Process Safety Management

HCG can help you improve the safety of your operations, creating a culture of safety readiness that provides a safer workplace, prevents losses, reduces liability, and ensures your continual, cost-effective regulatory compliance.

Our broad-based engineering safety experience and consulting skills help you optimize safety systems. Our team of process safety consultants supports and advises organizations globally on every aspect of process safety and process safety management implementation.

Our risk-minimization approaches prioritize the areas of highest risk for attention. Then we develop a pragmatic plan for delivery, making sure that no aspect of process safety management is overlooked. Components include:

• Safety management systems
• Site hazards identification
• Safety culture assessment and improvements
• Training
• Safety KPIs to measure performance
• Independent auditing
• Development of standards and procedures

A vital first step in the safety lifecycle is to identify the necessary safety functions via a rigorous analysis of hazards and risks. Process hazard analysis is a key requirement of the EPA’s Risk Management Program and OSHA’s Process Safety Management standard, mandating that companies address toxic, fire, and explosion hazards resulting from specific chemicals and their possible impacts on employees, the public, and the environment.

HCG utilizes the Hazards and Operability (HAZOP) analysis technique to define the risk level of process hazards. Our process hazards review is a thorough, orderly, and systematic approach that identifies, evaluates, and controls the hazards of processes involving highly hazardous chemicals and materials. HCG has facilitated process hazard reviews and performed HAZOPs for numerous companies in all of our core industries. You can rely on us to help you with a comprehensive, defensible assessment designed to mitigate the risk of the hazards found in your operations. HCG can also help you develop your risk assessment guidelines or apply other process hazard analysis techniques as warranted.

Functional Safety Assessment

Functional safety is achieved when every specified safety function is carried out and the level of performance required of each safety function is met. It depends on equipment and systems operating correctly in response to its inputs.

HCG’s functional safety assessment creates a baseline that maps to gaps in SIS-related standards, and provides our clients a report with findings and recommendations.

Functional Safety Lifecycle and Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) Management

Safety system audits aid in optimizing SIS lifecycle performance, process safety, and availability, and help operators:

• Increase process uptime by reducing interruptions and upsets
• Maximize effective and efficient utilization of safety assets while improving SIS integrity and availability
• Decrease costly testing and maintenance cycles
• Access actionable and reliable data and safety knowledge

HCG performs assessments for our clients including audits to evaluate the health, reliability, safety and performance of automation assets. These services cover the installed base systems, process control and system performance. We also offer assessment studies to help users align operational and business objectives with project objectives to maximize the value from automation systems and improve the return on investment throughout the facility’s lifecycle.

HCG Safety Lifecycle Services include: