Critical Evaluation of Hazards Operability Versus Safety Integrity Risk Analysis Techniques

Many companies follow very systematic methodology for carrying out execution of Mega projects. Project risks are identified, analyzed and proposed mitigation actions are identified and agreed upon. This activity is carried out in Project Risk Workshop. While SIL and HAZOP workshops are broadly related to the process design. HAZOP technique is a highly disciplined and systematic in nature; it attempts to identify how a process may deviate from the design intent. The emphasis in the HAZOP study is on identifying potential problems, not necessarily solving them. SIL studies is a specialized area of Instrumentation and Control systems. The requirement for the safety instrumented system (SIS) is defined by SIL Levels. It identifies and analyzes layers of protection of major process upsets and emergencies. The SIL requirement tells how reliable a safety instrumented function needs to be. SIL determination and verification are part of inherent plant design for a chemical plant. This short article discusses these key concepts one by one and addresses their correlation with one another.