There was an incident happens in the wastewater treatment plant of a resin processing facility

at $1700$ hours. The waste treatment plant treated wastewater from research & development

laboratory, quality control laboratory and waste from process plant due to cleaning and

maintenance activities. A treatment facility comprises of a vessel for neutralization process,

chemical treatment, evaporation, aeration tank, sludge separation etc. The early investigation

reveals that:

$1.$ The accident happened on the last day of the annual plant shutdown. Many cleanings

activity involving chemicals for tanks including caustic solution.

$2.$ Large amount of acidic waste were generated in R&D lab due to pilot run.

$3.$ The neutralization tank burst due to overpressure.

$4.$ The neutralization tank is not designed to withstand high pressure and lack of safety

protection & monitoring system.

$5.$ The neutralization tank surface is hot.

$6.$ All the waste using shared one common piping system to neutralization tank.

$7.$ The agitator of the neutralization tank is under repair and only available at $1600$ hours.

$8.$ Operator switches ON the agitator at $1645$ hours.

You are a manager in the company. Demonstrate the Kepner$-$Tregoe method to resolve the

issue involving both plant design and safe operation. The Kepner$-$Tregoe method has FOUR

$(4)$ basic processes. For each step, list down more than three possible reasons and potential

options for safer design and operation.