A Process Engineering View of Safe Automation

The concept of process safety management is well known throughout the world and relies on reducing risk continuously throughout the process life. The process equipment design and operation determine the limits of safe operation and the potential process hazards. It is the process engineer’s responsibility to define a risk reduction strategy that addresses identified hazards, to develop and maintain the process safety information that supports this strategy, and to ensure operating procedures are available that result in timely and consistent execution of this strategy. This paper primarily focuses on how these activities apply to instrumented safety systems (ISS), as defined by CCPS Safe and Reliable Instrumented Protective Systems. It also identifies the unique requirements for safety instrumented systems (SISs) from ANSI/ISA 84.00.01-2004.