Teiji Kitajima

A New Scheme for Management-of-Change Support Based on HAZOP Log

Abstract Consistent and effective Management of Change (MOC) is the most important for process safety. Therefore, MOC should be logically and explicitly realized based on Tobe reference model. In this study, a new scheme for MOC support based on engineering activity model through the plant-lifecycle is proposed. Practical and effective utilization of HAZOP logs obtained at plant/process design phase in reusable form by using an intelligent support tool (HazopNavi) is archived.

A Business Process Model for Process Design that Incorporates Independent Protection Layer Considerations

Abstract The purpose of independent protection layers (IPLs) is to prevent the occurrence of hazardous events by designing protective systems against any failure sequences that might lead to a significant hazard. Therefore, it becomes necessary to make sure that the process hazard analysis identifes all potential failure sequences so that the IPLs can be designed in a robust way consistent with the identified failure sequences. However, engineers are not always conscious about the whole process involving the process and plant design. Furthermore, the analysis that precedes the IPL design and the IPL design itself are not incorporated in a systematic way with the process and plant design. This is also related to the lack of design rationale in the design of safety systems, resulting in alarms floods and even more serious problems. This paper presents a business process model for process design that incorporates the notion of independent protection layer design.

Quality assessment support system and its use in pharmaceutical plant operations

Abstract On the basis of the quality by design approach, aggregation of knowledge in process chemistry and manufacturing operations is essential for the continuous development of pharmaceutical products and processes. We develop a model-based framework to describe process chemistry oriented phenomenal sequences leading to quality hazards (process deviation scenario), which should be independent of any specific plant structural information, and manufacturing procedural error oriented event propagations (procedural control scenario), which concern a specific plant structure. We propose a system, Quality-HAZOP, to analyze the scenarios in which manufacturing errors can affect product quality via complex propagation pathways. This system supports bidirectional improvement proposal between recipe scientists and process engineers. This proposal triggers risk information exchange that supports the continuous improvement of the process in life-cycle pharmaceutical development.

Framework to to Generate Engineering Standard for Plant Maintenance

Abstract The technology of a company is represented by its technology standards, and their exhaustiveness and consistency are important for competitiveness of the company. We have developed the systematized business process model for plant maintenance as IDEF0 (Integration Definition for Function) activity model, and the requirements of technology standards have been defined. In this study, framework to generate engineering standards is proposed. The requirements for engineering standards are analyzed on the basis of the developed IDEF0 model, and two types of standards are found to be necessary for each required engineering standard. From the property of these standards, IDEF0 activity model to generate engineering standards is developed.

Disaster Management Based on Business Process Model Through the Plant Lifecycle

There has been a recent surge in the number of disasters and incidents in occurring in the process industry (e.g. the petrochemical, chemical, food and pharmaceutical industries). The reasons include defects in process-safety management (PSM); inadequate safety management systems in companies; inadequate knowledge among managers and insufficient information about the tasks undertaken and resultant erroneous operation and/or misjudgement; no standardization for the PSM activity; and other engineering factors. Expecting that PSM will reduce the hazards and likelihood of disasters, OSHA in USA emphasizes PSM and requires that companies establish PSM systems and improve safety engineering techniques (OSHA, 1992).

Study on safety operation support system by using the risk management information

In case of abnormal situation of chemical process plant, it is required to judge the plant condition correctly and carry out the unerring response. Many operation support systems were proposed to help the plant operator with such judgment and operation decision making, but most of them could not indicate the rationale for operation, because they used only information on the result of plant design. Therefore, plant operator could not get the theoretical information for operation decision making from it. This paper proposes the safety operation support system which helps the operation decision making based on the risk management information (RMI). The RMI is useful one for the theoretical operation decision making, because it is considered and updated through the plant life cycle (PLC) and includes the information on the design rationale (DR) of the safety countermeasure, the intents of corresponding operation, etc. PVC batch process is used for verifying the effectiveness of proposed method.

LCA of the Various Vehicles in Environment and Safety Aspect

LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) about a FCV (Fuel Cell Vehicle) is performed regularly, but these studies have not considered closely enough the safety issues that are important for practical, everyday use. In this study, we considered the safety of the FCV, GV (Gasoline Vehicle), HEV (Hybrid Electric Vehicle) and EV (Electric Vehicle), and estimated the vehicles in relation to environment and safety. As a result of LCA, FCV may not have a higher environmental performance than the other vehicles in the whole life cycle. So, it is important for FCV to reduce platinum catalyst and select more cleanly hydrogen production processes. They were effective against improving an environmental performance of FCV, but the improved environmental performance was inferior to that of the other vehicles.

Analogical reasoning based on task ontologies for on-line support

In this paper, it is discussed how to search the previous reports, which serve as useful references. Usefulness depends on the scopes or aims. In order to express the scope or the knowledge to achieve aims, ontology is applied. Even if the objects are identical, the expressions of various task ontologies might be different from each other. The ontologies can be linked via the common parts of the object. By utilizing the links effectively, similar items can be searched. As an example scenario, search problem of useful previous reports about similar machines for on-line support was shown.

Plant Operator Model for Human Interface Evaluation

Abstract A simulation environment of plant operation, which consists of an operator model, a human-machine interface (HMI) model and a plant model was developd. When the operator model recognizes an abnormal situation, the model generates a countermeasure program in its short-term memory based on both the plant state information acquired from the plant model through the HMI model and the knowledge bases installed into the operator model. A comparison between the operator models behavior and the human operators behavior under the same malfunction was used to extract the characteristics of the human operator and to obtain information on human errors.

Overview for Management of Change based on Business Process Model of Plant Lifecycle

Abstract Uncontrolled changes caused many accidents or disasters. Management of change (MOC) has been a very important issue in process safety management. In this paper, it is considered that MOC is divided to two parts: one is individual change management and the other is management of them. Individual change management is an instance of engineering over the plant lifecycle (Plant-LCE), however a business flow of MOC has been hardly discussed. A business flow of MOC is expected to be based on a business process model (BPM) of Plant-LCE. The logical process safety management based on a BPM of Plant-LCE has been proposed. However the BPM is dispersed and too detailed for precisely. Therefore, an overview for the BPM of Plant-LCE has been proposed. Using an individual change management example, this paper shows that a business flow of the MOC can be described in the overview of the BPM of Plant-LCE.