Surveys

We want your opinions

In 2015 we  launched two new annual opinion surveys – building on a number of surveys that we have conducted in the past –to examine industry trends.

The new surveys look at the challenges facing manufacturing and production, regulation, safety, international standards and general trends.

One survey is specifically for oil and gas, the other is for the general process sector.

Meeting the requirements of safety standards including safety integrity levels (SIL), pressure equipment directive (PED), positive material identification (PMI), ISO17025 and the control of major accident hazards (COMAH) can help to avoid the potential failure of a critical component which could lead, in the worst case, to a catastrophic failure of a process and loss of life.

There has been increased focus on safety issues in the offshore and process sectors over recent years. We want to make sure that our manufacturing focus is on safety in relation to both the environment and industry trends.

Issues surrounding the environment and hydrocarbon releases, asset aging and life extension drive the focus on safety. We want to be able to help in the process of recognising hazards and reducing risk as well as help engineers to take ownership of risk and asset integrity through proving assertions about the functionality and construction of instruments.

Asset integrity management ensures that the people, systems, processes and resources that deliver integrity are in place, in use and will perform on demand over the asset’s life cycle.

Being able to prove assertions about the manufacture and functionality of equipment are vital in this process.

That’s why we are seeking the views of design engineers, industry leaders and decision makers across industry.

Safety research highlighting key ‘drivers’

Results of our first survey into safety issue in the oil and gas industry have shown that concerns over risks to personnel and the environment are key drivers for the implementation of international safety standards for instrumentation.

It will be interesting to see how the results of that survey – which concentrated on Safety Integrity Levels (SIL) – compare with the results of the second (still current) survey which focuses on the Pressure Equipment Director (PED). You can take part in our PED survey (since closed). One lucky participant will win a Kindle for taking part.

Our ‘SIL survey’ gathered the opinions of senior engineers worldwide with technical design and management roles within their organisations. It showed that when specifying flowmeters and other instruments, environmental safety (70 per cent) was cited as the main reason for safety standard compliance, followed by business-critical concerns including personnel safety (59 per cent) and maintaining process integrity (65 per cent).

Risks of injury to personnel (70 per cent), risk of explosion (65 per cent) and damage to the environment (50 per cent) were the chief concerns relating to the consequences of equipment failure. Business concerns including costs of shutdown (25 per cent) and damage to equipment (15 per cent) were of less significance.

While the majority of companies in the oil and gas sector comply with an international safety standard for instrument specification a significant number ? almost 40 per cent ? do not, the survey found. However, most of these stated that they will be seeking to comply with an international safety standard in the future where relevant.

One of the aims of the research was to find out to what extent engineers use SIL in specifying equipment and what reliance they place upon it.

Almost 40 per cent said that SIL level 1 was the minimum acceptable for instrumentation in their operations with 22 per cent citing level 2, 26 per cent stating level 3 and just 13 per cent saying that the highest level (level 4) is the minimum acceptable.

We wanted to make sure that our manufacturing focus is on safety in relation to both the environment and industry trends. These figures show that by complying with SIL we have a reliable benchmark for safety and reliability.

SIL was considered to be an effective measure of safety performance by 70 per cent of respondents but 54 per cent believed that a lack of consistency in applying SIL across all functional safety standards significantly affects trust in products designed to work in particular SIL level environments.

Now we are asking a similar range of questions about PED and with a similar purpose.

There has been increased focus on safety issues in the offshore sector over recent years. We want to make sure that our manufacturing focus is on safety in relation to both the environment and industry trends.

SIL is the degree of likelihood that a safety instrumented function will operate effectively when it is required to. Four SILs are defined within the European Functional Safety standards based on the IEC 61508 standard, SIL 4 being the most dependable and SIL 1 being the least, taking into account such things as the development process and safety life cycle management.

Safety first – new safety survey launched

There has been increased focus on safety issues in the UK offshore sector over recent years. With that focus in mind we at Litre Meter want to make sure that our manufacturing focus is on safety in relation to both the environment and industry trends.

According to the most recent raw data available from the Health and Safety Executive in Q3 of 2013 there had been 27 offshore hydrocarbon releases in the UK. This represented a significant reduction in HCR releases in response to the HCR reduction plan initiated by Step Change in Safety (http://www.stepchangeinsafety.net/) in 2010.

The HSE has defined asset integrity as the ability of an asset to perform its required function effectively and efficiently while protecting health, safety and the environment. Asset integrity management was defined as the means for ensuring that the people, systems, processes and resources that deliver integrity are in place, in use and will perform on demand over the asset?s lifecycle.

Issues surrounding the environment and hydrocarbon releases, asset aging and life extension drive the focus on safety. We want to be able to help in the process of recognising hazards and reducing risk as well as help engineers take ownership of risk and asset integrity through proving assertions about the functionality and construction of instruments.

Litre Meter has therefore launched the first in a series of oil and gas industry safety surveys that will be introduced throughout 2014. The first survey concentrates on safety integrity levels (SIL) and one lucky respondent will win a Kindle for taking part.

SIL is the degree of likelihood that a safety instrumented function will operate effectively when it is required to. Four SILs are defined within the European Functional Safety standards based on the IEC 61508 standard, SIL 4 being the most dependable and SIL 1 being the least, taking into account such things as the development process and safety life cycle management.

The Litre Meter survey aims to find out to what extent engineers use SIL in specifying equipment and what reliance they place upon it.

The survey has finished now. The results, in condensed form, can be found here.

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