Know what can go wrong, and what it will take to stop it

Process hazard analysis

• Facility siting (HAZID)

  A structured review of the plot plan to find where people, occupied buildings and hazardous inventory sit too close together — run early enough that the layout can still change.

• HAZOP study

  Node-by-node review of the P&IDs using guidewords to find deviations from design intent, their causes and consequences, and whether the existing safeguards actually catch them. The workhorse study for continuous process plant.

• FMEA study

  Component-by-component review of how each item fails, what that failure does downstream and how it would be detected. Better suited to machinery and instrumented systems than to flowing process.

• What-if study

  A question-led hazard review for smaller modifications or simpler operations, where a full HAZOP would be disproportionate to the risk.

Risk analysis

• Quantitative risk assessment (QRA)

  Puts numbers on the risk: release frequencies, consequence modelling, ignition and weather probability, combined into individual and societal risk figures you can compare against your tolerability criteria.

• Transportation risk analysis

  Risk from moving hazardous material by road, rail or pipeline beyond the fence line, including route comparison and exposed population along each option.

• Occupied building risk analysis

  Whether the buildings people work in can withstand credible blast, fire and toxic loads, and what to do about the ones that cannot.

• Solid handling risk analysis

  Risk assessment for powders and bulk solids — the containment, flow and ignition problems that gases and liquids do not present.

• Formal safety assessment

  A documented demonstration that risks have been reduced as low as reasonably practicable, structured the way a regulator expects to receive it.

• Fire & explosion risk analysis*

  Modelling of pool fires, jet fires, flash fires and vapour cloud explosions to establish thermal radiation and overpressure at the locations that matter.

• Gas & smoke dispersion analysis*

  Where a release travels, at what concentration and under which weather conditions — the input to detector placement, escape routes and muster point siting.

• Bow-tie and barrier effectiveness analysis

  One diagram per major hazard showing threats, the top event, consequences and every barrier on both sides — then an honest assessment of whether those barriers are in place and maintained.

• SIMOPS study and MOPO preparation

  Which simultaneous operations can safely run together and which cannot, written up as a matrix of permitted operations the site can work to day by day.

• Emergency systems survivability analysis

  Whether the systems you depend on during an incident — detection, shutdown, firewater, power, communications — survive the incident itself.

• Escape, evacuation & rescue assessment

  Whether people can actually get out: route availability under fire and smoke, muster capacity, and the rescue provision beyond that.

• Dust explosion hazard assessment

  Explosibility of the dusts handled, where an explosive atmosphere can form, and the prevention and protection measures that follow.

• Electrostatic hazard assessment

  Where charge accumulates in the process and whether it can reach an incendive discharge — often the answer to an ignition nobody can otherwise explain.

• Temporary refuge impairment analysis*

  How long the temporary refuge stays habitable under fire, smoke, gas and blast, against the time actually needed to muster and evacuate.

• Functional safety lifecycle management (IEC 61511:2017)

  Managing the whole lifecycle the standard requires — hazard analysis, SIL targets, design, validation, operation and change — rather than treating SIL as a one-off calculation at design stage.

• SIL assessment — risk graph and LOPA methods

  Determines the integrity level each safety instrumented function must achieve. Risk graph where speed matters; LOPA where the credit taken for each independent protection layer needs to be argued explicitly.

• Safety requirement specification (SRS) preparation

  The document that tells the designer exactly what each safety function must do: trip points, response time, fail-safe state, proof-test interval. Required by the standard and very often missing.

• SIL verification & validation

  Calculating achieved PFD from device failure data, architecture, proof-test interval and common cause to confirm the design meets its target — then validating that the installed system behaves as specified.

• Lifecycle compliance management support

  Ongoing support to keep functional safety compliance current as the plant changes: management of change, proof-test records, demand-rate tracking and periodic reassessment.

• Reliability, availability & maintainability (RAM) modelling

  Models the plant as a reliability network to predict availability and production loss, and to show which equipment actually constrains output.

• Reliability centred maintenance (RCM) study

  Sets maintenance strategy from failure consequence rather than habit: what to monitor, what to run to failure and what genuinely needs scheduled intervention.

