How to Prepare for a Successful HAZOP
HAZOPs are an important step in the design process of new facilities and for the continued safe operation of existing assets. It's crucial for HAZOPs to be led with strong decision consistency and team alignment, both of which stem from the proper preparation and organization of the HAZOP before it even starts. So, how can you ensure you're setting your team up for a successful HAZOP?
Gather Your Documentation
One of the most important things you can do is to make sure all of the associated documentation needed for the HAZOP, including the Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&ID), shut-down keys, control logic and operating procedures have been collected and are up to date. These documents hold the information that HAZOPs are based on, and it's crucial that members of the HAZOP team have a good understanding of how the facility is designed and meant to be operated, so that consequences and safeguards can be properly identified.
If the HAZOP is being conducted for a new facility, make sure that the most up to date drawings (IFH - Issued for HAZOP) are used to avoid using out of date information. If your team is HAZOPing an existing facility, it can be helpful to have someone walk down the site beforehand to ensure that the P&IDs accurately represent what is out in the field, so that no potential causes for hazardous consequences are missed.
2. Include the Right People
The success of a HAZOP hinges of the people present at the meeting and the type of experience and expertise they can bring to the table. Most companies will have rules about who needs to be included in a HAZOP to achieve quorum, but not all do. If that's the case, we recommend having a discussion with your team to establish who needs to be present for the duration of the meeting in order to ensure a successful HAZOP. Having a broad range of perspectives and experiences will add value to the conversations, and will ultimately ensure that any hazardous consequences and recommendations that are captured as part of the HAZOP are reflective of logical engineering and operations arguments and justifications. In short, those attending the HAZOP need to have the necessary experience, knowledge, skills and approval authority, and the facilitator needs to be capable of offering an independent and unbiased opinion based on their experience in HAZOP studies.
3. Collect Background Information
When HAZOPing existing facilities, it's important that the risk assessment takes into account past operating history, whether it involves previous incidents, changes in operating modes or system configurations that cause operational headaches. Some companies support the idea of interviewing various operators before a HAZOP takes place to capture this information to ensure it isn't looked over when conducting the process hazard analysis.
4. Node Your P&IDs Before Hand
To make a chemical or industrial process easier to analyze in a HAZOP study, the process is split up into different sections, called nodes. Ultimately, the size and sequence of the nodes will determine the efficiency of your HAZOP. It is often best practice to determine nodes based on consistent parts of a process, whether they are portions of the main process or separate support systems. This allows HAZOP participants to be thinking consistently about each process instead of jumping back and forth between separate materials, phases or processes. Make sure you spend the time to node the P&IDs beforehand, and don't be afraid to reach out to a process engineer or operations representative with any questions that you may have. The better the facilitator understands the process, the smoother the meeting will go.