Need help with hazard reviews, HAZOPs, process hazard analyses (PHAs)? We can help. PII staff have led more than 250 major PHAs/HAZOPs and revalidations and we co-authored the definitive textbook on these analyses and published many papers on the topic as well.

Process safety is all about controlling risk of failures and errors. Controlling risk is primarily about reducing human error. All elements of Risk-Based Process Safety (RBPS) and other alternative standards for process safety have many elements, and each of these in turn help to reduce the chance of human error or else limit its impact. One core element is the process hazard analysis (PHA). PHAs have been performed formally in gradually improving fashion for more than five decades. Methods such as Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) analysis, What-If Analysis, and failure mode effect analysis (FMEA) have been developed and honed during this time. PII offers various levels of training (e.g., leading, scribing, coaching) related to performance of hazard reviews, including:

  1. Lead and document the PHA/hazard evaluations of each phase of a large project (such as a new process). It is never a good idea to let your equipment vendor, technology licensor, or construction contractor lead the PHAs for a new process (project) due to conflicting interest to maintain budget and schedule. Also, they rarely have qualified (and probably none have expert) PHA leaders on staff. The industry best practice is to have someone from outside of the project team lead the PHA meetings. If you have a qualified leader within your plant, then it is ideal to use that person. If not, your only wise alternatives are (1) borrow a leader from somewhere else within your company (if possible) or (2) contract a leader who is both expert in PHAs and independent of the project team. PII has many expert PHA leaders (and scribes/secretaries) who can fill this role for you.
  2. Lead and document the PHA/hazard evaluations of existing (older) process. Again, if you have qualified leaders and scribes within your plant, then it is ideal to use those persons to lead and document the PHAs that must be done for your existing facilities. If not, you can (1) borrow a leader from somewhere else within your company or (2) contract a leader. PII has many expert PHA leaders (and scribes/secretaries) who can fill this role for you. Using a PHA leader from PII in this role is also an excellent way to show, by example, how PHAs should be led and documented, thereby providing further training to your staff in this important skill.
  3. Coach your PHA leaders through their first PHA. Over the 20 years that we have been training PHA leaders (while working in chemical plants and also as consultants), coaching has proven to be a critical factor in producing a good PHA leader. Completing PHA classroom training is the first step. However, to become an efficient and thorough PHA leader requires considerable experience in leading actual PHAs. This learning period can be very costly to your company, both in time wasted during the PHA and in missed hazards. Thus, based on industry experience, it is best if the new graduate learns from existing experts. This is the “coaching” portion of PHA leadership training. PII course instructors and our expert PHA leaders make excellent coaches. They can demonstrate how to prepare for PHA meetings, how to effectively lead the hazard review meetings, and how to document the results in a useable PHA report

Documentation efforts by PII for the above items include:

  • Issuing the recommendations
  • Cleaning up the PHA tables
  • Updating the tables and documenting the resolutions during all project phases (if requested)
  • Writing the final PHA report

Why Choose PII?

  • PII Conducts Meetings with Speed & Efficiency. Because of our vast experience spanning 25+ years of optimizing PHA procedures, and with our hands-on expertise in the best software, we can lead meetings faster than anyone else, while maintaining quality/thoroughness. This saves cost for you and your projects.
  • Our leadership includes:
    • Delivering superior quality reports with fully understandable and stand-alone recommendations (avoids having to view the worksheets at the same time)
    • In-depth knowledge of process safety engineering and management, which provides us with a clear understanding of the links and therefore the deliverables needed from a PHA to other PSM elements. It is easy for us to provide information that feeds forward into reliability and PSM such as:
      • A comprehensive list of critical equipment and critical procedures that help a company avoid duplication of effort in generating such lists.
      • Expanding scope to consider quality and reliability issues, allowing a comprehensive coverage of business risk. This greatly enhances your return on investment in the PHA.
      • Consideration of equipment maintenance during PHAs. We always consider how the equipment will be maintained long-term in our PHAs.
      • Help develop trouble-shooting guides for operations from the PHA tables. (This would be considered a side project.)
      • Because PII helped write the book on layer of protection analysis (LOPA) we can easily integrate selection and specification of SIL for safety instrumented systems into our deliverables. This saves time and considerable expense if a second company is hired to only perform the SIL analysis.
    • Performing hazard reviews of critical procedures (Start-up, Shutdown, Emergency Shutdown)
    • Expertise in all PHA techniques (HAZOP, What-If, FMEA, LOPA, SIL, etc.) and capable of easily choosing the right techniques based on the complexity of the process and the type of unit operations
    • Broad industry-specific knowledge from a PHA perspective
    • Our 3rd Party objectivity helps reduce internal politics between people, companies, and internal departments

