FUNCTIONAL SAFETY AND CYBERSECURITY
Ensure safety and security for humans and technical systems
Safety and security
Functional safety and cybersecurity are both critical aspects of ensuring the safety and security.
- Functional Safety: Focuses on ensuring that a system operates as intended and minimizes the risk of unintended hazards or malfunctions. Protects humans by ensuring system reliability and minimizing hazards.
- Cybersecurity: Cybersecurity addresses the protection of a system from intentional attacks, unauthorized access, and malicious activities. Protects the system itself from intentional threats and unauthorized access.
Functional safety
Fault Tree Analysis
Deduct the causes of a failure before it occurs and assess the risk and probability of an undesirable event.
The purpose of FTA is to deduct the causes of a failure before it occurs, in order to :
- Prevent it from happening
- Reduce the probability of it happening
- Minimise the effects of it happening
BowTie diagrams are unique in their ability to visualise complex risks in a way that is understandable, yet also allows for detailed risk-based improvement plans.
It is visual tool to keep an overview of risk management practices by creating a clear differentiation between the proactive and reactive side of risk management. It provides you with an overview of multiple possible incident states and shows what barriers you have in place to control them.
Root Cause Analysis
Structured long-term solution to correct or eliminate causes and prevent a problem from recurring.
Every company encounters problems that need solving, whether they are catastrophic such as; the Chernobyl reactor explosion, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Union Carbide cyanide gas leak; or of a more common nature such as; turn-around times are too slow, too many warranty returns, production quality isn’t good enough.
In science and engineering, RCA is a structured long-term solution used to correct or eliminate the cause, and prevent a problem from recurring. It will improve efficiency by addressing the causes rather than the effects, i.e. stop wasting time fire fighting.
It is widely used in IT operations, telecommunications, industrial process control, accident analysis (e.g., in aviation, rail transport, or nuclear plants), medicine and healthcare etc.
RCA generally serves as input to a remediation process whereby corrective actions are taken to prevent the problem from re-occurring. The name of this process varies from one application domain to another.
Typical RCA steps:
- Identify and describe the problem clearly
- Understand the problem, check the data
- Take Immediate action with a temporary fix
- Apply corrective action to mitigate or eliminate the cause
- Confirm the solution is working
Methods employed are:
- Data / Failure Recording And Corrective Action System (DRACAS / FRACAS)
- To record all events during testing, commissioning/installation and in-service operation
- In order to conduct efficient RCA, good quality data is essential.
- Use Big Data analytics to visualise and identify bad actors, KPIs and trends for early warning
- Choose the most appropriate Problem Resolution method
- Ad-hoc investigation if you don’t have sufficient failures & data to see a pattern using Brainstorming, DoE, Scatter Diagrams, The 5 Whys
- Pareto Chart to show their relative significance
- DMAIC for multiple root causes
- Kepner Tregoe for single root cause
- Fishbone (Ishikawa) Diagram cause and effect, sort causes into categories
- Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) to explore potential defects or failures, consequences and causes
Process Hazard Analysis
Identify risk at the first stage of the process.
A hazard analysis, such as HAZOP, is used as the first step in a process used to identify risk. With specific experience of all relevant health and safety standards, we can help you demonstrate compliance in a cost-effective way to and ensure risks are ALARP.
Our team comprises Chartered Engineers or recognised specialists with substantial experience of process safety, functional safety and environmental issues.
Independent of any design house or equipment supplier, we can provide the impartial perspective of a neutral consultant when preferred by standards or regulations. Many of our engineers have been formally approved by companies for activities such as HAZID, ENVID, HAZOP chairpersons and as FSA & PHSER assessors.
SIL Assessments & Verification
Evaluate systems and equipment designed to actively prevent unacceptable safety risk, based around IEC 61508 / 61511 and related functional safety standards.
Commencing with a Hazard Analysis and development of the Safety Requirement Specifications (SRS), we use a range of methods to apply a SIL, including risk graphs, risk matrices and, most frequently, layer of protection analysis (LOPA). SIL targets may be supported by QRA & Consequence Analysis. Safety Instrument Functions (SIFs) are then determined.
Supporting our Hazard Analysis solutions, we conduct Safety Integrity Level (SIL) assessment, verification, certification and auditing to evaluate systems and equipment designed to actively prevent unacceptable safety risk.
SIL assessment, validation and certification services are provided for IEC61508 and IEC61511 standards. We are also familiar with related industrial specifications such as IEC 61513 for Nuclear and BS EN 50126 / 50129 for railway applications.
