Who and What Equals How I’m Closing my Gaps
Taylor W. Schuler
aeSolutions™
Software Products Group
250 Commonwealth Drive, Suite 200
Greenville, SC 29615
Taylor’s Bio
Taylor Schuler has more than 15 years of experience in software product management for the Oil
and Gas industry. Currently, Taylor is the Product Manager for aeSolutions’ process safety
applications, aeFacilitator™ and aeShield™.
Taylor’s experience with numerous customers provides a unique foundation for gathering and
prioritizing requirements, converting them into consumable and testable features for software
development professionals, and ultimately deploying to the customers once complete. Drawing
on his experience from hundreds of facilities across five continents makes Taylor an effective
product manager for aeSolutions. Taylor holds BS degrees in Nuclear Engineering from the
University of Tennessee and Physics from Roanoke College. In addition, he holds Certification
in Maintenance and Reliability from the University of Tennessee.
Abstract
Following a layer of protection analysis (LOPA), numerous recommendations and proposals are
identified to close gaps associated with process safety performance. This paper explores a
methodology created to allocate the targeted risk reduction factor (RRF) between different types
of work and stakeholders. The fundamental concepts are creating actions with lower scenario
target RRF or decreasing the probability of failure on demand (PFD) of the protection layers to
account for portions of the target while also calculating a % Impact to compare dissimilar
mitigation strategies. By slicing the data by types of work and stakeholders, analysts can see
what is closing the most gaps, validating applied credits with technical authorities, and
communicating across stakeholders to ensure investments are of the correct magnitude
throughout the lifecycle of the safety initiatives.
What is closing gaps = who is the stakeholder and how is the collection of mitigation strategies
Overview
How often does your company make capital project investments that seem to linger much longer
than expected and cost four times the original estimate? How often do you begin a large project
and lose sight of the original objective? Is it sometimes difficult to communicate between two
projects that overlap or at least have dependencies on each other? The purpose of this paper is to
White Paper: Who and What Equals How I’m Closing my Gaps Taylor Schuler, Greenville, SC Page 1 of 8 ©2014 aeSolutions focus on process safety capital projects (i.e. - gap closure initiatives coming from a revalidation),
and:
1. Ensure the correct amount of emphasis is placed on one project verses others.
2. Provide transparency and effective communication between stakeholders that have the
funding to achieve an inherently safer operating facility.
3. Assign accountability to validate assumptions made from LOPA to- implementation tooperations.
An output from any hazard assessment includes recommendations and proposed safety functions
to minimize exposure to potentially harmful incidents. These recommendations are typically split
into generic types of work that land (the “WHAT”) on the desk of the stakeholders (the “WHO”)
with the funding and initiatives as mandated by the corporation. Collections of recommendations
are grouped as projects aimed at gap closure (the “HOW”). The equation of HOW = WHO +
WHAT is required to ensure nothing is missed, redundancy is minimized, and teamwork is
emphasized.
Terms & Definitions
Before we move any further, let us semantically level the playing field. The following terms and
definitions are throughout the paper. Many of the lists can be configurable per company, but this
paper uses blended data to mask the identity of the company’s and facilities performing this type
of analysis.
White Paper: Who and What Equals How I’m Closing my Gaps Taylor Schuler, Greenville, SC Page 2 of 8 ©2014 aeSolutions Term
LOPA
SIF
IPL
Type of Work
“What”
Stakeholder
“Who”
Point of
Accountability
Action Plan
Action
“How”
Unidentified RRF
WIP
AsBuilt
Journal
% Impact
Definition
Layer of Protection Analysis
Protection Layer with an IL Rating >= 1
Protection Layer with an IL Rating < 1
Generic categories of commonly executed activities within the process
safety lifecycle management (see samples in Table 1). Examples
include: New SIF, New IPL, Modify Existing IPLs, Facility Siting,
QRAs, Relief Valve Resizing and Validation, etc.
Lines of business that typically fund gap closure initiatives (see samples
in Table 1). Examples include: Process Safety, Engineering,
Operations, etc.
Technical authorities capable of validating a type of work being able to
take the credit it has been given.
PHAXrex and SIF Name (if applicable) that either has a gap from the
LOPA study or simply needs to be thoroughly validated.
