One diagram language. Many engineering disciplines.
Bowtie diagrams are a common language for risk across industries. The vocabulary changes; the shape does not.
Process Safety
Major-accident hazards on chemical plants, refineries, oil and gas facilities, and pharmaceutical sites. A bowtie pairs naturally with a LOPA study: the LOPA quantifies barrier effectiveness; the bowtie communicates the picture to operations, management, and regulators. Use it to demonstrate ALARP and to support the safety case.
Aviation Safety Management
Required reading under ICAO SMS expectations. Map incidents and hazards to threats, controls, and recovery actions across flight ops, engineering, ground handling, and air traffic services. Useful in monthly safety review boards and after-action reviews of reportable events.
Cybersecurity
Map threats to assets and the technical and procedural controls that mitigate them. Pairs well with MITRE ATT&CK for threat enumeration and NIST CSF for control mapping. A clear bowtie often replaces three slides of bullet points in a tabletop exercise or a post-incident review.
Medical Devices
Complement an ISO 14971 risk file with a visual view of hazards, foreseeable sequences of events, and risk controls. A bowtie diagram is well-suited to design reviews and to communicating residual risk to clinical stakeholders who do not read risk tables fluently.
Reliability & Asset Integrity
Pair with FMEA and fault-tree analysis to communicate failure modes and the inspection and maintenance regime that keeps them in check. Particularly useful for asset-management reviews where stakeholders include engineering, finance, and operations.