New Zealand’s Institute of Measurement and Control (IMC) and the Western Institute of Technology (WITT) have launched an initiative to heighten industry’s awareness of emerging international standards and legislation relating to safety integrity in plants.

It comprises the formation of a working group of representatives from engineering organisations involved in the design, operation and maintenance of safety integrity in industrial plants, and includes (in addition to IMC and WITT) the likes of IPENZ and ECANZ.

The move follows a recent safety integrity seminar (see story alongside) organised by IMC and WITT in New Plymouth. Based on the unprecedented attendance and level of interest at the seminar, says Bruce Durdle (a lecturer at WITT and one of the seminar’s organisers), “safety integrity is an issue of increasing concern in New Zealand.”

The seminar, he says, not only provided a platform to illustrate New Zealand’s safety integrity position (relative to other countries) but also highlighted recent international developments around safety integrity. There are two main developments: the emergence of IEC 61508 (as an international standard pertaining to electrical safety systems) and more recently, the availability of a TÜV-certified qualification for people involved in assessing safety systems. They will form the focus of the working group’s agenda.

New Zealand industry’s lack of awareness of IEC 61508 is likely to be one of the working group’s major hurdles. Says Durdle: “The standard has been around in its present form since 1999, and it has generated an enormous amount of activity in Europe and the US. Australia ratified it recently, and it has been adopted as AS 61508 in their legislation. New Zealand hasn’t ratified it yet, and our aim is to raise the standard’s profile and progress the route to ratification as quickly as possible.”

He says there are numerous advantages to adopting the standard. “Companies that comply with its guidelines achieve better control over plant and equipment – and that means greater reliability and less downtime. More importantly, it equates to safer plant, which not only means greater protection for plant and staff, but there are also has significant legal implications and possibly even insurance benefits.”

CFSE

A related issue the working group will be targeting is the availability of the TÜV-certified qualification – Certified Functional Safety Expert (CFSE) – designed for inspectors and assessors of safety integrity systems in plants. TÜV is the internationally-recognised accreditation body, and it’s established the CFSE qualification in collaboration with Exida, the US-based certification agency.

An international qualification, CFSE measures and dictates the required level of competence for people to work on safety systems. They have to establish a demonstrable standard of competence based on experience and practical knowledge of safety system applications. Holders of the CFSE qualification assess plants in terms of  the guidelines provided by IEC 61508.

There are currently only about 20 CFSE assessors in the world. New Zealand has one – Dr Eric Scharpf – a lecturer at Otago University and a partner at Exida. More significantly, Scharpf is also qualified to ‘assess the assessors’. Having Scharpf in New Zealand, says Durdle, will make an enormous difference in training and certifying a core of assessors that can then be made available to industry. Scharpf is already working with Australia’s Institute of Instrumentation, Control and Automation (the IMC-equivalent) to advance the certification of assessors.

The training material required for the CFSE course is available on-line (www.cfse.org) and can be downloaded. It also provides a detailed programme of qualifications CFSE candidates are expected to meet. If there is sufficient local interest, says Durdle, he would be keen to set up a CFSE course at WITT.

Development of IEC 61508, he points out, grew from concerns in late 1980s that people were using programmable systems for safety applications – despite the fact that the software element of the system was not trustworthy. “The standard covers any electrical system that has a safety applications – whether it’s relay-based, hardwired or electronic – and I think it’s important that it is diverse and able to cover multiple systems.”

The availability of the standard and the CFSE regime, he adds, is particularly important in the context of the IT sector’s impact on process control industry. “A lot of people are entering the industry from the IT sector – and without a basic grounding in process control methodology there’s often a limited understanding of the safety implications of a malfunction in a system.”

He adds that the developments in plant safety and integrity are particularly pertinent given recent changes in requirements for demonstrating competency in New Zealand. For example, the new Professional Engineers Act is now law and requires continued demonstration of competency. Competence also a requirement under OSH. The CSFE scheme would be one way for a practitioner in the safety field to demonstrate continuing competence.

The working group’s plans include the preparation of guidelines which will be forwarded to OSH for facilitation in implementation. Such guidelines would cover the various standards relating to safety, as well as best practices, documentation and sample forms, guidelines on implementation and a list of recognised consultants, agents and agencies.

Safety systems need attention - seminar

It is in New Zealand industry’s best interests to advance its expertise in terms of plant safety systems – not only to lift standards and minimise the potential for human casualties, but also to improve plant reliability and performance.

That’s the message delivered to delegates at a recent seminar in New Plymouth – Safety Integrity in the New Zealand Context. Organised by New Zealand’s Institute of Measurement and Control (IMC) and the Western Institute of Technology (WITT) – the seminar examined the current status of safety integrity in New Zealand industry, and focused on strategies to improve it.

Presenters included industry representatives from NZMP, Shell Todd Oil Services and Methanex, who provided first-hand accounts of their approach to meeting integrity requirements. OSH’s Ted White provided a perspective on the issue, and reviewed the legal obligations on employers, designers, manufacturers and suppliers, and employees.  The seminar also featured a workshop facilitated by industry expert Dr Eric Scharpf, a lecturer at Otago University and a partner at the US-based certification agency, Exida.

Implementing appropriate safety integrity systems was awkward, delegates were told, because the industry is operating in something of a vacuum. “We’re operating in a litigious environment,” said NZMP’s Paul Verry, “and larger fines are coming. It’s a worldwide trend.  Nobody will tell you what to do – you have to figure it out yourself. But if you get it wrong and have an incident – then you’ll be told exactly where you went wrong and you may be prosecuted for it.”

His views were endorsed by Methanex’s John King, who observed that the present standards and legislation relating to safety shutdown systems were at a similar level to those pertaining to electrical equipment in hazardous areas about 15 years ago, with no specific regulations, formal training or competency assessment.

The hazardous area legislation has evolved substantially, where we now have requirements written into legislation with formal training and assessment being written into the National Certificate in Electrical Engineering.

Much of the seminar focused on the need for standards in terms of specifications and design of safety integrity systems. A survey carried out in the UK in the late 1980s, said WITT lecturer Bruce Durdle, “indicated that most of the incidents attributed to programmable or electronic safety system failures were because of systematic faults in specification and design rather than random hardware failures. Although this survey was some time ago, changes in equipment reliability and complexity in the last decade make systematic failures even more significant in equipment being installed today.”

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