An intersection of a type of work and a stakeholder. One or more
actions make up an action plan. Each action has a part or all of the
target RRF from the parent action plan’s scenario. Examples include:
Blast Analysis = Facility Siting X Engineering, Protection Layer
Renewal = New SIF X Engineer, Inherently Safer Design = Relief Valve
Study X Process Safety, etc.
If the calculated RRF on an action plan does not amount to the target
RRF, addition actions are required unless the difference is deemed
acceptable by the company standards.
Work in Progress. Every action, until validated by a point of
accountability, is a work in progress.
Represents an action that has been validated. Once every action on an
action plan is AsBuilt, the overall action plan can be archived as
complete.
Each action plan has a journal. The journal enables subject matter
experts to post messages and supporting documentation to individual
actions to the overall plan itself.
The comparison of one action against another action on the same action
plan with respect to the overall target RRF. Calculating a % Impact
provides the ability to compare different mitigation strategies using the
same measuring stick.
Table 1 – Terms & Definitions
What do we have to do first?
Now that we have the terminology, we had to figure out a methodology that could leverage
LOPA math to identify the primary metric that is required in this analysis: % Impact. The key
assumption made in the methodology is that for any given scenario equivalent RRFs would have
White Paper: Who and What Equals How I’m Closing my Gaps Taylor Schuler, Greenville, SC Page 3 of 8 ©2014 aeSolutions equivalent % Impacts. When we look at other scenarios, the % Impacts may vary despite
equivalent RRFs because the number of recommendations and safeguards may be different from
scenario to scenario. Therefore, we developed the following equations:
Unidentified RRF = Target RRF/max(П RRFn,1)
% Impact of an Action = XRRF/(ΣXRRF + Unidentified RRF) * 100
Two assumptions:
1. If Unidentified RRF = 1, then it only is zero in the second
2. Math is normalized such that you never exceed 100% Impact
This equation enables us to understand the % Impact of everything identified in the LOPA, but
also introduces us to % Impact Unidentified. By applying these two equations to every scenario
at a facility (or the subset of scenario containing a gap), we are then able to quantify the data as
illustrated in Figure 1.
AsBuilt
Work in Progress
In Progress
Unidentified
Complete
In Progress
Unidentified
Figure 1 – Total Facility Gap Closure Summary
The graphs to the left represent the summation of the % Impacts and introduces the concepts of
Work In Progress (WIP) and Complete Work. WIP implies that the process safety team
performing the LOPA identified enough recommendations and/or safeguards to account for the
risk. Complete Work represents that a technical authority performed the leg work to validate the
risk reduction. The concept of accountability is an additional benefit of performing this type of
analysis at a facility whether it is to:




Validate existing data
Validate design and implementation
Validate redesign work to account for more impact than originally identified
Validate performance from monitoring IPLs
Now that we have an overview, let’s start drilling down
White Paper: Who and What Equals How I’m Closing my Gaps Taylor Schuler, Greenville, SC Page 4 of 8 ©2014 aeSolutions Let us take our equations from the previous section a step further to help illustrate the next level
of the holistic view of the facility. Therefore, here are two related examples with small
differences.
Example #1: Scenario ABC has an RRF = 100
Safeguard A = SIF = 10 RRF
Safeguard B = Facility Siting Project = 10 RRF
A*B = 100; therefore, 100/100 = Unidentified RRF = 1 which implies there is no gap.
A*B*Unidentified = 100; therefore, Safeguard A’s % Impact was 50% (10/SUM(A,B))
and Safeguard B’s % Impact is 50% as well
Example #2: Scenario DEF has an RRF = 200
Safeguard A = SIF = 10 RRF
Safeguard B = Facility Siting Project = 10 RRF
A*B = 100; therefore, 200/100 = Unidentified RRF = 2 which implies there is a gap.
So, in terms of % Impact:
Safeguard A = 10/SUM(A RRF, B RRF, C RRF) = ~45% [ignoring rounding]
Safeguard B = 10/SUM(A RRF, B RRF, C RRF) = ~45% [ignoring rounding]
Safeguard C (TBD) = 2/ SUM(A RRF, B RRF, C RRF) = ~10% [ignoring rounding]
This mathematical approach enabled us to look at a variety of things, which we will get into
throughout this paper, however, think about the three safeguards in example 2.