QRA & Consequence Analysis
Quantify risk that a particular process or operation poses to an individual and population.
Quantitative risk analysis (QRA) is a technique for quantifying the risk that a particular process or operation poses to an individual and population. QRA was developed in the 1970s for the aerospace, electronics, and nuclear power industries, and in the 1980s was refined for use in the chemical and petrochemical industries.
Following hazard identification, quantitative risk assessment with HAZOP, LOPA and complementary methods can be extended with explosion & dispersion modelling. Building upon our extensive experience in engineering simulation, we support a range of consequence analysis tools to predict the extent & severity of hazardous events to aid risk assessment.
Software Assurance
Assessing and supporting software development processes and procedures from safety perspective.
When developing products or systems containing elements of software that controls equipment or analyses data, it is essential from a safety perspective (typically SIL driven) during auditing that there is evidence available of robust and consistent software development processes and procedures. It is also important there is clear evidence that these processes and procedures are being followed diligently and effectively to appropriate standards and specifications.
Whether a brand new project requiring software assurance support from the early concept stage or a proven system in the field subject to auditing, we can help. Our experienced team can guide your software developers through industry standards requirements (IEC 61508 is commonly used) that typically cover two main themes:
- Software Quality Management System
- Software Safety Lifecycle Requirements
When reviewing proven products and systems that have been in the field for some time, we often perform a Gap Analysis to help define the scope of work required. This usually takes the form of a discovery event followed by a reporting activity highlighting the required steps to take to achieve compliance.
Functional safety analysis identifies potential faults,
and tries to avoid them when designing active safety systems
Functional safety with Ansys medini
Ansys medini functional safety software, together with our experienced services team, we help evaluate systems and equipment designed to actively prevent unacceptable safety risk, including cybersecurity threats, applying methodologies such as SIL and LOPA. Together our software, consulting and training enable efficient compliance to IEC 61508 / 61511 / 61513, ISO 26262, ARP4761 and related standards & guidelines, through an integrated approach to HAZOP, HARA, FTA, FMEA and other key safety methods.
By incorporating Ansys medini software into our client workflow, we help the efficient implementation of key safety analysis methods, such as hazard and operability (HAZOP) analysis, fault tree analysis (FTA), failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), failure modes, effects and diagnostic analysis (FMEDA).
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Human factors
Human Factors Engineering (also known as ergonomics or human engineering) is a multidisciplinary field that focuses on optimizing the interaction between humans and their environment, tools, machines, and systems.
Human factors engineering aims to enhance the compatibility between humans and their designed environments, leading to safer, more efficient, and user-friendly systems.
Human Factors Ergonomics (HFE)
Ensure human factors risks are properly considered during design of plant and equipment.
Acting as the HFE competent person in a project our consultants assist by developing plans and supporting discipline engineers to develop designs that will suit the human operators and maintenance personnel during following commissioning. They can also support and lead specialist human factors analyses and studies where required throughout the project.
Human Factors Engineering (HFE) ensures proper consideration of human factors is integrated into project from start to finish. It brings disciplines together to ensure human factors risks are properly understood so that optimum solutions can be developed.
A key part of HFE in a project is the human factors integration plan. This should be developed as early as possible in a project so that resources can be properly assigned at the appropriate time in the overall plan. This includes ensuring people with the necessary competencies in HFE and operating experience are involved.
Integrating HFE in projects is expected by many regulators and experience shows that proper consideration of human factors in design has significant long term benefits in terms of safety and reliability.
Task and Human Error Analysis
Identify the most critical operations and maintenance tasks and associated human factors.
Task and Human Error Analysis is a systematic method of identifying the most critical operations and maintenance tasks performed within an organisation; and performing high quality analyses of the most critical to provide a full understanding of the risks and to identify the most effective controls. It is a very tangible and practical method that allows human factors issues to be properly identified and understood .
Indeed, Task and Human Error Anaysis should be one of the first things undertaken by any organisation looking to improve its safety and reliability. Consensus is that the majority of causes of accidents are related to human error but also that most of the time people make a positive contribution to safety and reliability. It is an effective way of ensuring systems are in place to maximise the positive and minimise the negative contributions of human factors in the workplace.
Our wide experience of performing Task and Human Error Analysis across a range of industries and process means we can support efficient and effective analysis, ensuring you get maximum benefit for minimum cost and effort. Our facilitation skills means we can secure active involvement of frontline personnel who can tell us how work is actually performed under all conditions; and where it may sometimes differ from methods documented in procedures or communicated during training. Our approach to applying Task and Human Error Analysis ensures risks are managed properly in practice and improve continuously.
