This is the third in a three part series on process hazard meetings, such as HAZOPS, PHAs, What-Ifs, Checklists, and HAZANs. Part 1 introduced the concepts. Part 2 discussed meeting attendees and preparation. Part 3 will provide advice for running the meeting smoothly.

In Part 1 we saw what makes up a hazard meeting and how to fill out the meeting worksheet, and in Part 2 we met the attendees and learned how to prepare for meetings. In part 3, below, I will provide some subjective advice on how to run a good hazard meeting, and warn you about the most common pitfalls.

For this post, like Part 2, we again will be focusing on large safety meetings that involve a dedicated facilitator, and possibly two or more companies or divisions collaborating to implement a project. For minor work in operating facilities, the meeting may be a handful of people who work together every day, and so these problems are less prevalent.

The advice in this post is ideally directed at the facilitator, but anyone can pick up the ball and save a meeting. Anyone can chirp up to get the meeting back on track. I have sometimes seen project leaders come to the rescued of floundering facilitators this way.

At the start of the meeting, clearly explain the hazard meeting process, and the detail level and scope of your meeting

You would be surprised how often this is an issue: people cannot agree on why they are here. People keep getting bogged down in nitty-gritty details during a preliminary design review, or do not dig deep enough into the issues in detailed reviews. Although the facilitator and project leaders have an understanding of the level of detail they want, the rest of the meeting does not.

Part of the solution is to schedule time in the meeting, right up front, to define what the meeting is about and what it’s not. The facilitator needs to make this clear and keep people on track. The project leaders should pitch in and help with this, supporting the facilitator. The meeting needs a clear scope.

However, try to just do this explanation once. I’ve literally seen hours go by where people try to redefine and re-affirm the purpose of the meeting. A waste. Continue reading →

This is the first in a three part series on process hazard meetings, such as HAZOPS, PHAs, What-Ifs, Checklists, and HAZANs. Part 1 introduces the concepts. Part 2, meeting attendees and preparation, and Part 3, advice for running the meeting, are also available.

Very often a design project will include a meeting, or a series of meetings, that systematically study the details of the design and searches for hazards. This systematic study can take place at different times in the life of a project (from proposal to detailed design) and therefore can take place at different “scales” or levels of detail. Sometimes these meetings are required by law or company procedure, but some are done just as a prudent check of the design. There is an alphabet soup of these meetings:

• HAZOP: Hazard and operability study
• PHA: Process hazard analysis
• What-If? Study
• Checklist Study
• HAZAN: Hazard Analysis

This series of posts is going to try to generally cover all of these types of meetings. The different meeting types will use slightly different lingo for all the terms, and be either broad or nitty-gritty looks at details. But in all cases the general principle is similar. In addition to the principals of this post, get your hands on your company’s hazard meeting procedure, AND find a previous hazard report. Try to get an old hazard report done with the same participating companies, at the same level of detail, if possible. You’ll want a guide to understand how much detail to put into each step of the following procedure, and what exact terms to use.

Anyway, this first post is on the concepts. To guide us, we will look at the Hazard Meeting Worksheet – the worksheet that is the focus of the hazards meeting. The “deliverable” of the meeting is to have everyone attending the meeting work as a group to fill the worksheet out. In the second part of this series of posts, we will step back and learn about preparing for the meeting and who should attend. In the third post, we will learn to overcome problems that can pop up in the meeting.

Nodes: Sections of the Process

The first step of the meeting is done outside of it: the process must be broken down into “nodes,” items or sections or areas of the process to consider. Depending on the scope, they may be as large as a system of equipment (e.g. “truck unloading system,” “crude preheat train”) or they may be as small as each individual line and valve getting its own node. Continue reading →