Just posted in the Free Resources section of the Process Improvement Institute website are three new and invaluable papers related to issues important to process safety management professionals everywhere:

Identify SIF and Specify Necessary SIL, and other IPLs, as part of PHA/HAZOP


Learn why it is not necessary to “Boldly Go Beyond HAZOP and LOPA.” Shows how to apply the qualitative definition of IPLs within the setting of a process hazard analysis (PHA) to get most of the gain from LOPA without doing a LOPA (without using numerical values). The paper includes an implementation path to develop PHA leader competencies to guide the qualitative approach. We also show the way we use a PHA team to identify when a SIF is needed and to select the proper target SIL. This portion of the SIL evaluation and the identification and labeling of the IPLs during the PHA/HAZOP does not take any longer than a normal PHA/HAZOP, once the right habits are established. Note that this approach eliminates the need for a separate SIL Evaluation Study to identify the SIFs and select the target SIL. Finally, the paper ties together these two specific topics, along with the topic of making risk judgments, to show there is less than 5% need to go beyond HAZOP, and less than 0.01% need to go beyond LOPA.

Necessity of PHA of Non-Normal Modes of Operation


Hazard evaluations, also called process hazard analysis (PHAs) have been performed formally in gradually improving fashion for more than five decades. Methods such as HAZOP and What-If + Analysis have been developed and honed during this time. But, one weakness identified 25 years ago still exists in the majority of PHAs performed around the world. Most PHAs do not thoroughly analyze the errors that can occur during startup, shutdown, and other non-routine (non-normal) modes of operations. This paper explains the business case for doing PHAs of procedure steps for non-routine modes of operation, while also describing the growing regulatory pressure from US OSHA and others.

Best Practices for Writing Operating Procedures and Trouble-Shooting Guides


This paper presents the proven, best approach for developing accurate operating procedures and for ensuring the format of the page and steps are optimized to reduce human error rates. The paper also discusses how and when to integrate trouble-shooting guides into distributed control systems. Several case studies are provided that show the gains from following this approach.