Process Safety & Risk Engineering
A protection layer is a business commitment.
Every safeguard credited in a risk assessment is a claim that the organization can rely on it when needed.
That claim begins with a hazardous scenario and an explicit risk criterion. It remains credible only while the equipment, people, procedures and evidence behind it continue to perform.
We connect Process Safety Management (PSM) and Functional Safety to Physical Asset Management, from business objectives and risk acceptance to sustained, verified protection.
The governing question
Before asking what SIL a function needs…
The hidden decision
The risk criterion hiding inside the method.
A qualitative matrix or calibrated risk graph may look like a neutral route to a SIL requirement. Its boundaries already encode a tolerance for risk.
Frequency bands, consequence definitions, occupancy and assignment rules can quietly implement a level of accepted risk that leadership has never examined. A repeatable method does not, by itself, make that choice accountable.
An annual individual risk aggregated across scenarios is not the frequency of a single LOPA scenario. Conversion and aggregation assumptions must be explicit before comparing either with a benchmark. A benchmark informs governance; it does not replace an accountable, context specific decision.
Connected disciplines
One protection system.
Several engineering lenses.
Each method answers a different question. The result depends on whether its assumptions and handoffs remain consistent through operation and change.
PHA (e.g., HAZOP)
Define what can go wrong, why, and with what consequences before crediting safeguards. Preserve causal logic and scenario boundaries when representing barriers in a bowtie or a register.
LOPA & SIL determination
Test the independence and effectiveness of credited layers against explicit risk criteria. Expose enabling conditions, demand assumptions and the tolerance implicit in qualitative SIL assignment.
Functional Safety
Translate required risk reduction into a safety instrumented function (SIF), then verify and sustain its performance through specification, design, validation, proof testing and change. Required SIL and achieved performance answer different questions.
PSM & Mechanical Integrity
Connect containment, relief, basic control, alarms, shutdown and fire and gas protection with inspection, incident learning and Management of Change. Each barrier has a different role and an operational owner.
From assessed to controlled risk
Where the calculation meets the plant.
A HAZOP finding, a LOPA credit or a verified SIL can lose validity when the conditions supporting it change.
Evidence before credit
Separate measured performance from assumed failure rates, diagnostic coverage, proof test effectiveness and independence. Revise the model or withhold credit where the basis is weak.
Culture can stop delivery
Overdue actions, unmanaged bypasses, unresolved test findings or role changes outside Management of Change can make the real protection diverge from the engineering claim. Assign ownership and evidence of closure.
Asset Safety + Asset Strategy
These complementary dimensions of Business Sustainability connect risk control with maintenance, investment and capability choices. Test a proposed cost saving against the barriers it may weaken.
The work product
Decisions that can be traced, challenged and carried through.
We start with the decision and the evidence available, then select the engineering methods it needs.
- Reconciled PHA scenarios, developed with HAZOP or another suitable method.
- LOPA with documented layer credit and explicit risk criteria.
- Traceable SIF and SIL basis; verification of achieved performance and proof test effectiveness.
- PSM actions connecting Mechanical Integrity, Functional Safety and change control.
- Visible assumptions, evidence gaps, owners and acceptance conditions.
Selected technical reasoning
Explore the questions behind the work.
Results as a Service
Accountability belongs in the engineering.
No results, no fees. We agree on the business value and its verification against an explicit baseline. Bring the decision, the evidence and the consequence of getting it wrong; we will examine what can be established and what remains uncertain.
Discuss a process safety decision →