Functional Safety Management

Program sponsors and project managers have a responsibility to ensure that the probability of an incident and its consequences are minimized. Project managers must, therefore, strive to achieve the highest practicable level of safety. Potential hazards need to be identified and addressed as early as possible in the project lifecycle, when the opportunity to remove or negate them still exists.

A systematic approach to safety is required to provide assurance that new systems are tolerably safe for their intended purpose throughout the system lifecycle. That is way functional safety needs to be managed throughout the lifecycle of a safety product. Functional Safety Management is key to guaranteeing safety and can only be accomplished if the right people are in the right place with the right tools doing the right things.

The Objectives

The objectives of functional safety management are two-fold. First of all functional safety management defines all technical activities required during the safety lifecycle phases of a product or process which are necessary for the achievement of the required level of functional safety.

Second, functional safety management specifies the responsibilities of persons, departments and organizations responsible for each safety lifecycle phase or for activities within each phase.

Functional safety management deals with organizational measures for the effective implementation of the technical requirements and is solely aimed at the achievement and maintenance of functional safety of the safety-related systems.

Our Services

Risknowlogy can support companies in any industry interested in verifying, updating or establishing functional safety management procedures. We offer the following services:

  • Procedures Audit
  • Implementation Audit
  • Supplier & Contractor Audit
  • Shaping a Safety Culture
  • Training
  • Certification Support

Procedures Audit

The Procedures Audit will give you a quick and concise overview of your organizations current status with respect to your functional safety management procedures. This service will only verify the existing procedures and not whether they are correctly and sufficiently implemented or not. The results of the audit will be presented to your organization in a strictly confidential report.

Implementation Audit

The Implementation Audit is a natural follow-up of the Procedures Audit. The Risknowlogy Team will audit whether the existing procedures are actually implemented or not. The Implementation Audit is preferably carried out on a periodic basis. The results will be presented to your organization in an audit report.

Supplier & Contractor Audit

If you make use of suppliers or contractors that help you in one or more phases of the lifecycle and you want to make sure that these suppliers and contractors are actually capable of delivering “functionally safe” services and products then this service is for you. Upon your request Risknowlogy will audit the supplier or contractor taking into account the scope of their services or
products in relationship to the lifecycle phases. The Supplier & Contractor Audit can take place on a periodic basis assuring year after year that you get services and products that meet your high functional safety standards. The results will be presented to your organization in a confidential report.

Shaping a Safety Culture

Imagine this. Your department has always been in the process control business and suddenly needs to facilitate safety equipment and engineering. You need to quickly adapt to and create a safety culture within your department to comply with IEC 61508 and show your customers competence in this field. Risknowlogy can help you transform.

First, we will help you define the kind of safety culture you need. Then, we help you design the developmental steps necessary to help an existing culture evolve into the desired safety culture. We will do this taking into account the IEC 61508 requirements. We can help you:

  • Define procedures;
  • Integrate procedures into the existing quality system;
  • Define responsibilities for employees;
  • Define & Conduct training programs;
  • Identify required tools and solutions.

Training Courses

Risknowlogy offers a training course to manager, directors, and project managers and project engineers that are responsible for management of functional safety activities or one or more phases of the overall safety lifecycle. Whether you want to get an introduction to Management of Functional Safety or whether you need to understand the organizational implications of management of functional safety. This training course can answer all the questions you might have.

Certification Support

Our functional safety management service is inline with the philosophy and certification procedures of TUV Rheinland, the globally leading third party functional safety certification body. If required by you our services will get you 'TUV Ready'. Our close relationship with TUV Rheinland will save you time, money, and guarantee you confidence with your customers, insurance companies and governmental authorities. If you desire third party certification, Risknowlogy will get you ready, support you via project management and will be the interface with TUV.

Who Can Make Use Of This Service?

Risknowlogy offers this service to any industry that is involved in programmable electronic safety-related systems as defined by IEC 61508 or related standards. This can be end-users, system integrators or product developers. The IEC 61508 Lifecycle phases 1-8 and 12-16 apply to operating companies. Phase 9 of the overall lifecycle applies and the associated hardware and software lifecycles apply to product manufacturers. System integrators, depending on the scope of their job make use of the phases 5-15.

Typical products that require management of functional safety are:

  • Safety Instrumented System
  • Fire & Gas Systems
  • Safety-related Instrumentation and Control
  • High-integrity process control
  • Burner/boiler management systems
  • Process safeguarding and emergency shutdown
  • Turbine and compressor safeguarding
  • Fire and gas detection systems and pipeline monitoring
  • Bus-communication systems
  • Actuation systems

Typical industries that need to implement functional safety management are:

  • Oil & Gas
  • Chemical
  • Petro-Chemical
  • Pharmaceutical
  • Automation
  • Integrators
  • Product Developers