Process safety critical equipment
Ensuring plant's safety through process safety critical equipment
Process safety-critical equipment refers to equipment, instrumentation, controls, or systems whose malfunction or failure could lead to the release of hazardous chemicals or energy, or whose proper operation is essential to prevent or mitigate the consequences of such a release.
Identifying and managing process safety critical equipment is a key part of the plant's process safety management system and should adhere to relevant criteria. This approach helps prevent and mitigate risks while enhancing the process safety of your operations.
AFRY’s safety experts possess deep technical knowledge, and their systematic safety assessments, led by experienced professionals, are crucial for identifying process safety-critical equipment. AFRY follows the accepted approaches established by regulatory authorities. Contact us today to learn how our expertise can enhance your process safety management.
The procedure for identifying process safety-critical equipment shall consider the criteria presented by Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (Tukes) for process safety-critical equipment (legislative equipment, equipment that causes accidents and equipment that prevents or mitigates accidents). The device can be process safety-critical for several reasons.
Primarily, process safety critical devices are identified through process safety risk assessments, such as HAZOP and LOPA, and are documented accordingly. Accurate and thorough process risk assessments are crucial for systematically identifying process safety critical equipment. In addition to process risk assessments, it is usually necessary to evaluate equipment with a potential leakage risk and its condition in a separate analysis, as the process risk assessments do not consider leakage risks due to the condition of the equipment. Inspections, testing, or other condition control measures determine whether the condition or reliability of a process safety critical device is sufficient for continued use.
The operators are responsible for preparing instructions that define the process safety-critical device and the classification criteria, also considering the condition of the device. The instructions describe the method of how process safety-critical equipment is identified. The list of process safety critical equipment should be updated regularly to reflect process changes, malfunctions, failures, and relevant data updates, such as risk assessments, inspections, and tests. The instructions must also specify the individuals responsible for these tasks.
Every process safety critical device must have a detailed maintenance plan outlining the necessary inspections, maintenance tasks, and testing procedures. This plan also includes preventive maintenance measures. At a minimum, the maintenance plan should comply with legislative and standard requirements, as well as industry-specific best practices.
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