Living the Process Safety from Instrumentation and Control Projects, a Successful Case

Abstract

 

Living the Process Safety from Instrumentation and Control Projects, a successful case

 

It speaks of the safety management system, and the importance of implementing it in the organization, but the question is: how come true and strengthen the process culture, getting a real risk reduction in the facility?. The area of ​​Instrumentation and control plays a key role in achieving this objective and Equion reflects this.   It is common for a company to develop projects and identify opportunities to improve efficiency or production, but are we evaluating their impact on Process Safety? Equion was no stranger to this situation, and as a need and opportunity to reduce operational issues and optimize production, started three (3) years ago an action plan for updating the control systems of plants, prioritizing aspects of Safety process, aiming to increase reliability, simplicity of operation and maintenance, and understanding that the operator is a critical protection layer but with a very low reliability who requires maximum support by technology aiming to reduce errors.   How many SCADA systems fulfill the objective of allowing the operator to quickly identify the status of the plant and prevent an incident escalation?   It is essential to have a stable process, but we are aware what involves reducing process variability accompanied by a loops management control system to allow continuous monitoring of the tuning of facility?   Can an operator adequately and timely respond to flood of alarms greater than to 1000 alarms per hour? An alarm management system to make a right identification, prioritize based on severity and response time, using a tool based on software to manage on real-time is the key.   In general way the Maintenance of control and instrumentation systems is reduced to have a preventive or corrective maintenance, but from the perspective of process safety is not enough, and an Asset Management System is the solution.   So far the results obtained because of these developments are:   1. Since 2012,  we havenxt had unplanned shutdowns of plant due to process upsets, while three (3) unplanned shutdown  occurred in 2010 and during stabilization process of one of our  facilities , four (4) unplanned shutdowns.   2. Lack of control hardware diagnostics originated 4 events in 2 years, with the asset management system installed, we havenxt had such problems.   3 Five hundred (500) average Alarms per hour in the last year, currently eighty three (83) alarms per hour  , it is a high rate, but we sure that we are on the right way.   I will be explained the alternatives implemented or in going and their impact in Process Safety.