We’re frequently being asked to help develop Hazardous Area (HA) management plans for our customers. They’re becoming an increasingly important document for helping manage safety and compliance for an HA installation. So, what is exactly is an HA management plan?

We consider an HA management plan as the strategy for dealing with the individualities of your specific HA installation. It’s used to consolidate the efforts of the designers, installers and maintainers (which may include several companies and persons over time) to ensure a congruent approach and continued safe and compliant installation.

Or more succinctly, a HA Management Plan is the approach to organising EEHA safety and compliance for the life of your facility.

When it comes to exactly what is needed in a HA management plan there are no prescriptive requirements in the relevant standards AS/NZS 3000, AS/NZS 60079.14, 17, 4761. Instead, there are options for how a safe installation may be achieved. The HA management plan should document all decisions and processes that help to explain the nuances with respect to the actual installation.

We think the following list is a great place to start:

• The legislation and standards that apply – these set the requirements that the management plan is intended to achieve
• The obligations across the lifecycle of the installation – roles and responsibilities.
• The competencies of personnel (across Classification, Design, Installation, Inspection) and what training has/will be done to achieve the necessary competencies
• The documentation that has /will be prepared and where it is /will be stored (calculations, certificates, HAC, CAD etc.)
• QA processes that has / will be followed (e.g. design verification, gland management, inspections, audits, periodic inspections)
• Defect management – the process that will be followed for identifying, prioritising and rectifying installation defects.

If you want to talk more about HA management plans or any aspect of them we’d love to hear from you.