Fault tree analysis (FTA) is a type of failure analysis in which an undesired state of a system is examined. This analysis method is mainly used in safety engineering and reliability engineering to understand how systems can fail, to identify the best ways to reduce risk and to determine event rates of a safety accident or a particular system level (functional) failure. FTA is used in the aerospace, nuclear power, chemical and process, pharmaceutical, petrochemical and other high-hazard industries; but is also used in fields as diverse as risk factor identification relating to social service system failure. FTA is also used in software engineering for debugging purposes and is closely related to cause-elimination technique used to detect bugs.
A safety-critical system (SCS) or life-critical system is a system whose failure or malfunction may result in one of the following outcomes:
Piper Alpha was an oil platform located in the North Sea approximately 120 miles (190 km) north-east of Aberdeen, Scotland. It was operated by Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Limited and began production in 1976, initially as an oil-only platform but later converted to add gas production.
Failure mode and effects analysis is the process of reviewing as many components, assemblies, and subsystems as possible to identify potential failure modes in a system and their causes and effects. For each component, the failure modes and their resulting effects on the rest of the system are recorded in a specific FMEA worksheet. There are numerous variations of such worksheets. An FMEA can be a qualitative analysis, but may be put on a quantitative basis when mathematical failure rate models are combined with a statistical failure mode ratio database. It was one of the first highly structured, systematic techniques for failure analysis. It was developed by reliability engineers in the late 1950s to study problems that might arise from malfunctions of military systems. An FMEA is often the first step of a system reliability study.
A logbook is a record used to record states, events, or conditions applicable to complex machines or the personnel who operate them. Logbooks are commonly associated with the operation of aircraft, nuclear plants, particle accelerators, and ships. The term logbook originated with the ship's log—a maritime record of important events in the management, operation, and navigation of a ship.
Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes the ability of equipment to function without failure. Reliability describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specified period of time. Reliability is closely related to availability, which is typically described as the ability of a component or system to function at a specified moment or interval of time.
Safety integrity level (SIL) is defined as a relative levels of risk-reduction provided by a safety function, or to specify a target level of risk reduction. In simple terms, SIL is a measurement of performance required for a safety instrumented function (SIF).
A hazard analysis is used as the first step in a process used to assess risk. The result of a hazard analysis is the identification of different types of hazards. A hazard is a potential condition and exists or not. It may, in single existence or in combination with other hazards and conditions, become an actual Functional Failure or Accident (Mishap). The way this exactly happens in one particular sequence is called a scenario. This scenario has a probability of occurrence. Often a system has many potential failure scenarios. It also is assigned a classification, based on the worst case severity of the end condition. Risk is the combination of probability and severity. Preliminary risk levels can be provided in the hazard analysis. The validation, more precise prediction (verification) and acceptance of risk is determined in the Risk assessment (analysis). The main goal of both is to provide the best selection of means of controlling or eliminating the risk. The term is used in several engineering specialties, including avionics, chemical process safety, safety engineering, reliability engineering and food safety.
Bunding, also called a bund wall, is a constructed retaining wall around storage "where potentially polluting substances are handled, processed or stored, for the purposes of containing any unintended escape of material from that area until such time as a remedial action can be taken."
IEC 61508 is an international standard published by the International Electrotechnical Commission consisting of methods on how to apply, design, deploy and maintain automatic protection systems called safety-related systems. It is titled Functional Safety of Electrical/Electronic/Programmable Electronic Safety-related Systems.
The Germanischer Lloyd SE was a classification society based in the city of Hamburg, Germany. It ceased to exist as an independent entity in September 2013 as a result of its merger with Norway's DNV to become DNV GL.
An annunciator panel, also known in some aircraft as the Centralized Warning Panel (CWP) or Caution Advisory Panel (CAP), is a group of lights used as a central indicator of status of equipment or systems in an aircraft, industrial process, building or other installation. Usually, the annunciator panel includes a main warning lamp or audible signal to draw the attention of operating personnel to the annunciator panel for abnormal events or condition.
