Incorporating resilience into HAZOP to enhance process safety in industrial facilities

Abstract

Despite the worldwide focus on safety and steady operations, process plants struggle with the inherent complexities of industrial conditions that can lead to unexpected problems. The continuing prevalence of accidents with different root causes underlines the critical need for more robust process safety and risk management approaches. Process plants currently depend on the traditional hazard and operability study (HAZOP) to pinpoint potential hazards. The existing approach to risk assessment often focuses on identifying potential vulnerabilities and neglects the system's ability to endure and bounce back from disruptions. Resilience focuses on a system's ability to survive the initial disruption, adapt and recover back to the normal operation. Integrating resilience into the early design phase and operation of process plants offers a solution to significantly enhance process safety. This paper proposes a novel approach to improve industrial safety by integrating resilience into HAZOP studies during the design and operation phases. The research advocates for a more robust risk assessment, emphasising the importance of resilience throughout the design and operational stages. The proposed method integrates resilience principles as an essential element throughout the entire HAZOP framework and flowchart, ensuring resilience is built into the system's design and operation.