What are the fundamental selection criteria for safety and critical control equipment?

What are the key principles that need clarification for its successful selection and implementation? Here are the ten truths that will make you better able
to engineer a new safety instrumented system, or to properly grandfather your
existing system, and better ensure your compliance with both the IEC standards
and ANSI/ISA S84.00.01-2004.

SIL is a measure of safety, but

has no impact on plant uptime

SIL rating is a measure of the risk reduction capability and probability of failure
on demand, it only measures the "Fail Safe" nature of the device it's not the
main measure considered when selecting a safety system and shouldn't be
the only one.

Quality of a SIS has a direct

impact on plant performance

Quality isn't always implemented the same way by every company; Quality
Assurance procedures have different implementation for a vendor regardless of
how its product complies with safety standards and certification. Vendors must
make sure that the SIS performs to the intended specification.

Many companies will sell you a

safety system, but few are able
to address your specific needs

Operating companies in the process industries pursuing regulatory compliance

represent a tremendous potential for companies that offer some kind of process
control technology or automation as these seem to be "coming out of the woodwork" in an attempt to offer their products with some level of compliance for use
in safety application. Unfortunately, most of the "new" products offer solutions for
the fail safe side, only a couple of these products can address the need for safety and process uptime simultaneously.

IEC61511 states that SIS users

must show competence in
functional safety

In the same way the process industries now require that SIS logic solvers carry
a TV certificate to the appropriate SIL, the tendency is to also require that engineers specifying, integrating, programming, installing and maintaining these systems have a TV ASI - Rheinland certification of competency.

Your SIS should protect your

plant for its lifecycle

Production assets are built to last, even when the investment is planned for a
20 years lifetime, these assets are subject to investment to extend their life
even longer. Few safety systems can extend their lifecycle and enhance their
capabilities over the lifetime of the production asset.

You don't have to choose

between SIS separation and
BPCS integration - you can
have Both

BPCS integration is without question a growing need in the process industry,

such integration should enable the plant operator to monitor process conditions
and prevent hazards as well as monitor the health of the control system itself.
Pressures to reduce costs and single source control system hardware should
not be justification for combining safety system functionality with the basic
process regulatory controller.

Dual SIS Technologies do not

cost less than TMR...
they almost always cost more

Many companies advertise their Dual SIS technology as a lower cost alternative to
Triple Modular Redundant options with equivalent performance. This is unfortunately a misrepresentation of the capabilities of Dual SIS architectures. Dual PLCs
in a 1oo2 (1 out of 2) configuration were the initial solution of choice for "fail safe"
applications, they cannot overcome the inherent false trips.

SIS vendors advertise their TUV

C e rtification, but they rarely tell
you about their implementation
and operational restrictions

Most Safety-system vendors focus on how the system performs when it is healthy,
but they don't talk much about what happens when a failure is diagnosed and in
some cases the whole system shuts down. Each SIS vendor must provide clear
information on how to implement their system, specific programming or configuration requirements, module or architecture choices, and operational restrictions that
might impair system performance.

Given a choice, Implementation

and Installation of your SIS
should not be entrusted to
strangers

Who implements and installs your SIS can be as important as the product
being installed No matter how well you design or manufacture a product; you'll
likely to experience failures if the implementation team is not following the
proper processes, is not experienced or lack adequate technical qualification
for the tasks they are performing.

Maintaining your SIS is more

than pulling Data, it requires
the context to make informed
decisions

10

The SIS should provide diagnostic tools with clear guidelines or recommendations on how to maintain the system to maximize uptime in the context of plant
operations.

Safety systems protect more

than just your business,
it protects people.

For more information on the Truth about SIS visit:

www.triconex.com/10truths

Triconex, an operating unit of Invensys plc, is a global leader in the supply of products, systems and
services for safety, critical control and turbomachinery applications. Since its inception in 1983, the
company has installed thousands of control systems solutions in a wide variety of industries and
applications worldwide. Today, Triconex products operate globally in more than 5,000 installations.
For more information, visit the Triconex Web site at www.triconex.com.
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