HAZOP Facilitator - "To Be (P.Eng.) Or Not To Be (P.Eng.)"

[SNORGY]

thread765-240502

This post is only for interest's sake.

Sorry to open a closed thread, but this very same question was formally asked and answered in Alberta, Canada. Reference APEGGA's "The PEGG", December 2009, Page 4.

Apparently, the conclusion reached by the governing professional association (APEGGA) is that simply "facilitating" does not involve the professional application of mathematics or physical sciences and, therefore, does not meet all of the criteria defining what constitutes professional engineering practice. Therefore, you don't need to be a professional engineer to do it.

Then, the article suggests that, in the eyes of the law, if you *do* happen to be a professional engineer and you *do* facilitate a HAZOP, you will be judged in a court of law to be more responsible for anything bad that happens later than if you *are not* a professional engineer.

So here, the answer is, officially, I think, sort of yes, sort of no, sort of maybe.

I love concise and clear clarification.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[TDAA]

So nice to have a double standard for the same work.

 

[BigInch]

That's not a double standard. The same would apply to medical workers assistant surgeon & chief surgeon, a pilot in command and copilot, captain and lieutenent. The ticket makes a difference as it would be considered prima facie evidence of competence and responsibility.

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[Ron]

That same condition applies to many aspects of engineers doing non-engineering work...because we are licensed, we carry a greater "duty" to the work, thus they hold us to a higher standard than a non-engineer doing the same work.

 

[SNORGY]

Unfortunately, it does sometimes put one in a situation where you can never "let your guard down". Legally, you can't even give verbal advice or suggestions to your neighbour regarding how to install a deck or anchor a fence post.

On this issue, though, (facilitating HAZOP), at least where I work, the design team wants the HAZOP facilitator to be completely neutral, objective and unbiased. So, what they do is find someone who has not even been involved in the design and give him or her the mission statement to follow the system, help ask the questions, but not influence the outcome. The position by our Professional Association, therefore, appears to be contradictory to this philosophy, since it implies that if an individual *is qualified* to have a parcel of knowledge or an opinion, that alone would be enough to hold that person accountable even if that parcel of knowledge or opinion had never been expressed or even invited.

To me, it's enough a double standard that I don't facilitate "HAZOP"s (well, we do something internally that isn't a HAZOP at all, it's more like a structured risk review) any more, even though I used to do that internally. I am always willing to participate in design reviews - especially those for projects in which I have actually been involved - but I no longer "HAZOP" anything that I have otherwise had nothing to do with. Now when a HAZOP is called for, we hire a HAZOP consultant.



Regards,

SNORGY.