Course Introduction
Project safety case development and verification provide a structured approach to demonstrating that a project’s risks have been identified, evaluated, controlled, and reduced to an acceptable level throughout its lifecycle. A safety case brings together a reasoned argument supported by credible evidence to explain why a facility, system, structure, process, or operational activity can be considered acceptably safe for its intended purpose. This course equips participants with the knowledge and practical methods required to develop, review, verify, and maintain safety cases that support informed decisions, regulatory compliance, and responsible project delivery.
Complex projects frequently involve hazardous equipment, demanding operating conditions, multiple contractors, intricate engineering interfaces, and changing technical requirements. In these environments, compliance with individual standards or completion of safety studies does not automatically demonstrate that the overall project is safe. Participants will learn how to connect hazard identification, risk assessment, engineering design decisions, safety requirements, operational controls, and supporting evidence into a coherent safety argument. The course emphasizes the importance of showing not only that safety measures have been specified, but also that they are suitable, implemented, independently evaluated where required, and capable of achieving their intended purpose.
A well-developed safety case depends on a clear argument structure, explicit assumptions, traceable claims, and evidence that adequately supports each conclusion. Participants will examine the relationships between top-level safety claims, supporting subclaims, technical arguments, and documented evidence. They will learn how to identify gaps in reasoning, inconsistent assumptions, unsupported conclusions, incomplete safety requirements, and evidence that no longer reflects the current project configuration. The course also explores how structured argumentation techniques, evidence registers, requirements traceability, and verification records can improve transparency and make complex safety decisions easier to review.
Safety case development requires close collaboration between engineering, project management, operations, maintenance, quality assurance, risk management, and regulatory specialists. Each discipline contributes different knowledge and evidence, yet their findings must be integrated into a consistent assessment of overall safety. Participants will explore how to establish responsibilities, coordinate specialist studies, manage design interfaces, address conflicting technical assumptions, and ensure that safety-critical decisions are documented and approved. Particular attention is given to the management of design changes, deviations, outstanding actions, and emerging hazards that may affect the validity of previously accepted safety arguments.
Verification provides the independent challenge and technical scrutiny necessary to establish whether a safety case is complete, logically structured, evidence-based, and appropriate to the risks involved. The course examines verification planning, review criteria, evidence sampling, technical assurance, interdisciplinary review, and the management of findings. Participants will learn to distinguish between verification of the safety argument, validation of the underlying requirements, and confirmation that safety measures have been implemented and perform as intended. They will also explore how to classify findings, determine their significance, assign corrective actions, and verify closure before critical project decisions or operational transitions proceed.
By completing the Project Safety Case Development and Verification Course, participants will be better prepared to produce and evaluate safety cases that support safe design, construction, commissioning, operation, modification, and decommissioning. They will gain a practical framework for developing structured safety arguments, integrating technical evidence, managing assumptions, verifying safety claims, and maintaining documentation as project conditions evolve. The course is relevant to safety-critical sectors such as energy, oil and gas, infrastructure, chemicals, transport, manufacturing, and major industrial facilities. Its emphasis on systematic reasoning and defensible evidence helps organizations strengthen safety governance, improve assurance quality, and support decisions that protect people, assets, the environment, and operational continuity.
Duration
5 days
Who Should Attend
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Project managers responsible for integrating safety requirements, risk controls, and assurance activities into project delivery.
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Project safety managers overseeing safety case development, review, approval, and maintenance throughout the project lifecycle.
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Safety engineers preparing technical safety arguments and coordinating supporting evidence across engineering disciplines.
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Systems engineers responsible for requirements management, system architecture, hazard analysis, and safety-related interfaces.
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Process safety professionals assessing major accident hazards, engineered safeguards, operating limits, and risk reduction measures.
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Engineering managers responsible for demonstrating that design decisions satisfy safety requirements and project acceptance criteria.
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Independent verification and assurance specialists reviewing safety arguments, evidence quality, technical compliance, and unresolved findings.
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Risk managers coordinating hazard assessments, risk evaluations, mitigation strategies, and residual risk acceptance.
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Quality assurance and quality control professionals supporting traceability, configuration management, document control, and assurance records.
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Commissioning and operations managers preparing safety documentation for system handover, operational readiness, and controlled start-up.
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Maintenance and asset integrity professionals responsible for preserving safety-critical functions throughout operational life.
