Manual of Permitted Operations (MOPO)

A Manual of permitted operations (MOPO) is an information and decision-making tool to assist supervisors during the planning and coordination of operations and activities by providing useful information on:
⦁ The operation or activity operating envelope and safe operating limits.
⦁ Action(s) to take if/when certain situations arise that could compromise safe operations.
The MOPO is a set of matrices that maps operational activities against foreseeable situations that if or when they arise could compromise safe operating limits – these situations are identified from:
⦁ The Threats and Escalation Factors identified as part of the Bow-tie assessments for severity 5 and red risk hazards (MAH).
⦁ An assessment of other operations and activities that could contribute to the escalation of an incident, e.g., continuing with hot work when fire pumps (a safety critical element – SCE) is/ are unavailable.
Objectives:
The objective of a MOPO is to maintain an acceptable level of risk for the operations. The matrices shall identify and differentiate between ‘stop’ conditions (i.e., operation not permitted) and what are ‘proceed with caution’ conditions, (i.e., continue but recognize that there is an increased risk and/or provide additional controls). Traffic lighting is a useful tool to highlight the different conditions and should be adopted.
MOPO TOOLS
The MOPO tools consists of the following charts:
⦁ SIMOPs (Simultaneous Operations) are described as potential clash of activities which could result in undesired event having adverse effect on safety, environment, asset, schedule, and reputation. SIMOPs refer to two or more potentially clashing activities /operations occurring at the same time in same place. Team composition should include TSE, construction, commissioning, operation, maintenance representative along with project team.
⦁ External influences, e.g., extreme weather, visibility, security issues (MOPO entitled Adverse Weather MOPO)
⦁ Inactive safeguards and unavailability of critical manpower, i.e., SCE unavailability or impairment, e.g., ESD systems, fire fighting systems and unavailability of critical manpower, e.g., HSE critical positions, ER – team members (MOPO entitled SCE Impairment and critical manpower unavailability MOPO).
Results
The MOPOs shall identify and differentiate between ‘stop’ (red) conditions, i.e., operation NOT permitted and what are ‘proceed with caution’ (amber) conditions, i.e., continue following appropriate risk assessment and provide additional controls where necessary.