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Foundation 3 days

Process Hazard Analysis Fundamentals

Every major PHA technique, what each one is good at, and how to choose between them

The entry point to the hazard study family. Delegates work through HAZOP, HAZID, What If, checklist and job safety analysis, see where each method earns its place in the project lifecycle, and practise all of them on the same worked plant so the differences are obvious rather than theoretical.

This course sits alongside our Hazard Studies & Risk Assessment consulting work, so what is taught is what we do.

Who should attend

Process, mechanical and instrumentation engineers who will sit on study teams
Operations and maintenance supervisors asked to contribute plant knowledge
HSE and process safety coordinators who commission or review studies
Project engineers who have to plan when each study happens
Graduate engineers moving into a process safety role

Course content

Every module is taught with worked examples and exercises drawn from real plant, and adapted to your own process where the course runs in house.

1

Why hazard studies exist

  • The difference between a hazard, a consequence and a risk, and why the words matter in a study minute
  • How major accidents were foreseeable in hindsight and what the study was supposed to have caught
  • Where each technique sits in the project lifecycle from concept through to decommissioning
  • What a regulator, an insurer and an acquiring company each look for in a study file
2

Choosing the method

  • Matching technique to design maturity, hazard type and the decision the study has to support
  • When a checklist is honest and sufficient and when it is a way of avoiding the work
  • Why a HAZOP on an immature design produces expensive noise
  • Combining techniques across a project rather than repeating one of them
3

HAZID and concept hazard identification

  • Guide word sets for external, site and process hazards
  • Running a HAZID at concept and front end engineering stage
  • Feeding HAZID output into layout, siting and the safety case
4

HAZOP mechanics

  • Nodes, design intent, parameters, guide words and deviations
  • Causes, consequences, safeguards and the discipline of recording only what is real
  • Risk ranking with a matrix, and the traps in how matrices get used
  • Writing an action that an engineer can actually close
5

What If, checklist and job safety analysis

  • Structured What If for units where a full HAZOP is disproportionate
  • Building a checklist that reflects your own incident history rather than a generic list
  • Job safety analysis for maintenance and non routine work
  • Human factors in task based analysis
6

Practical workshop on a common plant

  • The same worked plant assessed by each technique in turn
  • Comparing what each method found and what it missed
  • Team review of the recorded output against the evidence

What you receive

  • A full set of course notes and the worked plant package used in the exercises
  • Template study worksheets for HAZOP, HAZID, What If and JSA
  • A method selection guide mapped to project stage
  • An action writing standard your team can adopt
  • Individual assessment result and attendance record for your training register

What changes afterwards

  • Your teams stop applying HAZOP to everything and start choosing the method that fits
  • Study minutes carry causes and consequences that survive later scrutiny
  • Actions come out of studies in a form that can be closed rather than argued about
  • New engineers become useful study participants instead of silent attendees

Standards and references

We teach Process Hazard Analysis Fundamentals against IEC 61882 Hazard and operability studies and the codes listed with it, at the edition current when you run it.

IEC 61882 Hazard and operability studiesCCPS Guidelines for Hazard Evaluation ProceduresISO 17776 for offshore hazard identificationOSHA 29 CFR 1910.119 process hazard analysis requirement

Run Process Hazard Analysis Fundamentals for your team

We will come back with dates, the pre-reading it needs and a cost per head. Tell us who is attending, what they already do day to day and whether you want it at your site or delivered online.

Ask about dates and cost