Process Hazards Analysis

To ensure safe operations Process Hazards Analysis (PHA) is an OSHA Process Safety Management (PSM) requirement for covered processes involving highly hazardous materials. PHA is a set of organized and systematic assessments of the potential hazards associated with an industrial process.

Gateway has created an easy-to-use PHA solution integrated within the FACILEX® Risk-Based Process Safety suite of applications.  FACILEX® PHA can be used as a stand-alone solution or as an add-on to FACILEX® business objects:

• Capital Projects
• Management of Change
• Functional Safety Management
• Compliance Initiatives: Audit, Corrective Action, Issue Management etc.

FACILEX® PHA is designed to satisfy the needs of OSHA PSM in general, as well as initiatives like:

• CCPS Guidelines for Risk-Based Process Safety and,
• API 1173 Recommended Practice for Pipeline Safety Management

The FACILEX® PHA structure follows the CCPS Risk-Based Process Safety Guidelines format:

Projects > Drawings > Nodes > Hazards > Risks >Safeguards and Recommendations 

FACILEX® PHA is built on the Microsoft 365 platform. The user interface is Excel and SharePoint provides all aspects of electronic document management including access, version, and revision control. Each PHA has a comprehensive folder structure to store supporting documentation and work-in-progress documentation. The process of moving data back and forth between the environments is seamless, with no requirement to re-enter PHA data.

A key feature of FACILEX® PHA is the representation of the business process using a lifecycle. The baseline configuration provides lifecycles for:

• Project PHA
• Initial PHA
• Incremental PHA
• MOC PHA
• PHA Revalidation

The baseline configuration supports the common methodologies for conducting PHAs including:

• Checklist
• What If?
• What If + Checklist
• HAZard and OPerability study (“HAZOP”)
• Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (“FMEA”)
• Layer of Protection Analysis (“LOPA”)
• Fault Tree Analysis (“FTA”)

A FACILEX® PHA is configured to represent an organization’s asset structure in drop down menus that rapidly allow the initiator to define where the analysis is focused.

• Regions, Area, Units (using client terminology) are supported
• Equipment lists can be downloaded from common maintenance management systems
• Equipment can be categorized to the client’s choosing
• Each equipment item can be linked to one or more PHAs
• Provides search capability for which PHAs a specific equipment item is covered on

Any PHA numbering scheme can be supported. FACILEX® uses standard SharePoint lists that can be easily configured for additional attributes such as text, numbers, dates or Boolean logic.

PHA’s can be initiated by any authorized personnel. The FACILEX® license model is based on facility or region. There is no limit on the number of users that can participate in this process.

The critical OSHA requirement, of managing follow-up items, is managed in a seamless and integrated manner.

FACILEX® automatically generates all the necessary action items and notifies individuals and groups of their assignments by email and on the FACILEX Participants Portal. Additional action items can be created or open action items can be edited or deleted by any authorized user.  A basic risk ranking matrix is provided out-of-the-box, however this can be replaced with an organizations preferred method.

The baseline configuration comes with several standard reports and custom reports are easily configured. Issue reports can be rapidly printed or exported to graphical reporting tools such as Power BI, Excel and third-party products such as a Tableau.