Project Stage Considerations for an Inherently Safe and Reliable Chemical Plant

Safety, operability and reliability considerations are vital components of a chemical manufacturing unit. It is a well-accepted fact that the operating team inherits a facility that is already built and its performance is dependent on how robust or otherwise, the installed facility is. Therefore it is important to ensure that safety and reliability factors are given due consideration right from the inception and project execution stage. This work examines the factors that influence eventual safety-operability-reliability of the unit, right at the inception and execution stage. The work also looks at relevant frameworks, practices and tools to ensure adequate coverage. Safety, operability and reliability considerations during inception and project stage are presented by conducting detailed analysis of characteristics of chemical manufacturing units, recommending best practices and concepts used/can be used. The relevant tools and practices used for the study are Engineering Project Process, Process Risk Assessment and management tools like Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) Methodology, Layers of Protection Analysis (LOPA), Safety Integrity Level (SIL) and Management of change. Finally, reliability review, design and project implementation is focused on, in building a more reliable plant with respect to downtime, high on-stream hours etc. Different tools and best practices adopted to improve long term reliability are discussed. The work on developing a process (including templates, methodology) to identify factors that influence long term reliability is a novel attempt based on the experience and analysis of the authors.