HAZOP Study and Risk Reduction Strategy for Herbal Processing Industry

Herbal processing industries in Malaysia grow very rapidly in the recent years. Malaysia has a promising potential and huge marker demand on herbal medicine, as an alternative to the conventional medicine. This is supported by the abundance availability of various biological heritage and herbal corps, as well as the subsistence of herbal processing facilities in the country. Despite the rapid growth of herbal processing industries in Malaysia, safety and health compliance issue should not be compromised. Every aspect related to personnel and process safety shall be complied as required under the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994. Improper handling of critical processing unit operation can lead to major accident such as fire and explosion. However, knowledge concerning process safety in herbal processing industry is still lacking. The objective of this study is to recommend a safer practice in herbal processing industry, by performing hazard and operability study (HAZOP) as a tool to propose possible design solution based on process safety hierarchy perspective. As a result, several risk reduction strategies for critical equipment were managed to be proposed and classified according to process safety hierarchy. This study will finally discover the element of knowledge ‘safe by design’ for process and equipment to be enhanced into the herbal processing knowledge and technology development.