Garbage In, Garbage Out: Impact of Technical Quality Failures on Process Safety

Risk analysis and hazard assessment in Chemical Process Industries (CPIs) necessitates an increasingly quantitative approach given tighter product margins, sustainability focus, advent of alternative technologies, novel energy sources and enhanced regulatory requirements. However, the enormous diversity of hardware and process technologies in CPIs and the need to protect IP and gain a competitive advantage has prevented development of standards for hazard quantification in process engineering. In the absence of standardized process engineering and hazard assessment methods, bespoke approaches relying on data, custom models, and ‘engineering judgment’ are generally utilized, which leave open the possibility of technical errors, even though the approach taken is quantitative; that is, engineers must ensure that the numbers used and generated are correct. In this session, we're calling for submissions involving real-world situations wherein gaps in technical quality have or could have led to process safety incidents in CPIs. Examples include inadequate quantitative analysis/modeling, incorrect data, bad assumptions, mis-matched technical skillsets and/or mis-interpreting measured data. A successful submission should highlight key lessons learned and opportunity for the wider industry to incorporate or be aware of these pitfalls. Application areas include manufacturing, transport, power generation and storage, and resource extraction and span both production/field and research activities.