A systematic and integral hazards analysis technique applied to the process industry

Traditional approaches to process safety are not enough. Accidents keep occurring every day across the globe. Technology advances make systems more complex and their behaviour more non linear and unpredictable. This trend will increase in the coming years mainly due to the new industrial paradigm that will change production processes to fully digital. In this context this paper analyses the current status and methodologies and introduces the need to change to systems theory based approach for process safety. An overview of different system theory based techniques is presented. A more in deep explanation is given about the STAMP-STPA methodology. Finally, STPA is applied to a case study of the process industry pointing out the needs, advantages and drawbacks of the approach.