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Safety Analysis Suite ​

Process-safety studies — HAZOP, FMEA, SIL, LOPA and DSEAR — built into ErgoPlanner alongside your P&ID.

Overview ​

ErgoPlanner's Safety Analysis suite lets a process or functional-safety engineer run the standard hazard studies directly against the plant you have drawn, without exporting to a separate tool. Each module follows a recognised engineering standard, keeps a full study record (nodes, scenarios, scores and actions), and produces an auditable PDF report.

The five modules are designed to be used together as a layered workflow: a qualitative hazard identification (HAZOP / FMEA) feeds quantitative risk reduction (LOPA → SIL), and DSEAR handles hazardous-area classification for flammable atmospheres.

In this guide you'll learn

  • What each safety module does and which standard it implements
  • When to use HAZOP vs FMEA vs LOPA vs SIL vs DSEAR
  • How the modules relate to each other in a typical safety lifecycle
  • How studies are scoped, scored, and exported

Estimated Time: 10 minutes (orientation) Difficulty: Beginner

Prerequisites ​

  • A signed-in account (all safety modules require authentication)
  • For the quantitative modules (FMEA, SIL, LOPA, DSEAR), an engineering entitlement on your plan (these modules open read-only without it). The HAZOP and DSEAR study workspaces are Professional-plan features: on a lower plan the server refuses them, whatever the engineering entitlement
  • A working P&ID is helpful but not required; studies can be created standalone and optionally linked to a drawing

The five modules ​

ModuleQuestion it answersStandardRoute
HAZOP"What can deviate from design intent, and is it safeguarded?"IEC 61882 (guidewords)/hazop/studies
FMEA"How can each component fail, and how critical is it?"AIAG-VDA (RPN + Action Priority)/fmea/worksheets
LOPA"Do my protection layers reduce risk enough, and what's the gap?"CCPS LOPA/lopa/studies
SIL"Does my safety instrumented function achieve its target integrity?"IEC 61508 / IEC 61511/sil/assessments
DSEAR"What hazardous zone and ATEX equipment category applies here?"IEC 60079-10-1 / DSEAR 2002/dsear/assessments

How they fit together ​

mermaid
graph LR
    A[HAZOP / FMEA<br/>identify hazards] --> B[LOPA<br/>quantify residual risk + gap]
    B --> C[SIL<br/>verify the SIF<br/>meets required integrity]
    A --> D[DSEAR<br/>classify flammable<br/>atmospheres]
  1. Identify — Run a HAZOP on the P&ID to surface deviations, or an FMEA to rank component failure modes. Both produce an action register of findings that need follow-up.
  2. Quantify — For a high-consequence scenario, run a LOPA: combine the initiating-event frequency with the independent protection layers to compute the mitigated frequency and the gap to your tolerable target. LOPA tells you the required PFD and the resulting required SIL for any new safeguard.
  3. Verify — Build the corresponding Safety Instrumented Function in SIL, choose its voting architecture, and confirm the achieved SIL meets the target the LOPA demanded.
  4. Classify — Independently, use DSEAR to classify hazardous areas around sources of flammable release into Zone 0 / 1 / 2 and derive the required ATEX equipment category.

Choosing the right study ​

If you want to...Use
Systematically walk a P&ID node-by-node for design-intent deviationsHAZOP
Rank equipment/component failure modes by criticalityFMEA
Prove a scenario's risk is tolerable and size a new safeguardLOPA
Verify a safety-instrumented function's hardware integritySIL
Classify explosive-atmosphere zones and pick ATEX-rated equipmentDSEAR

Common features across the suite ​

  • Study lifecycle — Every study moves through a status workflow (Draft → In Progress → Review/Verified → Approved → Closed) with forward-only transitions.
  • Action register — HAZOP and FMEA track recommendations/actions with owners, status and overdue tracking.
  • Reports — FMEA, SIL and LOPA generate an A4 PDF; HAZOP also exports CSV/XLSX.
  • Worked-example math — Each module's calculation is standard-traceable (for example FMEA's RPN = S × O × D, LOPA's required PFD = 1 / gap); see each page for details.
  • Tenant isolation — Studies are scoped to your organisation and not visible across tenants.

References ​

  1. IEC 61882 — Hazard and operability studies (HAZOP studies)
  2. AIAG & VDA — Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) Handbook
  3. IEC 61508 / IEC 61511 — Functional safety of E/E/PE safety-related systems
  4. CCPS — Layer of Protection Analysis: Simplified Process Risk Assessment
  5. IEC 60079-10-1 — Classification of areas (explosive gas atmospheres); DSEAR 2002