Hydrocarbon Engineering

Decommissioning/disposal

As the Bhopal disaster in 1984 demonstrates, it is important

to ensure that decommissioning and disposal is carried out

in a structured way, with procedures, an auditable trail, and

competent personnel.

Filling the gap

There are many reasons for people in the operational phase

of a safety system to be proven competent. As stated

previously, TÜV Rheinland noted this gap and asked its

course providers to set up a training programme to fill the

gap. Yokogawa accepted the challenge because it also

recognised this gap in site competency, and decided to

create a new training schedule focused on the personnel in

the operational phase (Figure 3). This was piloted recently

for technicians from three leading end-user organisations:

Gate LNG terminal, Shell and NAM, to see if it was the

correct approach and to discover where there was scope

for improvement to make it fit for purpose. The

participants provided Yokogawa with good comments and

information, which has been taken on board and will aid in

the implementation of an updated plan. Yokogawa aims to

have this training programme ready for the public from

June 2017.

Conclusion

When realising a functional SIS to the IEC-61508 and

IEC-61511 standards, much attention is paid to competency

during the SIS realisation phase (an average of five years),

but not enough to competency during the operational

phase (20 years or more).

The IEC standards are calling for '(re)training and

(re)assessing', a situation recognised by TÜV Rheinland, who

has asked course providers to set up a training programme

especially for those involved in the operational phase of

the system. The core of this training is the safety lifecycle

as defined by the standards, and this article describes the

resultant training programme and its implementation to

date.

References

1. BEEMS, T. and HELLINGHUIZER, M., 'Secured against sabotage',

Hydrocarbon Engineering

, (July 2014), pp. 38 – 44.

Figure 3.

Yokogawa training course for personnel in

the operational phase of a safety system(s).

Together facing a

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