Integrated electronic documentation for decision support in safety-critical plant operations

Due to the nature of petrochemical plants, automation alone cannot minimise the risk of safety-critical incidents. When addressing hazard management, people issues, the information needs of decision makers, in particular those of the operators, the integrity of plant documentation, and management concerns need to be considered in an integrated way, with computer software used as a means to implement improved support systems. In order to identify operator decision support requirements, user, information and software concerns are outlined, and specification and implementation aspects of improved decision support systems based on plant documentation in electronic form are discussed. A particular feature of such a system is the ability to provide operational staff with online access to hazard and operability (HAZOP) analysis results carried out as part of design activities