Functional Safety Consulting

Make ATG your number 1 partner in Safety Lifecycle Management

Functional Safety Consulting

Make ATG your number 1 partner in Safety Lifecycle Management

ATG’s TÜV Rheinland and Exida certified functional safety specialists have worked with major clients in the Oil and Gas, Chemicals, Petro Chemicals, and manufacturing industries to assist with identifying their major risk exposures and setting up systems for ongoing risk management. Through this industry-specific knowledge and experience, we ensure that the risk management processes developed are specifically tailored to our client’s needs. Following are some of the services that we provide under Functional Safety Consulting:

What Our Client’s Says…

Baker Hughes Singapore has worked with ATG Asia Pacific for functional safety support. They are a truly professional and dynamic team, always willing to go the extra mile to get the job completed on time and at a fair cost.

Technical Manager, Large Global Speciality Chemicals Manufacturer

Hazard Area Classification

  • Proper management of ignition sources is critical in facilities that handle flammable materials or combustible dusts.  The basis of this is the correct classification of hazardous areas and then the correct specification of equipment for operation in each of relevant zones.
  • A proper Hazardous Area Classification is critical to safety of plant and personnel.  The inappropriate installation of standard industrial electrical devices is a potential source of a major accident.
  • ATG can provide specialist advice in the determination of the hazardous zones for a facility handling flammable liquids, vapours, gases, or dusts.  The classifications are performed and documented in accordance with the applicable standards.
  • As with many risk-related issues, it is preferable to ensure that the Hazardous Area Classification is determined during the design phase of a project.  This enables the arrangement of equipment and instrumentation to be optimised to reduce the overall project cost.  The Hazardous Area Classification must certainly be undertaken prior to selection and installation of electrical instrumentation and equipment.
  • The failure to conduct the Hazardous Area Classification and electrical equipment specification in a timely manner can result in major costs associated with retrofitting correctly rated electrical equipment after the facility has been constructed.

HAZOP Facilitation

  • The key objectives of a HAZOP study are to: Identify safety related hazards and operability problems that could directly threaten the safety of the facilities, personnel or cause operational problems; Determine the consequences for the identified hazards and operability issues
  • The identified issues can be resolved by the relevant person or groups of people outside the HAZOP meeting. The presence of a strong independent facilitator is important to enable the HAZOP to retain its focus and keep moving through the design.
  • ATG has experienced HAZOP facilitators available to chair your HAZOP. Their independent facilitation skills will ensure that the HAZOP is conducted efficiently and delivers a balanced output, highlighting potential issues identified with the design or system under analysis.
  • ATG’s HAZOP facilitators have conducted numerous HAZOPs across a broad range of industries and have the experience and skill to maximize the efficiency of the HAZOP process. As part of ATG’s HAZOP services, a technical secretary (scribe) and software can be provided for the recording of the HAZOP minutes

LOPA

  • As a risk assessment tool, LOPA fits in between simplified qualitative techniques such as simple risk matrix and, complete quantitative assessment. LOPA would be a good choice as a risk assessment approach where a higher degree of risk quantification is required due to the potential severity of the consequences, but where there is no need for a full quantitative assessment. LOPA provides very clear linkages between causes, controls and outcomes, considers the effectiveness of individual controls and can be used to demonstrate that the controls are adequate using simple risk criteria. The scenario risk determined through the LOPA may also be plotted onto the company risk matrix which helps to communicate the results to employees who are already familiar with the risk matrix.

Developing Functional Safety Management Plans (FSMP)

  • The Safety Plan or Functional Safety Management (FSM) Plan is a key document in any IEC 61511 development project. It specifies how functional safety will be ensured throughout the entire development project and in production.
  • The Safety Plan must identify the various roles and responsibilities as they apply to the development process. The Safety plan lists the various techniques and measures that will be implemented as part of the development project to ensure that the targeted SIL is achieved.
  • The deliverable of this task is the draft Safety Plan that the Customer must subsequently refine and implement in their development process.

SIL assessment studies and SIL Selection

Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) are used in many systems for the prevention and mitigation of safety-related hazards. An SIS may be made up of one or more Safety-Instrumented Function (SIF). The target Safety Integrity Level (SIL) of each safety-instrumented function (SIF) dictates the required performance of each SIF. That performance criterion is determined via a SIL assessment.

A SIL assessment may be performed for:

  • Existing systems; or
  • The design and implementation of new systems

The benefits of a SIL assessment include :

  • Optimization of SIS safety performance
  • Improvement in SIS reliability
  • Reduced downtime due to spurious trips
  • Compliance with the requirements of IEC 61508 and 61511
  • Development of a best practice approach to process safety management.

The SIL determination for a particular SIF is based on the expected likelihood and consequence of the hazardous event that the SIF is protecting against and the applicable risk criteria.
AS/IEC 61511-3 describes different methods for the SIL determination. The method of SIL determination for a specific case would be selected considering what best suits the needs and specifications of that system and the organization. Industry-recognized quantitative analytical techniques are used to assess the safety performance of the SIS. This ensures that the target SIL requirements are met and therefore, the intended risk reduction is achieved.
ATG’s SIL practitioners are qualified risk analysts who are also TÜV-certified Functional Safety Engineers. TÜV-certified Functional Safety Engineers have demonstrated their knowledge of SIS functional safety and satisfy the competency requirements of:

  • AS/IEC 61508-1 Para 6.2.1
  • AS/IEC 61511-1 Para 5.2.2.2

With specific skills in the application of functional safety combined with extensive knowledge of risk and safety management, ATG is well-placed to support any organization with its SIS safety management requirements.

Functional Safety Assessment

  • Functional safety assessment is an important review activity required by IEC 61511 and IEC 61508 to be carried out at least once prior to start-up of a new or modified automated safety instrumented system.
  • Our senior Functional Safety consultants give an independent assessment of all the activities carried out prior to that particular project stage to ensure compliance with the Safety Standards and Project specific Safety Requirement Specifications (SRS).
  • A judgement is made about the functional safety conformance and safety integrity achieved by every safety instrumented function within the system(s) being assessed.
    We provide a detailed report vis-à-vis the relevant sections of the safety standards highlighting any non-conformance or safety observations which must be closed prior to entering the next project phase. A judgement is made about the functional safety conformance and safety integrity achieved by every safety instrumented function within the system(s) being assessed.
  • This gives opportunity to the duty holders to implement functional safety assessment planning at the outset of a new project or modification process.

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