SAFETY LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT IN A PROCESS INDUSTRY

 

SAFETY LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT

When a plant or any processing facility is designed, various criteria focus on the inherent safety of the plant. Our study shall be specific to the Process industry only, therefore, I would consider it important to know the relevant standards that are relevant to the safety system for this industry. Since this concept has evolved for quite a long so there are certain international standards governing these areas of the industry. Following are the three international safety standards covering this area:

1.     IEC-61511

2.     IEC-61508

3.     ISA 84




Firstly, let’s see what the IEC & ISA stand for!

IEC: International Electro technical Commission

ISA: International Society of Automation.

IEC 61508 is related to the OEM/manufacturers for product design, development, and certification. It is for electronic and programmable electronic devices for use in functional safety applications.  

IEC61511/ISA84 is related to the life cycle management of this safety instrumented system in the process industry. It provides guidelines regarding identification, requirement, safety integrity level determination, installation, commissioning, operation and maintenance, decommissioning, validation, verification, and change management related to safety system in a process industry. Please note that ISA84 has adopted the procedures/guidelines provided in IEC61511.

What are the basic components of the Safety Instrument system?

It comprises of sensor, logic solver, and final control element.

A chain is as strong as the weakest link.

When the safety system is required?

It is required to manage the operational risks during the startup, operation, and shutdown of any process industry.

Why it is required?

This system manages the operational risks and avoids production loss, personal injury or loss of life, asset damage, and environmental damage that might surface in the absence of it.  

Why lifecycle management is necessary?

If the SIS is not designed or maintained then either it will fail to serve its intended purpose of safety or it shall cause nuisance tripping affecting the business.

SIS is a safety instrumented system used to implement one or more safety instrumented functions (SIF). SIF is the protection layer used to protect the process from certain hazardous conditions.

SIL is the risk reduction factor that a SIF provides to the SIS. Based on individual SIF integrity levels the SIL of SIS as a whole can also be determined.

According to IEC61511, the steps involved in a Process safety lifecycle management are:

1.     Hazard and Risk assessment 
        Allocation of safety functions to protection layers
  Safety requirement specification development for the SIS
  Design and engineering of SIS
  Installation, commissioning, and validation
 Operation and maintenance
 Modification
 Decommissioning

 

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