This is part 5 of our five-part ‘Risk to Resilience’ blog series that explores key practices in process safety management (PSM), and how organizations can address key challenges, improve PSM performance, and build safer working environments.
Safety knowledge and systems are typically fragmented. Process hazard analysis (PHA) reports may exist in one tool, incident data in another, and procedures on a company's SharePoint site.
Despite the fact that PHA studies have been performed the same way for years and often decades, many current approaches have serious limitations.
The time is right for a radical upgrade in PHA that will transform process safety forever.
Challenges of PHA today
Safety knowledge can be distributed among different people and departments, such as the engineering team that knows the design limits of equipment, the inspection team knowing about regulatory limits, and the EHS team that tracks past moves, adds, and changes (MoCs). Siloed tools and teams make communication and collaboration difficult.
Lack of transparency into operations, barriers, and equipment is another challenge. You can’t fix what you can’t see. Traditional PHA tools based on desktop software or MS Office applications like Excel don’t provide insight into the real-time functioning of equipment or safeguards. Predicting an impending future incident without continuous, real-time monitoring of equipment, processes, and environmental conditions can be difficult, if not impossible.
Waiting for the next PHA revalidation every five years is no longer an option. Many high-profile incidents have shown that an initial PHA can quickly become outdated and fail to capture evolving operating conditions, modifications, or critical insights obtained from near-miss data. Hazard identification (e.g., overfill scenarios, relief system failures, vapor cloud formation) must be an on-going process and constantly updated, instead of being conducted as part of a one-time study. New or evolving hazards that are missed result in a failure to put proper safeguards in place, leading to catastrophic releases and ignition.
In addition, many firms are challenged by non-standardized risk methodologies. Some sites may look only at inherent risk and not include residual risk. Different locations may use different risk matrices. Even within the same company, there may be several taxonomies for hazards, controls, and incident reporting, which hinders effective knowledge sharing. Even risk assessment tools such as HAZOP, LOPA, and bowtie analysis have traditionally been siloed through disconnected desktop software.
A lack of knowledge transfer – from older, retiring workers to new hires, or even from shift to shift – is also a major problem. It’s not simply a matter of capturing institutional knowledge. If teams don’t have access to lessons learned from daily work or information from a HAZOP or LOPA to prioritize activities, then hazards might be overlooked, and the risk of repeat incidents increases. Safety knowledge must not be lost when workers retire or when there’s a shift change.
How to make PHAs better
PHAs can be made better by knocking down silos and centralizing information, bringing all safety knowledge and process-safety data onto one platform for easier access and better decision making. By centralizing data on procedures, equipment integrity, or risk assessments, teams need not hunt for documents stored in different locations or chase down the one person or team that holds knowledge needed. In a centralized system, everyone, from frontline operators to safety managers, has access to the same up-to-date information. Communication and collaboration become inherent parts of the process.
PHAs also improve when relevant knowledge is embedded into the tools people already use, such as permit and isolation systems, and incident learnings that pop up when preparing a job, heat maps showing the impact of MoCs, and barrier degradation in the area where work will be performed. Collaborative tools like dashboards provide real-time information about hazards. A cloud-based PHA tool, in contrast to traditional PHA methods, offers a single platform across multiple sites and integrated analysis to minimize the risk of human errors and missed hazards, allowing collaboration from anywhere.
Cloud-based and integrated PHA is the future of PSM
A cloud-based and integrated PHA platform brings tools into one place and offers real-time insights. Operations managers gain a proactive view of workplace hazards and risks through PHA software’s ability to centralize real-time data, automate hazard identification, and provide advanced analytics and visualizations. This enhances situational awareness and supports highly effective risk mitigation strategies by streamlining communication and providing timely access to critical safety insights. Live dashboards and analytics monitor barrier performance and identify emerging risks. Real-time monitoring of barrier health and effectiveness provides immediate information to allow for intervention if degradation or failure is detected.
For example, imagine converting PHA studies into intuitive, cloud-based bowtie diagrams that link hazards, threats, barriers, and consequences to create a complete risk story. If operational data reveals signs of corrosion on a storage tank, the bowtie diagrams can be dynamically updated to show the new threat, rather than having to wait for the next PHA revalidation to identify the issue.
PHA software provides tools for risk assessment including standardized checklists, built-in templates, and libraries that are easily updated and available to employees in the field to identify the situations and processes that pose hazards. Combined with other tools like risk matrices to assign risk ratings to processes, risk assessment helps employees identify and evaluate hazards to generate appropriate response measures.
A cloud-based and integrated PHA solution helps to standardize methodologies and provide consistency to conducting PHAs and associated risk assessments.
Going forward, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered PHA workflows will support improved study quality and efficiency. Real-time decision-making will be further enhanced by integrating PSM with AI-driven analytics for predictive insights and risk mitigation as well as providing more streamlined and efficient data entry, import data, reporting, benchmarking, quality checks and much more.
Organizations have long struggled to connect risk insights across operations. Wolters Kluwer Enablon’s new cloud-based PHA solution bridges that gap. It introduces a new standard in risk intelligence by integrating hazard identification and risk assessments with real-time barrier monitoring, bowtie visualization, and Control of Work.
Visit our PHA webpage or download our PHA tip sheet to learn more.
Wolters Kluwer Enablon Process Safety Management software and safety management tools let you implement a digitized PSM framework that identifies, evaluates and controls hazards related to processes using hazardous chemicals.
