Using IEC 61511 to Identify Process Safety Risks in Your Plant
Above all else, safety is the most important element of any manufacturing facility. Ensuring that the people who make your business a success are harm- and injury-free is always a must. Around the world, one way that companies in the process industry keep their most valuable assets, their team members, safe is through adherence to a set of standards created by the International Electrotechnical Commission, more commonly known as the IEC. One of the leading functional safety standards utilized by those throughout the process industry is IEC 61511, which helps many leading companies identify and mitigate process risks in their plants.
What is IEC 61511?
In order to optimize a company’s response to risks both known and unknown, it’s necessary to fully understand what each functional safety standard actually means. This includes total comprehension of the answer to the all-important question, “what is IEC 61511?”
Simply enough, this standard tells companies what stipulations to follow when it comes to how every Safety Instrumented System (SIS) in their plant is designed, installed, operated, and maintained. Per the IEC, this is so these SISs can be “confidently entrusted to achieve or maintain a safe state of the process” they are intended to perform. Overall, this ensures industrial process safety in the use of mainly electric or electronic equipment and covers much of the process and manufacturing industry.
IEC 61508 vs 61511: What’s the Difference?
One of the more confusing elements of international functional safety standards is knowing the difference between the various codes. This is why people often get confused regarding IEC 61508 vs. 61511. The easiest way to remember the difference is to understand that IEC 61508 is the primary Safety Integrity Level (SIL) standard and provides guidelines for safety-related parts and instruments. IEC 61511 is housed under the banner of IEC 61508 and is specific to the process industry. It reflects industry best-practice requirements to use IEC 61508 certified components to build reliable SISs.
The IEC 61511 Lifecycle
Utilizing the IEC 61511 standard is essential to identifying key safety concerns in the process plant environment, allowing your team to correctly address and minimize those concerns. Each phase and stage of its lifecycle allows plant management to analyze and interpret the variety of information they produce, making it possible to identify and optimize all aspects of functional safety. Here’s how that breaks down:
Verification to reduce human errors:
- Implement necessary protection levels to achieve risk reduction
- Detailed specs of Safety Instrumented System (SIS) requirements
- Install and integrate SIS tests – validation by factory (FAT) and on-site acceptance tests (SAT)
- Develop and review operating and maintenance instructions to ensure functional safety standard compliance and practice
From Hazard and Risk Assessment (HRA) to an operating SIS under strict change management:
The HRA is the single most important measure to determine actual potential risks. It is used to allocate safety functions at all protection levels, to determine the specification of safety requirements, and much more. It also covers the design and engineering phase and, after that, installation, commissioning, and validation. Once these steps are complete, the HRA process moves on to a phase of operation and maintenance with periodic proof test protocols that identify the impacts of any proposed modifications. Finally, a decommissioning phase takes place to determine whether other functions have been affected and to provide an opportunity for continuous documentation to take place.
Manage, Assess, and Audit: the most underestimated phase of the Lifecycle:
- Manage and assess functional safety
- Implement, monitor a comprehensive Functional Safety Management System (FSMS)
- Develop competent staff who have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience
- Conduct independent expert assessments on crucial moments in the Lifecycle
Safety Planning
- Setup and plan future of the safety lifecycle
- Define activities, responsibilities, and documentation requirements for each stage
- Planning is one of the most essential components of a functionally safe plant
- Safety is not random – it must be comprehensible and repeatable
- An independent assessment will determine whether each aspect is carried out as planned
Functional Safety in the Plant Through IEC 61511
Functional safety is of paramount importance to all businesses, and especially those in the process industry sector. Utilizing the IEC 61511 standard allows your organization to identify process safety risks that could cause irreparable harm to the company and the people who work within it. The verification, assessment, implementation, and future planning for all safety aspects comes through this necessary standard and PA Solutions is proud to be your partner to help make it happen. Contact us today for further information and allow one of our certified experts to get you on the right path toward full functional safety in your plant.