Functional safety is the part of the overall safety of a system or piece of equipment that depends on automatic protection operating correctly in response to its inputs or failure in a predictable manner (fail-safe). The automatic protection system should be designed to properly handle likely human errors, systematic errors, hardware failures and operational/environmental stress.
The oil and gas industry plays a central role in the economy of the United Kingdom. Oil and gas account for more than three-quarters of the UK's total primary energy needs. Oil provides 97 per cent of the fuel for transport, and gas is a key fuel for heating and electricity generation. Transport, heating and electricity each account for about one-third of the UK's primary energy needs. Oil and gas are also major feedstocks for the petrochemicals industries producing pharmaceuticals, plastics, cosmetics and domestic appliances.
ISO 26262, titled "Road vehicles – Functional safety", is an international standard for functional safety of electrical and/or electronic systems that are installed in serial production road vehicles, defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 2011, and revised in 2018.
One definition of a Safety Case is that it is a structured argument, supported by evidence, intended to justify that a system is acceptably safe for a specific application in a specific operating environment. Safety cases are often required as part of a regulatory process, a certificate of safety being granted only when the regulator is satisfied by the argument presented in a safety case. Industries regulated in this way include transportation and medical devices. As such there are strong parallels with the formal evaluation of risk used to prepare a Risk Assessment, although the result will be case specific. A vehicle safety case may show it to be acceptably safe to be driven on a road, but conclude that it may be unsuited to driving on rough ground, or with an off-center load for example, if there would then be a greater risk of danger e.g. a loss of control or an injury to the occupant. The information used to compile the safety case may then formally guarantee further specifications, such as maximum safe speeds, permitted safe loads, or any other operational parameter. A safety case should be revisited when an existing product is to be re-purposed in a new way, if this extends beyond the scope of the original assessment.
DNV is an international accredited registrar and classification society headquartered in Høvik, Norway. The company currently has about 12,000 employees and 350 offices operating in more than 100 countries, and provides services for several industries including maritime, oil & gas, renewable energy, electrification, food & beverage and healthcare. DNV GL was created in 2013 as a result of a merger between two leading organizations in the field — Det Norske Veritas (Norway) and Germanischer Lloyd (Germany). In 2021, DNV GL changed its name to DNV, while retaining its post-merger structure.
Commercial offshore diving, sometimes shortened to just offshore diving, generally refers to the branch of commercial diving, with divers working in support of the exploration and production sector of the oil and gas industry in places such as the Gulf of Mexico in the United States, the North Sea in the United Kingdom and Norway, and along the coast of Brazil. The work in this area of the industry includes maintenance of oil platforms and the building of underwater structures. In this context "offshore" implies that the diving work is done outside of national boundaries. Technically it also refers to any diving done in the international offshore waters outside of the territorial waters of a state, where national legislation does not apply. Most commercial offshore diving is in the Exclusive Economic Zone of a state, and much of it is outside the territorial waters. Offshore diving beyond the EEZ does also occur, and is often for scientific purposes.
Permit-to-work (PTW) refers to management systems used to ensure that work is done safely and efficiently. These are used in hazardous industries and involve procedures to request, review, authorise, document and most importantly, de-conflict tasks to be carried out by front line workers. Permit to work is an essential part of control of work (COW), the integrated management of business critical maintenance processes. Control of work is made up of permit to work, hazard identification and risk assessment (RA), and isolation management (IM).
NEMS AS is a Software Development and advisory company, which is specialized in the domain of emissions control of emissions to air and discharge to sea, as well as environmental reporting and environmental management systems (EMS). The company provides its customers with software for environmental accounting, corporate sustainability reporting and chemical management. NEMS also provides advisory services to organizations, authorities and clients. NEMS AS has previously had other names including Novatech AS and Add Novatech AS in 2008 as part of Add Energy Group.
