In a safety audit, HAZOP (Hazard and Operability Study) is used to:

Question

In a safety audit, HAZOP (Hazard and Operability Study) is used to:

1. A. Verify financial profitability
2. B. Systematically identify hazards and operability problems in process-design (Correct answer)
3. C. Replace statutory clearances
4. D. Only inspect employee-canteen safety

Correct Answer

Option B — Systematically identify hazards and operability problems in process-design

Detailed Solution & Explanation

The correct answer is Systematically identify hazards and operability problems in process-design.

Key Points

• HAZOP — Hazard and Operability Study — is a structured, team-based examination of a process design. The team works through the plant node by node, applying guide words such as *no, more, less, reverse, part of, as well as* to process parameters like flow, pressure, temperature and level.
• Each combination — "no flow", "more pressure" — is examined for its causes, consequences, existing safeguards and the action required. The method's value is that it forces consideration of deviations nobody thought to ask about.
• The rejected options describe financial or trivial activities, or wrongly suggest it replaces statutory clearance.

Additional Information

• HAZOP is best applied at the design stage, when changes are cheap, and repeated before commissioning and after significant modification.
• It is one of a family of hazard-identification techniques. Others worth knowing are HAZID (broad hazard identification), FMEA (failure modes and effects analysis), Fault Tree Analysis (working backward from an undesired event) and Event Tree Analysis (working forward from an initiating event).
• Its defining strength is that it is systematic rather than intuitive — the guide words guarantee coverage that unstructured brainstorming misses.
• The study requires a multidisciplinary team — process, instrumentation, operations, maintenance and safety — since no single discipline can foresee all the consequences of a deviation.