ImmersaEngineering / Process engineering
Independent review of how a facility will actually run.
How the facility is intended to operate, how it may fail, and whether the design can be constructed, operated and maintained as drawn. Includes independent chairing of HAZOP and other hazard studies, with actions tracked through to close-out.
What is reviewed
Eighteen areas, from hazard study to steady operation.
Process engineering review covers both the safety case and the operability case. The two are treated together because safety and operability interact often enough that separating them hides findings: an operability problem frequently has a safety consequence, and a safety measure frequently carries an operability cost.
Hazard and protection
Independent facilitation and review. A chair with no schedule or commercial interest in the outcome records findings as found.
- Safety reviews — HAZOP, HAZID and what-if, chaired independently for a client-constituted multidisciplinary team
- LOPA support — scenario development, independent protection layer credit and assumptions
- SIL target determination, safety requirements specification review and safety instrumented function design review, within the IEC 61511 lifecycle rather than as a one-off calculation
- Overpressure protection philosophy and relief system review
- Hazardous area classification and explosion protection concepts
Design and control intent
What the facility is supposed to do, and what it is supposed to do when something goes wrong. Ambiguity here surfaces during commissioning, at the worst possible cost.
- P&ID development and review
- Control philosophy and operating philosophy
- Cause-and-effect matrices, interlock and alarm rationalisation
- Line sizing, line lists and valve criticality
Buildability and operability
Whether the design can be constructed, reached, isolated and maintained. Model reviews are most valuable when someone in the room has commissioned the equivalent unit.
- 3D model reviews — 30%, 60%, 90% and pre-construction
- Layout, plot plan, access and maintainability review
- Management of change review and pressure-equipment compliance interface
Start-up and operation
The documents an operating team actually uses, whether that team is ready to use them, and the investigations that follow when performance does not match design.
- Pre-commissioning, commissioning and start-up procedures
- Operating procedures, safe operating limits and operator training material
- Operational readiness review — procedures, operating limits, training material and start-up sequence
- Emergency scenario review and operator response preparedness
- Operational troubleshooting, debottlenecking and performance investigation
- Throughput and bottleneck investigation on operating facilities
How it is delivered
Remote where possible, on site where it matters.
Document review travels well. Chairing a room, walking a model and chasing a problem on an operating unit do not, and are done in person.
Independent study chairing
HAZOP, HAZID, node review and overpressure studies, chaired by someone outside the project. Actions are tracked through to close-out rather than handed over at the end of the session.
Remote or on site, by session.
Troubleshooting support
A system that will not hold vacuum. A unit that will not converge. Product that will not meet specification against a shipment date.
Remote first, on site where the problem requires hands.
Typical findings
What a review of this kind turns up.
Illustrative and non-attributable. Each is invented; no engagement lies behind any of them.
- A cause-and-effect matrix that contradicted the P&ID.Two isolation valves were shown fail-open on one document and fail-closed on the other. Neither the vendor nor the contractor had noticed; both had signed.
- An alarm list with 340 alarms and no rationalisation.On the first upset the operator would have received more alarms per minute than any human can act on. Alarm flood is a recognised contributor to loss of situational awareness during upsets, and EEMUA 191 and IEC 62682 exist to prevent exactly this.
- A hazardous area drawing that predated a layout change.A vent that had moved 4 metres put a Zone 2 boundary across a non-rated junction box.
- A commissioning procedure with no defined hold points.Nothing in the sequence required a result to be confirmed before the next step began, so a failed leak test would not have stopped the fill.
- An emergency procedure written for a unit that had since been re-piped.The isolation sequence referenced a valve that no longer existed. The procedure had been reviewed and signed twice since the change.
- A start-up roster that assumed operators who had not been hired.Two of the four shift positions were vacant six weeks from commissioning, and the training programme assumed all four were in place.
Invented for illustration. Nothing arising from a real engagement is reused, retold or cited as a credential.
See the deliverable
Read one before you commission one.
The specimen is a process review of a solvent recovery column and its relief system — design basis, reboiler capability, governing relief case and line sizing — seventeen pages with six findings ranked by consequence.
It carries the assumptions relied on, a sensitivity table, the items examined and found sound alongside those that were not, the residual risk that remains after the recommended actions, and a passage setting out where the conclusion could be wrong. Every page is marked SPECIMEN; the facility, the client and the findings are invented.
Have a design or a safety case reviewed.
A short description of the problem, the document set or the decision is enough to confirm suitability, propose a structure and give an indicative cost. A mutual non-disclosure agreement is executed before technical detail is exchanged.
Discuss a requirement