Effective risk management requires a thorough understanding of all key incident causes and consequences and implementation of suitable and reliable preventative and mitigative barriers.

Bowties are a useful tool to assist the assessment and communication of process and non-process risks by demonstrating how hazards are controlled and illustrating the direct link between risk controls and elements of the management system.

Unlike complex numerical based risk assessments such as QRA, LOPA, FTA and ETA which have different objectives, Bowties provide a readily understandable and simplified visualisation of the relationship between the causes of events that lead to the top event (i.e. loss of control of the hazard), the potential consequences resulting from such events, the barriers for preventing the top event from occurring and then mitigation barriers in place to limit the consequence .

Key elements of a Bowtie include:

• Hazard: The identified Major Accident Hazard (MAH) / Major Accident Event (MAE);

• Top Event: the loss of control of the Hazard;

• Threats: the causes that may lead to the Top Event (far left hand side of the Bowtie);

• Consequences: the eventual outcome of the Top Event without barriers in place (far right hand side of the Bowtie);

• Prevention Barriers: safeguards which prevent the Top Event from occurring (left side of the Top Event);

• Mitigation Barriers: safeguard which reduce the scale of the Consequence or possibly stop the Consequence (right side of the Top Event);

• Escalation / Degradation Factors: pertinent causes that can lead to the impairment or failure of a safeguard;

• Escalation / Degradation Barriers: .

Using SGL to support your Bowtie Assessment requirements will give you the assurance that the Team has the independence to recommend changes and improvements where necessary.

Tailored to your requirements, we can provide independent co-ordination, initial desktop development, workshop facilitation and further on-going barrier management support of your potential major accident hazards.

Key reasons to develop and implement Bowties as part of your major accident hazard risk management framework are to:

• Provide a systematic analysis of the barrier along threat and consequence pathways that prevent or mitigate a MAH / MAE;

• Support the design process, operational activities or maintenance activities to raise awareness and understanding of the safeguards in place and the role of the workforce, the management and the individual

• Provide a cumulative picture of risk through the visualisation of the number and types of barriers, including if they are a Safety and Environmental Critical Element (SECE), their condition, their effectiveness and any escalation / degradation barriers;

• Support the identification and prioritisation of actions to strengthen barriers;

• Provide a structured process where identified hazards, threats and consequences can be related in cause and effect scenarios;

• Assist in the development and understanding of how unwanted events can occur;

• Provide full documentation of safeguards preventing and mitigating MAHs / MAEs beyond those normally found in HAZOP and PHA documents.