The Company, following its incorporation into a Multinational Company, needed to adapt the Process Safety activities carried out in its plant to the guidelines of the parent Company.
To this end, the Company identified a plant in the factory on which to apply the Corporate guidelines as a pilot for activities.
The peculiarity of the activity is due to the completeness of the approach followed, as the development of these activities has seen the development of:
- a HazOp activity, integrated with Process Risk Assessment elements (“semi-quantified” HazOp), on the basis of the Corporate Risk Acceptability Matrix
- an activity of assignment of Functional Integrity Level (Safety Integritiy Level – SIL) required for “SIS” type safeguards, using the LOPA (Layer Of Protection Analysis) methodology
- an activity of verification of the Functional Integrity Level (Safety Integritiy Level – SIL) achiedeve by the “SIS” type safeguards, using the exida exilentia ® software package
- an activity of identification, on the basis of the results of the SIL verification activity and, more in general, of the results of the Process Risk Assessment activity, of the improvements and modifications in the field of functional safety and, more in general, of process safety, to be implemented in order to achieve the safety integrity level required to the SIF and, more in general, the acceptability level required to the identified risks.
The above activities were carried out taking into account both the internationally recognized guidelines (IEC-61882, IEC-61508, IEC-61511, CCPS “Layer of Protection Analysis, simplified process risk assessment” and “Guidelines for initiating events and independent protection layers in layer of protection analysis”) and the specific requirements of the Corporate HSE Guidelines, with particular reference to the Risk Acceptability Matrix drawn up.
The following software packages were used for the development of the activities:
- PHA-Works RA ® by Primatech (hazop integrated with a Process Risk Assessment activity and assignment of the Functional Integrity Level)
- exSILentia Ultimate ® by Exida L.L.C. (verification of Functional Integrity Level attainment).