What if Analysis
What will happen if toxic gases leak into a liquid pipeline? What if tank feed is increased or decreased? Such questions can be critical in reducing or eliminating risks to people working in an industrial environment.
A What-if Analysis consists of structured brainstorming to determine what can go wrong in a given scenario; then judge the likelihood and consequences that things will go wrong.
What-if Analysis can be applied at virtually any point in the laboratory evaluation process.
Based on the answers to what-if questions, informed judgments can be made concerning the acceptability of those risks. A course of action can be outlined for risks deemed unacceptable.This is a powerful technique if the staff is experienced; otherwise, the results are likely to be incomplete
What if Analysis methodology
Baseline Data Development
- Establish Requirements
- Develop Activity Definition
- Characterize systems and facilities
Process Hazard Screening
- Use Comprehensive checklists
- Apply to each Operation/System/Facility
- Identify Applicable Hazards
Perform Hazard Analysis
- Develop Hazard Analysis Tables
- Identify important controls
- Perform Preliminary Ranking of Controls
- Select Accidents for Further Analysis
Perform Design Basis Accident Analysis
- Performance Probabilistic and Deterministic Analysis of Selected Accidents
- Quantify Frequency and Accidents
- Identification of Most Significant Controls
Develop Controls and Complete Documentation
Benefits
- Easy to use
- No specialized tools needed
- People with little hazard analysis experience can participate meaningfully
- Leads to deeper insight, especially for person/people conducting the analysis
Limitations
- Only useful if you ask the right questions
- Relies on intuition of team members
- More subjective than other methods
- Greater potential for reviewer bias
- More difficult to translate results into convincing arguments for change