• Residual life assessment

  How much service life is left in ageing equipment, based on condition, active damage mechanisms and operating history.

Assessment

• Hazard identification & risk analysis (HIRA)

  The baseline hazard register for a site, covering routine and non-routine activity, with risk ranked so attention goes to the right places.

• Human factor assessment

  Where the design invites error — alarm load, task complexity, shift patterns, procedures, labelling — and what to change so the error becomes less likely.

• Ergonomic risk assessment

  Manual handling, posture, force and repetition, and the musculoskeletal injury risk that follows from them.

• Occupational health risk assessment

  Health risk from exposure rather than accident: chemical, noise, vibration, thermal and biological agents across each work group.

• Hazardous chemical assessment (COSHH)

  Assessment of substances hazardous to health, the routes by which people are exposed, and the control measures required.

• Industrial hygiene surveys & management

  Measurement of workplace exposure against occupational limits, and the ongoing monitoring programme that follows from the results.

• OSHA / NFPA compliance management

  Gap assessment against the applicable OSHA and NFPA requirements, with a prioritised closure plan.

System development

• Process safety management

  Building the PSM system itself — elements, procedures and ownership — so process safety is managed continuously rather than studied periodically.

• Asset integrity management

  The programme that keeps containment and safety-critical equipment fit for service: criticality ranking, inspection strategy, and records that survive an audit.

• Behaviour based safety

  An observation and feedback programme aimed at at-risk behaviour, designed so it does not degrade into a numbers exercise.

• ISO management systems

  Development and implementation of ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001, integrated into one system rather than run as three parallel ones.

Support services

• Construction safety management plans

  The safety plan for the construction phase, where the hazards are largely different from those the operating plant will have.

• Emergency response & disaster management

  Emergency plans, roles, resourcing and the exercises that establish whether any of it works under pressure.

• Corporate safety support services

  Group-level support — standards, audit programmes and competence frameworks — for organisations without a full internal function.

Studies & surveys

• Fire & gas mapping study

  Geographic and scenario coverage assessment for fire and gas detectors, so placement is justified by what needs detecting rather than by grid spacing.

• Hazardous area classification

  Zoning of areas where a flammable atmosphere can occur, with the drawings and schedules that let electrical equipment be specified and verified correctly.

• Noise survey & mapping study

  Measured noise levels across the site plotted as contours, assessed against exposure limits, with the controls that would bring them down.

• Vibration monitoring & analysis

  Machinery vibration measurement and diagnosis, to catch bearing, alignment and imbalance problems while they are still cheap.

• Piping stress & surge analysis

  Whether the piping can take thermal, weight and occasional loads, and what a surge or water-hammer event does to it.

• Fire-fighting system adequacy verification

  Whether the installed firewater and suppression systems meet the demand of the current plant — which is usually not the plant they were designed for.

• Lightning protection study

  Risk assessment and protection design for lightning strike, covering air termination, bonding, earthing and surge protection.

• Accident investigation

  Structured investigation through to root cause, written to be actionable rather than to assign blame.

Fire-fighting system design

• Fire-load calculation

  The combustible inventory of each area expressed as fire load, which in turn sets fire resistance and protection requirements.

• Fire-water demand calculation

  The flow and duration the worst credible fire scenario demands, sizing pumps, storage and the ring main against it.

• Layouts and drawings

  Firewater network layouts, equipment locations and installation drawings for construction.

• Specifications and datasheets

  Equipment specifications and datasheets written so vendors can quote against them and you can compare what comes back.

• Vendor technical evaluation & procurement support

  Technical evaluation of vendor offers against the specification, and support through the procurement process.

• Electrical safety audit

  Audit of electrical installations and working practices against the applicable standards, covering both equipment condition and how work on it is controlled.

• Arc flash assessment

  Incident energy calculation at each point of work, giving arc flash boundaries and PPE category — and the protection settings that would reduce both.

• Ventilation adequacy survey

  Whether ventilation actually achieves the air change rates and capture velocities the design assumed, in each mode of operation.

• Ambient air quality survey for RSPM

  Measurement of respirable suspended particulate matter against ambient air quality standards.