Computer-aided identification of isolation boundary for safe maintenance and cause and effect analysis for assessing safeguards

Abstract

Systematic hazard identification is required before maintenance work commences as unsafe maintenance in process plant can cause release of dangerous materials, pipe-work failure and deviations from normal operations, etc. (Hale et al., 1998). Cause and effect analysis is also required to identify unfavourable safety-related outcome and for the design of protective measures. With the availability of electronic piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs), two computer-aided tools are developed as part of the SmartPlant Process Safety (SPPS) system. One is to help with the task of identifying hazards related to maintenance work and the other is to carry out cause and effect analysis automatically. This paper highlights the main functions of these two tools and describes how they are developed. It also illustrates how the cause effect analysis tool can be used to support hazard identification before carrying out the maintenance work.