Hazard Analysis
What is Checklist Analysis in Process Hazard Review?
Vinit Pandey · Published 4 August 2026
In short: Checklist Analysis is a hazard identification technique that compares a process or facility against a standardised list of known hazards and required safeguards drawn from codes, standards, and prior experience, verifying known concerns are addressed rather than discovering novel scenarios.
Key takeaways
- Checklist Analysis compares a facility against a standardised, predetermined hazard list
- Its consistency makes review quality less dependent on which individuals conduct it
- It can only surface hazards already anticipated by the checklist, missing novel scenarios
- Commonly used alongside HAZOP or What-If, or as the primary method for well-precedented facility types
Checklist Analysis works from a predetermined list — drawn from industry codes, standards, regulatory requirements, or a company's own accumulated experience — checking each item against the facility being reviewed to confirm whether the expected safeguard or design feature is present.
The technique's strength is consistency: because the checklist is standardised, review quality is less dependent on which specific individuals conduct it compared to more open-ended techniques like What-If Analysis, making it well suited to routine compliance-style verification.
Checklist Analysis's inherent limitation is that it can only surface hazards already anticipated by whoever built the checklist; it is poorly suited to identifying novel hazard scenarios specific to an unusual process or a genuinely new design, which require a more open-ended technique like HAZOP or What-If.
Checklist Analysis is commonly used as a supplementary check alongside HAZOP or What-If Analysis, or as the primary technique for lower-hazard, well-precedented facility types where the relevant hazard categories are already well understood industry-wide.