Is the SIL Calc for Safeguard A accurate? Is there data to support it? Can someone in the
room validate it?
Has the entire facility siting project been completed or has the blast analysis been
performed and still waiting on implanting the results?
How do we handle the unidentified (Safeguard C)? Should we recommend some sort of
survey, should we redesign the SIF to a SIL 1? Are we willing to accept that small of a
gap?
Figure 1, focuses on the % Impacts and the Unidentified RRF as KPIs when analyzing an entire
facility. Now, with the equations that back up the HOW = WHO + WHAT, we can start slicing
the data as shown in Figure 2.
White Paper: Who and What Equals How I’m Closing my Gaps Taylor Schuler, Greenville, SC Page 5 of 8 ©2014 aeSolutions 50%
What: Type of Work
50%
40%
40%
30%
30%
20%
20%
10%
10%
Who: Stakeholders
0%
0%
SIF Related IPL Related
Facility
Siting
Unidentified Relief Valve
Study
Engineering
Process
Safety
Operations Unidentified
To Be
Determined
Figure 2 – Total Facility Gap Closure Summary
Points of Accountability
Figure 1, alludes to converting WIP to AsBuilt. In order to do so, there must be a relationship to
the generic type of work and point of accountability (a technical authority) that can validate that
the action can truly account for the credit assumed. A facility/company can have multiple points
of accountability per type of work, but they are needed to close the loop. These technical
authorities can be used on multiple action plans and by multiple stakeholders. In addition to
validating the credit, this role should be adding notes and applicable documentation to provide as
much transparency into the analysis process. Data sharing is an excellent way to increase process
safety awareness throughout an organization.
Numerous tools can be used to facilitate all the work presented this far. This includes a
calculation methodology, tabular and graphical representation of the data, and ultimately data
collection. To minimize the level of work required to support this information over years, it’s
critical that the tool connects PHA/LOPA information with SIS design and monitoring1. The
figure below represents a typical editor that focuses on one action plan which corresponds to a
scenario.
1
In this study, we used aeSolutions’ aeFacilitator™ and aeShield™ software offerings. The tools come with a Gap Assignment Module that is meant to bridge the gap between PSM personnel and SIS design engineers. White Paper: Who and What Equals How I’m Closing my Gaps Taylor Schuler, Greenville, SC Page 6 of 8 ©2014 aeSolutions Figure 3 – Action Plan Editor
In addition, with a fully integration system, dashboard widgets can be designed to help notify
when an overall project is complete, however, the point of accountability still has validation
work to complete. A sample dashboard has been illustrated below in Figure 4.
Figure 4 – Outstanding Validation Work
In the dashboard, the action plans listed are action plans that contain at least one action that the
point of accountability is responsible for. The green light indicates that project work is ongoing
(WIP), therefore, no immediate action is required. The yellow light lets the technical authority
know that the parent project is close to being complete, but there are numerous actions still
remaining on the action plan that have not been progressed into an AsBuilt state. Lastly, the red
indicator implies that the process is complete and the action(s) assigned within the action plan
are the only remaining actions yet to be progressed.
White Paper: Who and What Equals How I’m Closing my Gaps Taylor Schuler, Greenville, SC Page 7 of 8 ©2014 aeSolutions Recap
The primary purpose of this paper was to display the power of collecting data from a LOPA,
making the output standard (types of work and stakeholders), such that the process safety
personnel have the ability to identify and track all gap closure initiatives without losing sight of a
minor recommendation. This type of analysis and tooling can help with all of the following:





Validation of LOPA data
Tracking gap closure initiatives
Sharing information between stakeholder
Adjusting plans when under- or over- designing takes place
Providing up-to-date information during next revalidation
Once again, data sharing/transparency is an excellent way to increase process safety awareness
throughout an organization all the while minimizing redundant activities when possible.
White Paper: Who and What Equals How I’m Closing my Gaps Taylor Schuler, Greenville, SC Page 8 of 8 ©2014 aeSolutions