Double Jeopardy & Process Hazard Analysis

Hey guys, hope you are doing well. Today we are discussing "Double Jeopardy" which creates regular dilemma and stirs up arguments during PHA sessions. If you have participated as a team member or facilitated or scribed in a PHA session, you would be aware of the term "Double Jeopardy". When someone declares, “That’s double jeopardy,” during a PHA, they are definitely not fighting a legal case in court where double jeopardy prevents a person from being tried in court twice for the same offense. Instead, they are arguing that because two things have to go wrong to cause a scenario, the likelihood is so low that it is not credible and there is no need to consider the scenario.

Strategy to define risk reduction measures in PHA

Hope you and your families are keeping safe from COVID. I have been away from writing for some time now as I took up a new professional role in July and had a lot going on. But one of my new year resolutions was to again start writing the blog and share valuable information with you all. Today I am writing about a strategy one can opt for while providing recommendations in a PHA in order to ensure the provision of effective safeguards.

Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) identifies and evaluates hazardous scenarios forming an initiating event - consequence of interest pair. Evaluating a hazardous scenario helps to determine the adequacy of safeguards for a scenario and to establish requirements for improvement of existing safeguards or installation of new safeguards. 

The need for risk reduction measures is defined based on risk assessment usually utilizing predefined risk matrices. Risk reduction measures fall in either of the two categories “Preventative” and “Mitigative”. Preventative is a category that focuses on preventing the hazard while Mitigative is a category that focuses on minimizing the consequences of an event. 

In order to define risk reduction measures, one of the useful strategies is to employ the hierarchy of controls:

Remote HAZOP & LOPA Workshops

Hope you and your families are keeping safe and following the safety guidelines. During these tough times of COVID-19, face-to-face meetings have become a major challenge. To avoid any project delays and missed deadlines, many of my clients have asked me to host HAZOP and LOPA workshops via video conferencing while working from home.

I thought it would be helpful to share some tips for remote facilitation based on my experiences:

Risk Ranking:Essence of any Hazard Analysis

Recently, I was giving training on HAZOP and I got a question "Why do you say that our HAZOP is incomplete without risk ranking? We are doing the study since so long and no auditor or authorities have ever questioned us for the same." 

So this question has made me think about the situation Process Safety is facing. We know that oil & gas has developed more than other sectors including FMCG, Pharmaceutical, Chemical (Bulk & Speciality), etc. with far better standards for performing safety studies including PHAs. So, here I am writing this post to share the importance of risk ranking in any hazard analysis technique.

And we are Live!!!!

Do you feel trouble understanding Process Safety Concepts? Do you feel that there is no place where someone in Process Safety business is not giving you any information for free? Have you ever felt sitting in a process safety seminar that why the author is not explaining the basic, before going into the detailed concept? Well if that's the case, this is the perfect portal for us to discuss. No one is judging you here for your lack of knowledge or for asking what you considered as a "DUMB" question or a basic concept.

I am a Chemical Engineer by qualification and Process Safety & Risk Consultant by profession catering to various sectors primarily Pharmaceuticals, FMCG, Metal, Chemicals, Plastic & Polymer, Wood & Paper and Oil & Gas. I do perform training, seminars, and webinars with the help of my present employer on different process safety aspects such as Electrostatic Hazards and controls, Dust Explosion protection and prevention, Hazardous Area Classification, Quantitative Risk Assessment, SIL & LOPA, HAZOP, Process Safety Testing for Powders, etc.

I have started this blog to share some of the insights of Process Safety and also to provide solutions to various general queries that we receive on day to day basis. Will also like to share my personal experiences while working on site and some views related to incidents happening around the globe.

Would love, if all the avid readers can share their thoughts and their queries related to process safety here or on my email; so I can continue to upkeep the content on this blog.