OPERATIONS REGULATIONS

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SEPTEMBER 2006 www.tankeroperator.com

The application of THESIS Bow-Ties in marine safety management*

In an industry which is moving further towards demonstrable and accountable risk management, the THESIS Bow-Tie tool is gaining greater acceptance. The methodology is proven by track record in the offshore, process and security risk industries and the tool continuously adapted to suite the need. THESIS (The Health, Environment, Safety Information System) is a software tool that can effectively demonstrate how a facility's Safety Management System can be implemented. It assists companies/operators in the analysis and management of the hazards and risks to which their business is exposed, and graphically displays and illustrates the relationship between hazards, controls, risk reduction measures and a September 2006 business's HSSE activities. Regulators and stakeholders across the world are progressively expecting more information to be included in the documentation used to demonstrate that an operation/asset has an effective safety management system. This is becoming increasingly evident in the marine industry in the form of equivalent safety cases which aim to confirm that: all credible hazards have been identified; appropriate standards have been set and met; adequate safety features are in place; all significant assumptions have been identified, verified and validated; all instructions, limits and conditions required to maintain operations within specified margins for safety have been met. In addressing these aims, a number of documents would be traditionally generated. These documents inherently become increasingly complicated with the onus on fulfilling the requirements and the explanation of all the interactions between these documents becomes more difficult to explain to the workforce, regulator and stakeholders. This can, however, be made much easier with the help of an interactive graphical representation. This graphical
REQUIREMENTS

Safety Policy Strategic Objectives & Targets

ELEMENTS
Organisational Structure & Responsibilities Management Representatives Resources Competence Contractors Communication Identification of Hazards & Effects Risk Evaluation Recording of Hazards & Effects Objectives of Performance Criteria Asset Integrity Procedures & Work Instructions Management of Change Contingency & Emergency Planning Monitoring Records Non-Compliance & Corrective Action Incident Reporting & Follow-Up Internal Audit Independent Audits Management Review

Policy & Strategic Objectives Organisation, Responsibilities, Resources, Standards & Docs. Hazard & Effects Management Process Planning & Procedures Implementation & Monitoring Audit Review

Figure 1: Typical elements and requirements of a facility's risk management system

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OPERATIONS
Failure of p/v arrangement Threat Regular maintenance. Pre-operational inspections, certification and company form E116, E490. Pressure indicator: Common IGS line, CCR. Monitoring of repeater in bridge

Locking arrangements

P/V breaker. Common IGS line

Failure of repeater of pressure indicator Escalation Factor

Failure of locking arrangements Escalation Factor

H-01.S01

Hydrocarbons

Discharge at sea. Pollution Consequence

Maintenance of locking arrangements

Hull flooding. Potential for loss of stability Loc.: TE: Failure or freezing of p/v breaker Escalation Factor Monthly inspection program (E116, E480). Precautions during cold weather. Sea Loss of containment cargo tanks (Sea) Consequence

Fire/explosion

Consequence

Personnel injury/fatality Consequence

Corrosion Threat Classification society surveys will monitor wastage and remedial actions taken if limits exceeded. Strength analysis (CAP) as per current new building criteria. Coating protection on ballast and cargo tanks, cathodic protection to ballast tanks Daily inspection and maintenance program (E-116)

Thermal expansion of cargo Threat Procedures to allow for cargo expansion: tanks to be filled 98% of their capacity.

High and high-high level alarms

Pressure/vacuum relief valve

p/v breaker: Common IGS line

Figure 2: A typical bow-tie display

Figure 3: A partially expanded THESIS Tow Tie for a Loss of Cargo Containment

representation has become to be known as the THESIS bow-tie methodology. By building in a risk matrix, effectiveness ranking and performance data for the control measures then the bow tie methodology also becomes a semiquantitative risk assessment tool. THESIS Bow-Tie Methodology THESIS can be used to demonstrate how effective a marine facility's safety management system is performing and also to complete gap analyses. A typical management system is a quality management system for managing risks within a company, to assure the protection of the company's people, assets, reputation and for protection of the environment the company operates within. A typical safety management system would comprise of the elements shown in Figure 1, previous page. The bow tie can be used to demonstrate how the pertinent safety management system element requirements are met with respect to the control and management of hazards and risks. Bow-ties depict the relationship between hazards, threats, barriers, escalation factors, controls, consequences, recovery preparedness measures and critical tasks (Figure 2, above). This has been an area of fault or weakness in many organisations using this method can help to display all the interactions and
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links that are often found to be loosely related over a number of various documents. Essentially a bow-tie is a combination of the traditionally used fault and event trees, whereby the fault tree constitutes the left hand side of a bow-tie and the event tree the right hand side. What a bow-tie presents in addition however, are the 'barriers' in place that prevent 'threats' from releasing a hazard and 'recovery preparedness measures' that reduce the severity of the hazard consequences. Critical Tasks Once the threats, consequences, escalation factors and all controls have been identified, supporting tasks to ensure that the integrity of each barrier, control and recovery preparedness measure is maintained need to be assigned. These are termed Critical Tasks, and are required to be performed, undertaken or executed by responsible and competent persons. Such tasks could include: Design Tasks; Inspection and Maintenance Tasks; Operational Tasks; and Administrative Tasks. Assigning Personnel to Critical Tasks Once the critical tasks are defined, personnel are assigned the responsibility for the execution of the tasks. Such persons are

identified from the organisation at the time of undertaking the work and should remain, at the least, at a supervisory level. The procedures and standards necessary to support that task are captured at the same time. The advantage of adopting the THESIS approach is that it is an extremely powerful representation of the hazard analysis and risk management processes that is readily understood at all levels in an organisation; bow-ties can be used in the boardroom as well as in a tool box talk. Case Example Figure 3 illustrates a representation of one of the many hazards that faces a cargo containing vessel at sea. The left hand side of the bowtie shows a number of possible threats that could potentially release hazardous cargo and thus produce the top event. Some engineered and procedural barriers have been put in place here to illustrate typical protection measures that would prevent the threat from releasing the hazard. Escalation factors have been expanded in Figure 3 to show the controls put in place to manage the escalation factor. The right hand side illustrates the consequential outcomes of the top event. Recovery measures are not illustrated further. It is possible within the 'case file' to also:capture the integrity of

barriers, capture system shortfalls and set remedial action plans define the tasks and personnel for managing barriers and indeed assign them set task frequencies assign documentation and standards populate a risk matrix and illustrate the risk profile produce reports for use in supporting documentation eg. safety manual, audit, training, appraisal etc. THESIS Summary THESIS is an application, originally developed by Shell and now jointly with ABS Consulting. It has been developed based on the Bow-Tie concept to visually display how hazards are controlled and how the risk associated with them is reduced to As Low As Reasonably Practical (ALARP). It documents the provenance of information and the reference sources from which the information is obtained, i.e. it is an ideal audit tool. It is an extremely flexible tool and simple tool whose application extends from safety, health and environment risk into any aspect of business exposed to hazards and risks. It is frequently used to build management systems from concept as well as capture and refine those that already exist. * By James Phipps, principal risk consultant, ABS Consulting TO Ltd (Warrington, UK) September 2006

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