Safety Critical Communication
Supporting effective communicationn to significantly reduce risks.
It is common knowledge that communication between people is prone to error but companies do not always recognise this when they analyse their safety and reliability incidents. However, reference to the Piper Alpha tragedy in which 167 people shows that simple break downs in communication during very normal operational activities such as shift handover and permit to work can be very significant. Also, when things start to go wrong the complexity and uncertainty makes communication particularly difficult and may contribute to escalation of a small incident to something more serious. Identifying safety critical communication, determining how it happens in practice in all circumstances allows suitable systems to be put in place to manage the risks.
We understand the way people communicate with each other at work and can help you to identify how it affects your safety and reliability. We recognise that communication errors cannot be eliminated but that supporting people to communicate effectively can significantly reduce the risks. Our approach is focussed on systems that are practical to implement, rather than relying on purely behavioural approaches that are far more complex to manage and very difficult to sustain over the longer term.
Incident Analysis
Identify the root cause of human errors to apply effective solutions avoiding the same incident again
Applying our human factors expertise allows the root causes of human errors to be identified so that effective solutions can be put in place so that the same incident does not happen again and applying the learning wider will result in a reduction in overall risks. Also, involving us as an objective and independent participant in the analysis significantly reduces the likelihood of cognitive bias, which is recognised as a reason why learning from incidents is often less effective than it should be.
Human error is often the immediate or direct cause of an incident but it is never the root cause. There are reasons why people make mistakes and failing to recognise this in investigations and follow-up analysis is a key reason why interventions intended to improve safety and reliability are often less effective than hoped. Applying human factors in incident analysis allows the reason why people acted as they did and uncovers the fundamental issues with systems and organisation. This allows true learning to take place that can be applied to achieve fundamental improvements, rather than simply for the incident that occurred. This is particularly the case when information collected over time from incidents and near misses is analysed in a systematic and structured way.
Hazard Analysis
Flexible, Responsive Hazard Analysis Services Built on Experience
Independent of any design house or equipment supplier, we can provide the impartial perspective of a neutral consultant when required by standards or regulations. Many of our engineers have been formally approved by companies such as HAZID, ENVID, HAZOP & SIL Assessment chairpersons and as FSA & PHSER assessors.
Our dedicated safety team has specialist knowledge of general and industry-specific requirements. We provide chairpersons, facilitators and scribes to undertake qualitative and quantitative risk assessment studies in the UK and across the world. We have international safety clients in South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, United Arab Emirates and other countries.
For Process Hazard Analysis (PHA), we use a range of techniques including Root Cause Analysis (RCA), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Event Tree Analysis (ETA), HAZOP, LOPA and FMEA.
Knowledge
- Health And Safety At Work Act (HASAWA)
- Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations (COMAH)
- Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH)
- Control Of Hazardous Materials Act (COHMA)
- Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulation (DSEAR)
- Provision and Use of Work Equipment (PUWER)
- Offshore Safety Case Regulations (SCR)
- European Machinery Directive / Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations
Example projects
- HAZOP and LOPA for new design of pipeline equipment
- HAZOP & LOPA for combined power and steam generation facility
- HAZOP for process plant for synthetic rubbers
- HAZID for combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power station
- Operational safety assessments on winches, including expert witness
- Safety file compilation for embedded power generation units
- Hazard analysis on automotive electronic sensing systems
- System Safety Analysis (SSA) for Airbus aircraft control system and maintenance components
Alarm Systems Management
Assess and improve the design of your safety alarm systems.
Logical, coherent and robust alarm systems are an essential requirement for the safe operation of large process plants and complex industrial equipment.
There are many reported cases where under-specified and poorly designed systems have failed to adequately warn operators of unplanned events or help them control the consequences, leading to disastrous outcomes such as the explosion and fires at the Milford Haven refinery in the UK in 1994. This serious incident injured twenty six people, caused damage of the order of €50 million and resulted in the loss of a large amount of production.
Our services is aligned with EEMUA 191, the globally accepted and leading guide to good practice for all aspects of alarm systems, issued by the Engineering Equipment and Materials Users Association. This publication, developed by users of alarm systems with input from the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE), gives comprehensive guidance on design, management and procurement. It helps managers, designers, supervisors and operators understand techniques to recognise and deal with typical human-factor problems involving alarm systems.
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