INVESTIGATION CATALYST
Hazard Analysis Tutorial
© 2004 by Starline Software Ltd.
Hazard Analysis Tutorial
© 2004 by Starline Software Ltd.
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INVESTIGATION CATALYST Hazard Analysis Tutorial © 2004 by Starline Software Ltd. |
DOCUMENTING SYSTEM OPERATIONSThis tutorial assumes the user is familiar with the creation of matrixes to describe system operations with INVESTIGATION CATALYST from the Fast Start Tutorial. and Help menu. If not, please review those tutorials. |
| Overview of Task |
The Hazard Analyst's primary task challenge is to transform diverse ways of describing systems into a format describing the coupled process interactions so they can be examined systematically for risk raisers. Use the INVESTIGATION CATALYST Matrix to record and verify who or what does what to achieve the desired outputs.The application provides two views of the behaviors: one shows how actions lead to subsequent actions, and the second displaying concurrent actions and their duration. Build the Event Blocks and links describing the actions and interactions in the Matrix View. Use the Overlap View to display overlapping actions and and analyze how they might affect each other, and to adjust the duration and relationships among those actions if necessary. NOTE: It is not uncommon to go through three to five revisions before everyone agrees that the Matrixes faithfully describe the intended system operation, because of ambiguous understanding of the process. |
| Design stage tasks |
During design stages, this documentation is an iterative task requiring the cooperation of designers, hazard analysts and others who might influence the design decisions. The Analyst's contribution is to be a "scribe" for others to capture and transform their thinking into the actor/action Matrix, or process flow chart. These charts get progressively more concrete as the design advances, until the expected interactions among the energies, objects and people are defined and coupled on the matrix. The objective is to develop a process description that all agree describes the intended system operation faithfully. This usually requires several iterations. |
| Test or Start Up tasks | During construction and system start-ups, the Hazard Analyst's task is to monitor activities for "surprises" or actions that either were not anticipated or actions that did not occur the way they are flow charted. Any surprises should be investigated to determine their potential impact on the risks that were found, and the Matrix should be changed accordingly. |
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Change Control |
During ongoing operations, the Hazard Analyst's task is to document and overlay the proposed new actions or behaviors on the system description, reexamine the new interactions to find all changed hazards and respond as needed. |
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Updates |
During ongoing operations, surprises observed are investigated, and investigation findings are used to update the process flow chart, manuals and other related documents after changes are made |
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Shutdown |
Decommissioning of a system constitutes a new process that must be documented and analyzed. While some energies, objects and people involved be similar, the challenge is to describe interactions with newly introduced people and objects as and after the system is put to rest permanently. Both dismantling risks and the long term behavior of the objects involved required documentation and analysis. |