Process Industry Safety

By Jon Keswick, CFSE / October 25, 2018

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How do you get valued staff and contractors to engage with Process Safety, Functional Safety and similar “tricky” subjects? Send them on a training course or ask them to take some online training? How about both? An online plus classroom experience might just be the answer to getting a step-change in safety culture in your […]

Process Industry Safety

By Jon Keswick, CFSE / October 10, 2018

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The headline, extracted from a popular song lyric*, uses the double-negative “don’t need no”, quite intentionally – to help emphasize a point. Whatever the song writer meant I’ll leave to others to decipher, but for my purposes hopefully it will get attention. * The lyric “We don’t need no education” is extracted from Pink Floyd’s “Another […]

Process Industry Safety

By Jon Keswick, CFSE / September 14, 2018

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The recently updated process sector safety instrumented system (SIS) standard IEC 61511 now requires that a “security risk assessment is carried out to identify security vulnerabilities of the SIS” [1]. But how should such an assessment be approached, and what can you do to prepare for it?There have been well publicized examples of cyber-security breaches […]

Process Industry Safety

Software Tool Reviews

By Jon Keswick, CFSE / September 5, 2018

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Read on to see the software buyer’s guide table…a comparison of 4 cloud-based software solutions. This blog will will look at the main reasons why using such software is better than many traditional approaches, which companies are working in the domain and the questions you should ask before you choose a solution.The safety life-cycle was […]

Process Industry Safety

By Jon Keswick, CFSE / August 30, 2018

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Without effective functional safety assessment and audit, you may never know whether your safety system will perform when it is really needed. That is perhaps a bold statement, but read on if you think you disagree… Automated systems have been used in safety applications now for a few decades. As a result we should have some […]

Process Industry Safety

By Jon Keswick, CFSE / August 23, 2018

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For the third blog of this series, the focus is on proof testing. This article will look at what proof testing is, why it’s needed, and give some outline examples of proof test procedure requirements. It will also introduce some issues I’ve personally experienced during audits and assessments of proof test procedures in the process industry […]

Process Industry Safety

By Jon Keswick, CFSE / June 12, 2018

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Operation and maintenance procedures for Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) will vary from company to company. However, there are some specific requirements that need to be covered for safe continued operation. The first blog on this topic discussed general operation and maintenance (O&M) requirements for sustaining the integrity of a SIS. This second article discusses the requirements […]

Process Industry Safety

By Jon Keswick, CFSE / June 4, 2018

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How do you ensure a Safety Instrumented System in operation will maintain its original design integrity for a lifetime of 15+ years? The IEC 61511 (2016) safety life-cycle provides some brief guidance for operation and maintenance of a safety instrumented system (SIS) in clause 16. The stated objectives are to ensure that the validated system’s safety […]

Process Industry Safety

By Jon Keswick, CFSE / January 3, 2018

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The process sector standard IEC 61511 is aimed at applications where instrumented systems are used for risk reduction in the process industry sector – including applications in chemicals, oil and gas, pulp and paper, pharmaceutical manufacturing, food and beverage, and non-nuclear power generation. Reduction of risk can be applied in the context of people, the […]

Process Industry Safety

By Jon Keswick, CFSE / September 7, 2017

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Hazardous process industry sites must carry out periodic functional safety assessment (FSA) of safety instrumented systems. But why? Many hazardous process industry sites have viewed Functional Safety Assessment (FSA) as a project activity to be completed when a new safety instrumented system (SIS) gets installed, and of course, that is absolutely correct. Some have also registered […]