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Regulatory compliance professionals coordinating safety submissions, approval requirements, inspections, and responses to regulatory findings.
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Contractors and engineering consultants preparing safety deliverables for complex infrastructure and industrial projects.
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Technical authorities and discipline leads reviewing safety-critical designs, assumptions, specifications, and engineering modifications.
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Professionals involved in design reviews, management of change, technical audits, and lifecycle safety assurance.
Course Objectives
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Explain the purpose, structure, and lifecycle application of a safety case, including the relationship between safety claims, supporting arguments, technical evidence, and risk acceptance decisions.
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Develop a coherent safety case strategy that defines scope, system boundaries, intended operating conditions, applicable requirements, responsibilities, and acceptance criteria.
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Construct structured safety arguments using clearly defined claims, logically connected subclaims, explicit assumptions, and evidence that supports each conclusion.
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Integrate hazard identification, risk assessment, engineering analysis, safety requirements, and risk control measures into a traceable demonstration of acceptable safety.
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Evaluate the quality, relevance, completeness, reliability, and currency of evidence used to substantiate safety claims and demonstrate the effectiveness of critical safeguards.
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Establish verification plans and review criteria that test the technical validity, logical consistency, completeness, and suitability of safety cases for their intended purpose.
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Identify weaknesses in safety arguments, including unsupported claims, contradictory evidence, missing requirements, unresolved hazards, and assumptions that lack appropriate justification.
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Apply configuration management, requirements traceability, and change control methods to preserve the validity of safety cases as designs, operating conditions, and project interfaces evolve.
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Manage verification findings through severity assessment, corrective action assignment, escalation, closure evidence, and confirmation that significant safety concerns are adequately resolved.
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Develop practical arrangements for safety case approval, periodic review, operational handover, lifecycle maintenance, and communication of residual risks to accountable decision-makers.
Comprehensive Course Outline
Module 1: Fundamentals of Safety Case Development
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Define the purpose of a safety case and explain how it demonstrates that risks associated with a project, system, facility, or operation are acceptably controlled.
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Distinguish safety cases from safety reports, hazard registers, risk assessments, compliance matrices, safety management plans, and technical assurance documentation.
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Examine safety case applications across concept development, design, construction, commissioning, operation, modification, and decommissioning.
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Identify stakeholder responsibilities, governance arrangements, approval authorities, and decision points that determine when safety case development and review are required.
Module 2: Safety Case Scope, Context, and Requirements Definition
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Establish the system definition, physical and functional boundaries, intended operating conditions, lifecycle phases, and interfaces covered by the safety case.
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Identify applicable legislation, regulatory expectations, engineering standards, organizational policies, contractual obligations, and project-specific safety acceptance criteria.
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Define the safety case development plan, deliverables, responsibilities, review milestones, evidence requirements, and arrangements for stakeholder engagement.
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Document assumptions, exclusions, operating limitations, dependencies, and interfaces that could influence the validity or completeness of the safety argument.
Module 3: Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment Integration
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Apply suitable hazard identification techniques to recognize hazardous events, unsafe conditions, initiating causes, credible consequences, and potential escalation pathways.
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Integrate findings from hazard and operability studies, failure mode analysis, fault tree analysis, event tree analysis, and other relevant risk assessment methods.
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Evaluate existing and proposed safeguards, assess residual risk, and identify additional risk reduction measures required to meet established acceptance criteria.
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Maintain traceable links between hazards, safety requirements, risk controls, accountable owners, verification evidence, and outstanding risk treatment actions.
Module 4: Safety Argument Structure and Logical Reasoning
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Develop top-level safety claims that clearly state the safety conclusion being demonstrated for a defined system, activity, operating context, or lifecycle phase.
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Decompose high-level claims into supporting subclaims and technical arguments that address hazards, safety functions, design adequacy, and operational controls.
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Apply structured argumentation methods, including claim-argument-evidence approaches and appropriate graphical representations, to communicate complex safety reasoning.
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Review argument completeness, logical consistency, assumptions, dependencies, counterarguments, and potential weaknesses that could undermine the overall safety conclusion.
Module 5: Evidence Collection, Evaluation, and Traceability
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Identify suitable evidence sources, including engineering calculations, design analyses, test reports, inspection records, operating procedures, qualification records, and specialist assessments.
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Evaluate whether evidence is technically valid, sufficiently independent where required, appropriately controlled, relevant to the claim, and representative of actual conditions.
