Hot work permit process map
A swimlane map of authorizing welding or cutting work, from request to a closed permit, across the technician, HSE/fire watch, the Dock Master and the gas-free engineer. Three decisions gate the work — atmosphere, approval, and a post-work clearance — and none of them are formalities the map lets you skip.
Opens a copy in the editor and saves it in this browser. No account, nothing sent anywhere.
What is in this map
17 steps across 4 swimlanes and 5 phases, with 3 decision points.
- Swimlanes (who does the work)
- Technician, HSE / Fire Watch, Dock Master and Gas-Free Engineer
- Phases (left to right)
- Request, Area preparation, Testing and approval, Execution and Closure
Why map this process
A hot work permit is a chain of independent authorities, each of whom can stop the job, and the map is what makes that chain visible: the gas-free engineer's atmosphere test, HSE's approval of the permit itself, and the Dock Master's confirmation there is no conflicting work nearby are three separate checks with three separate owners. A single 'get permit signed' box hides that any one of the three can say no for a different reason.
The post-work fire watch is where this map earns its keep, because the fire risk does not end when the torch does. Maintaining fire watch for a fixed period after work stops, then re-inspecting before declaring the area clear, is the sequence that catches smouldering material inside insulation or behind a bulkhead — exactly the kind of delayed ignition that a permit ending at 'work complete' would miss entirely.
Every step in the map
This is the spreadsheet behind the diagram. The numbers in “Goes to” are row numbers, which is exactly what the editor’s “Line to” column holds — so you can read the flow here and retype any part of it.
| # | Step | Shape | Swimlane | Phase | Goes to |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hot work request submitted for a welding or cutting task | Start | Technician | Request | 2 |
| 2 | Log request and identify the exact work location | Process | Technician | Request | 3 |
| 3 | Inspect work area for combustibles and adjacent tanks or spaces | Process | HSE / Fire Watch | Area preparation | 4 |
| 4 | Test atmosphere for *flammable gas* and *oxygen* level | Process | Gas-Free Engineer | Area preparation | 5 |
| 5 | Atmosphere within **safe limits** for hot work? | Decision | Gas-Free Engineer | Area preparation | 7 (Safe), 6 (Unsafe) |
| 6 | Ventilate space and remove combustibles, then retest | Process | Gas-Free Engineer | Area preparation | 4 |
| 7 | Assign dedicated *fire watch* and stage extinguishing equipment | Process | HSE / Fire Watch | Testing and approval | 8 |
| 8 | Dock master confirms no conflicting work in the area | Approval | Dock Master | Testing and approval | 9 |
| 9 | HSE **approves** and signs the hot work permit? | Decision | HSE / Fire Watch | Testing and approval | 11 (Approved), 10 (Denied) |
| 10 | Deny permit and record the corrective action required | Process | HSE / Fire Watch | Testing and approval | 3 |
| 11 | Carry out welding or cutting under fire watch | Process | Technician | Execution | 12 |
| 12 | Maintain fire watch for **30 minutes** after work stops | Process | HSE / Fire Watch | Execution | 13 |
| 13 | Final inspection of work area for *smouldering material* | Process | HSE / Fire Watch | Closure | 14 |
| 14 | Area **clear and safe** to leave unattended? | Decision | HSE / Fire Watch | Closure | 16 (Clear), 15 (Not clear) |
| 15 | Extend fire watch and re-inspect | Process | HSE / Fire Watch | Closure | 13 |
| 16 | Close and file the hot work permit | Process | Dock Master | Closure | 17 |
| 17 | Hot work permit closed | End | Dock Master | Closure | End |
The decision points
Every branch in the map, with the label on each outgoing line. These are the questions the process has to be able to answer.
-
5. Atmosphere within **safe limits** for hot work?
Owned by Gas-Free Engineer · Area preparation
- Safe → step 7
- Unsafe → step 6
-
9. HSE **approves** and signs the hot work permit?
Owned by HSE / Fire Watch · Testing and approval
- Approved → step 11
- Denied → step 10
-
14. Area **clear and safe** to leave unattended?
Owned by HSE / Fire Watch · Closure
- Clear → step 16
- Not clear → step 15
Notes on specific steps
These notes travel with the map. In the editor they live in the Notes column and appear when you open a box.
- 12. Maintain fire watch for **30 minutes** after work stops
- Smouldering material inside insulation or behind a bulkhead can flare up well after the torch is off — the 30 minutes is a minimum, not a target.
Making it yours
The atmosphere-test loop is the row set to protect if you adapt this for a different gas-testing standard: whatever your safe limits are, keep the retest as a loop back to the same test step rather than a new one, because it is testing again, not testing differently. The post-work fire-watch duration is a Notes-column value, not a hardcoded row — put your own site's required duration there, since fire watch times vary by regulation and by what is on the other side of the bulkhead.
What to watch out for
- Do not let assigning the fire watch and HSE's approval collapse into one step. Staging a fire watch is preparation the technician's team can do; approving the permit is HSE's independent judgement, and a workshop that treats its own preparation as equivalent to HSE sign-off is the workshop that eventually starts hot work on an unapproved permit.
- The denial branch loops back to area inspection, not to the original request. A denied permit almost always means something in the area needs to change, not that the work request itself was wrong — routing the denial back to 'log request' would make a technician resubmit an identical request into the same denial.
- Do not shorten the post-work sequence to a single closure step. The timed wait and the final inspection are two different safeguards against two different failure times — immediate reignition and delayed smouldering — and compressing them removes the map's only defense against the second.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the map test the atmosphere before assigning a fire watch, rather than the other way round?
Because a fire watch cannot make an unsafe atmosphere safe — it can only respond once work is already happening. Testing first establishes that hot work is even permissible; the fire watch is a control for the residual risk of work that has already been cleared to start, not a substitute for the atmosphere check.
Our yard requires a permit review by two HSE officers for high-risk hot work — how do I add that?
Add a decision after HSE's approval that branches on risk level, with the high-risk branch routing to a second approval row before rejoining the main flow. Keep it as an addition rather than replacing the single-approver flow, since most hot work at most yards is not high-risk and should not carry the same overhead.
What happens if hot work needs to pause partway through, for example for a shift change?
Route it back into the fire-watch step rather than treating a pause as closure. The fire watch and atmosphere conditions that were valid when work stopped need re-confirming before it resumes, which the map already provides for via the retest loop — a pause should re-enter that loop, not skip straight to reopening a request.
Open the map and start editing
The editor loads this chart with the spreadsheet underneath it. Change a cell and the diagram redraws — no drawing, no signup.