Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA)

Felt like sitting in on a senior engineer’s whiteboard run-through, not a slide dump. The bow-tie walkthrough in Module 3 where a valve failure escalates into a permit-to-work miss stuck; mapping causes to controls mirrored how we review incidents. I’ve already applied the risk matrix calibration to a prod change review, linking hazards to infra controls before opening a PR; it fit our CI checks. Mostly useful, though I wasn’t sold on the generic scoring scales and wished for more on contractor handoffs in oilgas.

The HIRA walkthrough in Chapter 3’s risk-matrix calibration with the chlorine unloading example stuck—mapping severity vs likelihood felt like a PR review you could use in prod. Takeaway: it closes gaps for engineers into safety/energyutilities, though I wasn't sold on the bow-tie section and wished there was more on tying controls to obs and CI.

A few slides in module 4 dragged, and the labs assume your org already has a hazard register set up. Past that, the reasoning behind the examples mostly held up when I sanity-checked them against real jobs. The bow-tie example in Section 3.2 around permit-to-work was the sticky bit for me; clear assumptions, no hand-waving. It's practical in a freelancer way: helps tighten arch decisions without overbuilding infra or slowing prod. I liked how they tied risk ranking back to actual change control instead of theory. Works if you’re bouncing between clients in energy utilities or oilgas and need a fast mental model. helps with day-to-day calls, not slideware.