922 / 1145
Now consider a “drones-eye” view of the enterprise – where is the macro-management of functional
or process safety. Where are the dashboards (HMI) that enable the medium & long-term decision
makers (investors or budget-holders) to make informed choices to prevent degradation?
Why is it that most cars still have analogue dials and not digital displays, dials show a range and
where you are in that range, you can see visually how fast the value is changing and whether you are
approaching or leaving an acceptable range. The airline industry has more than its fair share of
issues with instrumentation and aviation human factors as they really can’t afford to have too much
or too little information – it’s no different to somebody steering a company (or even a project or
plant) worth millions of pounds, they need the right information at the right time.
So, coming back to our definition of functional safety – how do we know we are functioning
(operating) safely if we don’t know if the SIS and other protection layers are correctly functioning –
micro management of proof tests results is not enough to identify, evaluate and act upon trends.
We must centralise the data, analyse, assess and visualise that data in order to monitor and act
accordingly in real time. The visibility enables ‘openess’ and breaks down the silo mentality.
Centralising safety data enables us to see clearly and analyse as we go. A CMMS or centralised safety
lifecycle management software tool suite can handle the data, visualise and report. A functional
safety plan brings everything and everyone together. We can see what we’ve done, what we’re
doing and what’s coming up, so performance can be tracked across sites and enterprise, costs can be
controlled and actual safety integrity level on a day by day basis known. The big dial? Well it has
impact, but one graphic screen for safety (or failure prevention) that would work. Let’s see what
tomorrow brings.