Example of One Typical Project Scope:

PII leaders and scribes work with your staff to initiate the PHA preparation; this typically involves:

  • A conference call with necessary staff or if needed a ½-day site visit to become familiar with the process by reviewing process safety information (P&IDs and other documents) and to review the PHA process and become familiar with the company’s process safety standards, specifically the standard for conducting PHAs.
  • Preparation work includes reviewing P&IDs and procedures in order to divide the process and procedures into nodes or sections for review during the hazard review.

PII leader (and scribe, if requested) will lead the PHA/HAZOP meeting using the most effective rules in the industry.

  • Typically, our PHA meetings are 2 to 3 times faster than other those led and scribed by others, and we find more scenairos than other teams because is kept “fresh and lively” by minimizing wasted time. This is because of the method refinements we have learned in leading and supervising more than 2000 PHAs/HAZOPs in the past 25+ years.
  • Our facilitation rules include using “linking of consequences to causes” to reduce redundancy of discussions. And we help the team quickly decide when a scenario discussion can be concluded (including proper qualitative judgment of risk) so the team can move on to the next discussion. There are 20+ other meeting facilitation rules we use to keep the discussions moving briskly.

PII Credentials

  • PII has significant experience in leading large project PHAs, unit-wide PHAs, and process specific PHAs and revalidations; PII staff have led more than 250 major PHAs and revalidations
  • Thousands have used our training services to become proficient in Process Hazard Analysis leadership, implementing process safety management, leading investigations and root cause analysis, and writing effective procedures
  • Extensive industry PSM experience and knowledge; PII staff were co-authors of the AIChE/CCPS-sponsored textbooks on PHA methods (Guidelines for Hazard Evaluation Procedures; 2nd Edition, 1992 and 3rd Edition, 2008)
  • Extensive knowledge in failure rates and human error probability that helps us to diplomatically break deadlocks on teams. PII staff were primary authors of the AIChE/CCPS-sponsored textbook on the best semi-quantitative risk assessment method (Layer of Protection Analysis
[LOPA], 2001 and Independent Protection Layers and Initiating Events, 2009)
  • Strong facilitation skills with experience in leading multi-functional teams as part of PHAs and other improvement projects
  • Experience in incident investigation, root cause analysis, and human factors to help the PHA team identify potential causes and effects of incidents. PII staff were primary authors of the AIChE/CCPS-sponsored textbook on Investigation methods (Guidelines for Investigating Chemical Process Incidents; 2nd Edition, 2003)
  • Significant experience in revalidating PHAs. PII staff have written about 20 papers/articles on process safety management, including many papers on how to effectively perform PHAs/HAZOPs
  • Recognized experts in the field of process safety and process hazard analyses. In fact, the founder of PII led the first PHA that was submitted to US OSHA for compliance assessment (in 1990; as part of a settlement agreement between the client and OSHA)
  • Inherent capability for training and mentoring of your internal PHA leaders and scribes
  • In 2006 through 2008 alone we performed 65 complete unit-wide PHAs for 15 companies in 5 countries. This included work at petrochemical plants, gas separation units, steel production, ammonia/urea, industrial chemical, and specialty polymers

    • PII also offers courses related to leading PHAs (including non-normal modes) (see courses 8, 8-0 and 9 under the “Training” tab or click on the individual links below):

    In addition, feel free to download papers written by PII staff related to PHAs/HAZOPs under the “Free Resources” tab (or click on the individual links below):