TABLE OF CONTENTS When you have studied this chapter, you will understand:
how to scan the operations of a process plant to identify the main types of inherent hazard it presents;
how to estimate very roughly how great the resulting risks are;
how to rank and short-list those risks into two classes;
what the significance of those two classes of risk is; and
how to involve plant staff at all levels in that task so as to build their understanding and commitment to effective risk management.
This chapter addresses step 3, "Rank and Short-List," and step 4, "Define Questions," of risk management in Figure 1-4. (It is also an effective means of meeting the OSHA requirement that "Employers shall determine and document the priority order for conducting process hazard analysis based on a rationale, which includes such considerations as extent of the process hazards, number of potentially affected employees ." See 29 CFR 1910.119(e).)
(The approach described here for step 3 is also a suitable method for coarse-scale identification of hazards and hazardous scenarios, i.e., step 2.)
In any large organization or undertaking, there are usually far too many identifiable hazards and risks for them all to be investigated at the outset. Some will be pressing and will demand immediate allocation of resources (skilled people, money, etc.), and others will have to wait until the necessary resources are available. In the real world, it is never possible to do everything that needs doing at once.
A very powerful technique...
