing costly downtime and repairs. Unfortunately, however, these same safeguards contain traps that are easy to fall into in a PHA session, resulting in ineffective safeguards, lack of redundancy, and a much greater risk gap than intended. This can ultimately lead to catastrophic consequences.

Here are just a few examples of safeguarding traps commonly encountered within PHAs:

• Expecting superhuman perfection and speed from personnel when responding to alarms and hazardous situations
• Relying on personal gas monitors for rapidly-expanding hazardous gas clouds
• Pressure safety valves that are insufficiently sized for the scenario under review
• Over-reliance on instrumentation and controls, without adequate redundancy in the system
• Relying on non-critical procedures as a safeguard, or the cause of the scenario is a failure of that same procedure
• Incorrect use of occupancy modifiers

This session will identify potential pitfalls associated with the most common types of safeguards encountered in PHAs, and will discuss strategies for addressing these safeguards to ensure that the analysis is built on a strong foundation of effective, reliable safeguards.

Combined with adequate processes to ensure the continued reliability of these safeguards for the lifetime of the process, this approach will provide substantially greater safety in the design and operation of the facility. This will help to ensure the reliability and operability of the process, and help to prevent catastrophic incidents such as serious injuries and fatalities.