How to Improve the Trust in Safety Related Sensors

How
to improve the trust in safety related sensors

Wolter Last*

Hint

2800
Post Oak Boulevard, Suite 4100

Houston,
TX 77056, USA

*Presenter E-mail: wlast@hint-global.com

Abstract

Yearly
Instrument Protective Functions (IPF) reports for safety critical elements are
common practice in the oil and gas and petrochemical industry. Including mean
time between failures (MTBF) calculations and fail to danger/ fail to safe
evaluations, they give an overview about the integrity of the installed based
sensors and help to define eventual engineering adjustments. However, input
information for the IPF reports are often manually entered on paper or in excel
sheets which is inefficient, costly and subject to human errors.

The method of monitoring process
safety and fire & gas equipment within the oil and gas and petrochemical
industry needs to evolve.  Operators need to be able to
trust their sensors and rely on actual, accurate and controlled real-time data.

What
if the safety instruments data were automatically entered in a process safety
maintenance management system? IPF reports could be customized and generated
any time, instrument maintenance activities could be triggered by predefined
conditions, etc. The possibilities are extensive.

By
using an automatic process safety maintenance management system, the
reliability of safety related equipment can be improved, company risks can be
reduced, and the efficiency of testing and can be increased.

Keywords: Sensor
Integrity, Risk Reduction, Process Safety Management System, Instrument
Protective Functions, Condition Based Maintenance.