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Risk assessment challenges to 20:20 vision
Author(s) -
Summers Angela
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
process safety progress
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.378
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1547-5913
pISSN - 1066-8527
DOI - 10.1002/prs.11712
Subject(s) - risk analysis (engineering) , process safety , process (computing) , hazard analysis , variety (cybernetics) , hazard , work (physics) , identification (biology) , risk management , work in process , harm , risk assessment , computer science , process safety management , safety assurance , process management , reflection (computer programming) , engineering , computer security , operations management , reliability engineering , business , artificial intelligence , hazardous waste , law , waste management , chemistry , biology , operating system , political science , programming language , mechanical engineering , botany , organic chemistry , finance
Decision makers need reproducible, believable results to support investment decisions. A wide variety of hazard identification and risk analysis methods are available to support process safety decisions. All methods require knowledge in the fundamentals of process design and experience in the process operation under consideration. Every method has uncertainty and no method yields any better reflection of the risk than the level of engagement that the analyst or team has in the assessment. Traditional approaches work well on processes with a long history of operation, but are difficult to apply in the rapidly evolving environment of modern manufacturing. This article discusses the challenges that the risk analysis process is facing in today's work environment. These challenges include understanding that the calculations are only a model for process safety events that harm people, events with low calculated likelihood can still occur, and management systems with metrics are critical to sustain the performance of the identified protection layers. These challenges are met by adapting current tools and work processes for recording process data to also collect data on abnormal operation and protection layer failure. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 34: 119–125, 2015