TABLE OF CONTENTS The questions often asked by consulting practitioners and corporations alike are:
How do we know that a hazard identification study is complete and that we have identified all hazards (or have we)?
What is the most appropriate hazard identification tool for a given application?
The answer to the first question is - we don't (Taylor 1981). We can never state with certainty that all hazards have been identified. However, given the right hazard identification technique, and an experienced team, and effective use of literature data, we can say that almost all major hazards, and more than 90% of minor hazards have been identified. The state of the art has been evolving continually, especially the use of accident analysis information and lessons learnt.
This brings us to the second question. Almost all techniques use incident scenarios as their primary model. However, none of them cover all incident scenarios in their entirety, but cover only one part at any time (Wells et al. 1992).
An overview summary of the hazard identification models and their capabilities are given in Table 4-12.
| Identification method | Capability and limitations |
|---|---|
| Checklists | Best suited for compliance review of design with codes and standards, and in auditing. Best suited for simple processes Provides a basis for other hazard identification techniques, but in itself cannot identify hazards fully except in small systems with predominantly linear interactions. Quality... |
