913 / 1143
Figure 2 eMARS Major Accidents 2005 -2012
There is definitely a downward trend and I make no claims here as to why the reduction, but there
were still 102 incidents across the chemical and oil and gas industries alone so there is obviously work
to do.
During this period, my work role took me across the globe working closely with super majors of the
oil and gas industry, several well-known EPC companies and three of the big five DCS companies
gaining a real insight alongside the team members evolving safety strategy. Safety lifecycle planning
was noticeable. Roles were appearing with ‘safety’ or even ‘functional safety’ in the title. Safety
Requirement Specification documents started to appear and functional safety assessments added to
project schedules. End User guidelines and directives were issued and training courses internal and
external well attended.
I would have to say that functional safety planning was still a thing of the future as companies
preferred to bend the project and operational quality plans to suit (which they never did).