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Establish evidence registers, claim-to-evidence matrices, requirements traceability records, document references, and revision controls that support efficient verification.
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Identify missing, outdated, conflicting, or insufficient evidence and determine what additional analysis, testing, inspection, or technical justification is necessary.
Module 6: Safety Case Development Across Engineering Disciplines
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Integrate evidence from mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, control systems, civil, structural, process, and other relevant engineering disciplines.
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Demonstrate how safety-critical functions, protective systems, design margins, equipment qualification, and reliability requirements support the overall safety argument.
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Coordinate interface management, specialist study outputs, technical authority reviews, and cross-disciplinary assumptions to prevent gaps between engineering workstreams.
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Address human factors, maintainability, operational procedures, environmental conditions, and foreseeable misuse where these factors affect safety performance.
Module 7: Verification Planning and Independent Technical Review
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Develop a verification strategy defining review scope, reviewer competence, independence requirements, evaluation criteria, methods, responsibilities, and reporting arrangements.
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Examine safety claims, argument structure, hazard coverage, risk control adequacy, evidence traceability, and consistency with approved requirements and design documentation.
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Apply document reviews, technical recalculation, evidence sampling, design inspections, interviews, and targeted testing where appropriate to verify safety case conclusions.
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Establish review gates, acceptance criteria, escalation thresholds, and decision rules for determining whether a safety case is ready for approval or requires further work.
Module 8: Verification Findings, Deficiency Management, and Acceptance
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Identify and classify deficiencies according to their implications for safety, regulatory compliance, argument validity, evidence sufficiency, and readiness for project progression.
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Distinguish major safety concerns, incomplete evidence, administrative errors, technical nonconformities, and opportunities to improve the clarity of the safety argument.
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Develop corrective action plans that define root causes, accountable owners, required evidence, target dates, dependencies, and criteria for satisfactory closure.
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Verify corrective actions, document residual issues, escalate unresolved concerns, and support evidence-based decisions on acceptance, conditional acceptance, or rejection.
Module 9: Configuration Management and Safety Case Change Control
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Establish processes for reviewing the safety implications of design modifications, equipment substitutions, operating changes, deviations, and newly identified hazards.
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Maintain alignment between the approved safety case, system configuration, engineering drawings, safety requirements, operating procedures, and as-built documentation.
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Reassess affected safety claims and supporting evidence when assumptions, interfaces, operating envelopes, technical specifications, or risk controls change.
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Define review triggers, document revision responsibilities, approval pathways, and periodic reassessment requirements to preserve safety case validity throughout the lifecycle.
Module 10: Safety Case Approval, Handover, and Lifecycle Assurance
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Prepare safety case submissions and executive summaries that communicate the overall safety argument, principal hazards, critical controls, assumptions, and residual risks.
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Integrate safety case requirements into commissioning readiness reviews, operational handover, maintenance planning, emergency preparedness, and authorization to commence activities.
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Establish ownership for periodic reviews, safety performance monitoring, incident learning, regulatory engagement, and updates following material operational changes.
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Apply practical case studies to evaluate complete safety arguments, identify verification gaps, document conclusions, and develop an improvement plan for ongoing assurance.
Training Approach
This course will be delivered by our skilled trainers who have vast knowledge and experience as expert professionals in the fields. The course is taught in English and through a mix of theory, practical activities, group discussion and case studies. Course manuals and additional training materials will be provided to the participants upon completion of the training.
Tailor-Made Course
This course can also be tailor-made to meet organization requirement. For further inquiries, please contact us on: Email: training@upskilldevelopment.com Tel: +254 721 331 808
Training Venue
The training will be held at our Upskill Training Centre. We also offer training for a group (at a discount of 10% to 50%) at requested location all over the world. The Onsite course fee covers the course tuition, training materials, two break refreshments, buffet lunch, airport transfers, Upskill gift package, and guided tour.
Visa application, travel expenses, dinners, accommodation, insurance, and other personal expenses are catered by the participant
Certification
Participants will be issued with Upskill certificate upon completion of this course.
Airport Pickup and Accommodation
Airport pickup and accommodation is arranged upon request. For booking contact our Training Coordinator through Email: training@upskilldevelopment.com, +254 721 331 808
Terms of Payment:
Unless otherwise agreed between the two parties’ payment of the course fee should be done 3 working days before commencement of the training so as to enable us to prepare better.
