Judgement Criteria

Before the HAZOP team makes a recommendation for change, it should decide whether the current situation is acceptable. Not to do so can mean a very productive team measured by the number of recommendations produced, but we do not consider this to be a true measure of quality! The process of making the decision is often a difficult one, as there are rarely suitable criteria against which to make a judgement.

For safety issues the question 'is this consequence too serious to tolerate?' can normally generate a simple answer, but the following question 'is the likelihood too great to tolerate?' is sometimes very difficult to answer (see Flowchart of Figure 2). This is the area where the assistance of a company safety specialist may be required to help the team to determine suitable criteria. A Risk Index approach can sometimes be used to advantage, but is normally too time consuming to be used more than occasionally.

For operability issues the criteria are much simpler, being based on cost/benefit principles. Again judgement is required, but often as long as the benefit looks worthwhile the team will be justified in recording the recommendation for management consideration.