Bow Tie Analysis

Bowties - HistoryEarly Stages

The exact starting point of the Bowtie Methodology has been lost in time but it isbelieved that they were originally called “Butterfly diagrams” and evolved from the CauseConsequence Diagram of the 1970s.It is then thought that David Gill of ICI plc developed the methodology and called thembowties in the late 70’s. It is generally accepted that the earliest mention of the bowtiemethodology appears in the ICI Hazan Course Notes 1979, presented by The Universityof Queensland, Australia.

Early 1990's

The technique was given a huge boost in the early to mid 90’s when the RoyalDutch/Shell Group developed the technique as a result of the Piper Alpha disaster. Theteam started working with Shell in the late 90s to improve the quality and effectivenessof the bowties being developed and allow the company to get the most out of thetechnique.Shell is acknowledged as the first major company to integrate the whole bowtiemethodology fully into its business practices but as the 1990's grew to an end theapproach became a standard method within many other companies.The structured approach of the bowtie methodology was particularly popular in riskanalysis within safety cases where quantification is not possible or desirable.Bowtie analysis can be used for assessing any type of risk, e.g. environmental, safety,business, political, security, etc. and is currently used in a wide range of companies,industries, countries and regulators.The bowtie diagram provides a powerful graphical representation of the risk assessmentprocess which is readily understood by the ‘non-specialist’.

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What is a bowtie diagram?

The bowtie has become popular as a structured method to assess risk where aqualitative approach may not be possible or desirable. The success of the diagram isthat it is simple and easy for the non- specialist to understand. The idea is a simple oneof combining the cause (fault tree) and the consequence (event tree). When the faulttree is drawn on the left hand side and the event tree is drawn on the right hand sidewith the hazard drawn as a "knot" in the middle the diagram looks a bit like a bowtie, asshown.

bowties - The Process

A bowtie diagram can easily be created by defining the:

•

Event

to be prevented

•

Threats

that could cause the event to occur

•

Consequences

of the event occurring

•

Controls

to prevent the event occurring

•

Controls

to mitigate against the consequencesThis is shown in the example below where we have a tiger escaping from a cage.

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The threats that will cause thetiger to escape are identified andlisted to the left, i.e. it couldescape if the cage is not strongenough or the gate is left open.The consequences of the tiger escaping have been identified anddisplayed to the right, i.e. it couldmaul/kill a member of the public or could itself be killed.The level of risk associated with each consequence can be assigned according to theorganization’s risk matrix and displayed on the diagram.Now that the hazard has been defined, we can put threat controls in place which willstop the hazard from occurring and consequence controls which will prevent theoutcome. (click on the image to see a larger version)Controls can be linked to specific sections or procedures of the organization’s safetymanagement system, can have responsibilities and inspection frequency assigned, andbe ranked and colour coded for effectiveness. The diagram below represents a simplebowtie diagram.On each control there is the ability to identify:

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