As we have discussed in previous posts, effective work processes are the key to improving reliability and asset performance. With the APM Foundation work process, maintenance managers and reliability engineers implement fundamentals to assess risk and improve performance. With these fundamentals in place, reliability personnel can implement the Failure Elimination work process to find and fix potential failures. Maintenance managers can use the Asset Strategy work process to improve maintenance and performance management plans. Those responsible for preventing loss of containment can implement the Mechanical Integrity work process in order to keep hazardous materials contained. In the world of asset performance management, the fifth essential work process is Asset Safety. This work process is focused on ensuring that the safety and protective functions of instrumented assets are properly defined and managed. This work process includes such methodologies as hazards analysis and safety instrumented systems.
Many who are beginning an Asset Strategy work process implementation can be unclear about where to begin. In this case, the Asset Safety work process begins with assessing operating risks. The risks associated with these assets are critical to operations due to either their consequence or probability or both. In order to protect assets and plant personnel, companies need to take time to discuss how their assets fail. Like the Failure Elimination work process, this process can include determining failure modes.
As most instrumented assets include protective functions, companies need to decide how to best mitigate the risks associated with instrumented asset failure. By determining the failure modes for all instrumented assets, companies can begin to look into where they will want to include protective functions. These safety instrumented functions and protective loops can be managed using tools like APM software.
To help companies assess operating risks and perform other functions related to Asset Safety, Meridium is hosting a free Asset Safety workshop on Thursday, February 24rd in Houston, TX. For more information on Meridium's free workshops or to register, please click here.