The key to reducing the financial impact of accidents is to analyse where losses originate and manage these. For the first time ever you can produce this information with our new Process Business Risk Software, an easy to use map-based software tool from DNV Software.

To address the need for risk analysis packages to help companies improve their financial bottom line, DNV Software is currently producing a new Process Business Risk tool to calculate the financial consequences of industrial accidents.

This tool will be based on existing risk technology currently available in DNV Software’s Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) package, Safeti. It extends conventional QRA calculations by linking with financial calculations currently available within DNV Software’s suite of Risk Based Inspection (RBI) software, Orbit, and methodologies established by DNV for the calculation of environmental effects. The impact of the full range of potential financial outcomes will be calculated, including;

• Impacts on people in terms of both injuries and fatalities
• Property damage in terms of both capital costs to replace damaged equipment and damage to other property
• Business interruption
• Inventory loss
• Environmental damage including clean-up costs, fines and impact on flora and fauna
• Plus many others (legal costs, loss of reputation, brand image, compensation, etc.)

The calculations will be performed within a spatially based model containing all plant geometry. This enables the location of assets, releases and the population at large to be linked together to give a complete financial risk picture. Users of DNV Software’s existing risk and consequence packages such as Safeti and Phast will be able to extend their current studies by adding information about their assets and financial data to perform a full Process Business Risk study.

Geospatial extensions will mean that, for the first time, all releases will be directly associated with a piece of equipment, such as a vessel or heat exchanger. The failed equipment will have associated properties such as a cost and location which can be combined with other spatially based features to give a complete risk picture.

Results
Results from the Process Business Risk software will be available in various formats. Typical output will consider total loss rate or F/$ curves, analogous with the F/N curves from a conventional QRA, where the ‘Q’ is fatalities. In addition, ranking of events and equipment types will show which event types or processes contribute most to the overall financial risk. Summing of events can be performed for all outcomes or by type of loss (e.g. risk to the population or environment), or combinations of these. Similarly, typical uses of this approach may include some or all of the following;

• Benchmarking operational risk levels
• Trending risk over time
• Comparison of risks for different operational condition
• Demonstrating a culture of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and adherence to the principles of triple bottom line (3BL) reporting
• Assessment of exposure to financial risks due to major hazards on process plants
• Evaluation of the relative effectiveness of different risk mitigation strategies for reducing exposure to financial risk
• A decision support tool for implementing cost effective risk reduction measures (e.g. using cost benefit analysis)
• Justification for reduction of insurance premiums and deductibles by demonstrating reduced exposure to
  financial losses

Developing Process Business Risk technology which focuses on more than compliance with safety legislation, is a first step to linking more directly with other business processes. This is a key facilitator for longer term extension to full Risk Based Operational monitoring, using the same risk based techniques linked directly with more mainstream operational systems.