The purpose of Functional Safety Assessments (FSAs) is twofold: to ensure that all the activities and documentation for the particular Safety Lifecycle (SLC) phase have been completed as per requirements; to help prevent systematic failures from being introduced. The IEC61511 2003 version recommends five (5) FSAs be conducted but specifies that at least one (1) be conducted prior to starting up the process – FSA 3, also known as the pre-startup safety check. Most companies only rely on FSA 3 but this means that they are risking a delayed startup if problems and/or errors are found, which can of course be costly.
However, the new edition of IEC61511, to be issued this year, proposes to mandate that ALL five (5) FSAs be conducted. This will have a significant impact on end user practices, whereby they will need to provide documentary evidence that these have been carried out according to requirements. This is especially relevant for the operation and maintenance side, whereby periodic assessment and management of change will require FSAs. The webinar will outline the requirements for each FSA and why, if implemented properly, these can lead to a much more efficient and effective design for Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS). The benefit of which will be to keep costs down and improve availability.
Steve Gandy joined exida as VP of Global Business Development, from Metso, bringing with him 35 years of experience of industrial controls and safety experience. He was responsible for sales and operations in Asia for Metso, setting up their India subsidiary and China energy and process team. Steve was also responsible for managing Metso’s VAR partners in the region, as well as developing new markets in Vietnam, Egypt, Indonesia, Ukraine and Guam.