Safety in the Process Industries

Guiding Principles to the Implementation of IEC-61508

Successful First SIPI Workshop held in Oslo, Norway
September 2002

The first SIPI project workshop was held in Oslo during September 2002. Hosted by ABB and co-sponsored by the Norwegian PDS Group, it attracted twenty-five safety practitioners drawn from a wide range of process industry organisations within Norway and Denmark covering predominantly oil, gas and chemicals. The knowledge of the standard is strong in Norway, and the regulator takes an active role in not only regulating industry but also working with industry to develop specific guidance, for example OLF 70.

The varied workshop programme enabled attendees to discuss the current issues implementing IEC 61508, the international functional safety standard, and compare and contrast successful implementation methods and programmes. During the first day, Thorleif Husebo from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate delivered a keynote presentation on the current status of the NPD's Guidelines for Offshore Implementation, OLF 070 and on day two, a keynote presentation by Bente Skari from Aker Kvaerner covered implementation of IEC 61508 in the Kristin project. In addition Farhad Pakshad, ABB OS-Div; Ritari Esa, Metso and Stian Ruud, of DNV focused on their specific experiences with modifications to existing safety systems, benefits in using smart valves and functional safety assessments.

Many topics were discussed reflecting the importance and status of the standard. Amongst the issues identified was the need to integrate the standard's lifecycle within an organisations project life cycle; establish safety requirements in a timely manner; difficulties in implementing the standard for safety functions with multiple safe states; confusion and often duplication in verification, validation, assessment and audit activities; difficulties in calibrating risk graphs; availability of up-to-date reliability data for wetted end equipment; and uncertainty regarding applicability of a SIL rating for a component as opposed to a loop.