Are You Sure Those Protection Layers Work?

Safeguards, controls, and layers of protection are put in place to keep operations within specified parameters or to provide mitigation if operations move outside of safe parameters and progress along the path to an incident. These barriers can vary from simple and passive (such as a dike) to complex and active (such as a SIL-rated Safety Instrumented System). Each barrier provides a part of the overall protection strategy to prevent process safety events. Once a barrier has been designed and installed, it is critical to maintain it to ensure that it remains effective. This session seeks papers that describe procedures and practices for tracking, auditing, inspecting, testing, and maintaining the integrity of these barriers throughout the entire lifecycle from commissioning to de-commissioning.