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       Safety to the 2nd Order


 WELCOME TO SIS-TECH's TECHNICAL RESOURCES LIBRARY

 SIS-TECH doesn't simply talk about the IEC 61508, IEC 61511 and ANSI/ISA 84 standards, we were there when each was begun and we are there each and every time each is reviewed and updated. We know these standards as well as anyone and far better than most people. We have been called upon by API, ASME, NFPA, and CCPS to provide technical support related to interpreting IEC 61511 and ANSI/ISA 84, and we routinely publish related articles in major trade and technical publications.


Design & Implementation
Applying SIS Standards to Coker Processes - Presented at the10th Annual Universal Delayed Coking Seminar, Long Beach, CA, August 1-3, 2005. Presented at the IV Congresso Rio Automacao, Centro de Convencoes – FIRJAN, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 2007.

The Evolution of Plant Automation - Published in Control Global, February 2007.

IEC 61508 Product Approvals - Veering Off Course -  Upon close examination it appears that the product approval process of IEC 61508(1) has veered seriously off course, possibly rendering many safety instrumented system (SIS) applications less reliable than expected or required. Published on ControlGlobal, June 2008.

Overfill Protective Systems - Complex Problem, Simple Solution - Presented at Process Plant Safety Symposium, 2009 AICHE Global Conference, Tampa, Florida, April 23-29 2009.
Presented at Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center 2009 International Symposium, College Station, TX, October 27-28, 2009.
To be published in an upcoming Process Safety Progress

Partial Stroke Testing of Valves - Published in Control Engineering, November 2000. Presented at ISA EXPO, September 2001.

Partial Stroke Testing of Block Valves - Published in Instrument Engineers Handbook, Volume 4, Chapter 6.9, 2006.

Software-Implemented Safety Logic - Presented at Loss Prevention Symposium, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, April 2001. Published in Process Safety Progress, June 2002.
Failure Analysis
Achieving Six Sigma Through Fault Tree Analysis - Presented at Process Plant Reliability Symposium, Houston, TX, October 1997. Published as a companion article to Managing Risk Improves Production article in Control Engineering, December 1999.

Common Cause and Common Sense - Designing Failure Out of Your SIS - Presented at ISA EXPO, October 1998. Published in ISA Transactions, 1999.

Consistent Consequence Severity Estimation - To be presented at the 6th Global Congress on Process Safety, March 21-25, 2010, and Texas Chemistry Council/Association of Chemical Industry of Texas 2010 EHS Seminar, June 7-10.

Estimation and Evaluation of Common Cause Failures in SIS - Presented at Loss Prevention Symposium, American Institute of Chemical Engineers Spring Meeting, March 1999. Published as Safeguard Safety Instrumented Systems - Chemical Engineering Progress, November 1999.

Fault Management Analysis - Presented at Loss Prevention Symposium, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, April 2001. Published in Process Safety Progress, November 2001.

Improve Facility SIS Performance and Reliability - Published in Hydrocarbon Processing, October 2002. Presented as Solenoid Configurations: Selecting the Best Architecture for Your Application, ISA Tech99, October 1999. Presented as Selecting the Best Solenoid Architecture for Your Application at Process Plant Reliability Symposium, October 1999.

Introduction to Layers of Protection Analysis - Presented at Mary Kay O’Conner Process Safety Center Symposium, October 2002. Published in Journal of Hazardous Materials, 2003. Presented at ISA EXPO 2003, October 2003.

Viewpoint on ISA TR84.0.02 – Simplified Methods and Fault Tree Analysis - Presented as Simplified Methods and Fault Tree Analysis of Safety Instrumented Systems at Interkama, Dusseldorf, Germany, October 1999. Published as Viewpoints on ISA TR84.0.02-Simplified Methods and Fault Tree Analysis in ISA Transactions, 2000. Presented as Introduction to the Quantitative Techniques Proposed by ISA TR84.0.02 for Verification of the Target SIL, Center for Chemical Process Safety, September 1998.

HIPS - High Integrity Protection Systems
An Alternative Approach to Wellhead Flowline Pressure Protection - Presented at the Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, Texas, 2007

High Integrity Pressure Protection Systems (HIPPS) - Published in Chemical Engineering Progress, November 2000. Recipient of Bill Doyle Award for Best Paper at Loss Prevention Symposium 2000. Expanded and published in Instrument Engineers Handbook Volume 3 Chapter 2.6.

High Integrity Protection Systems (HIPS) for Flare Load Mitigation - Presented at ISA EXPO, October 2003.

High Integriy Protection Systems for New and Existing Vessels - Presented at International Mechanical Engineering Conference, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, June 2004.

High Integrity Protective Systems for Reactive Processes - Presented at Center for Chemical Safety Symposium, September 2003. Presented as Risk Management for Reactive Processes at  Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Symposium, October 2003. Published as Consider HIPS for Reactive Processes, Chemical Processing, March 2004.

Wellhead Flowline Pressure Protection Using HIPS - Used worldwide in thousands of wellhead applications the inherently safer design practice presented in this paper ensured that flowline pipe was specified with a maximum allowable working pressure (MAWP) equal to or greater than the maximum pressure expected to be produced by the well.
IEC 61511 & ISA 84
Differences Between IEC 61511 and ISA 84.01-1996 - Presented at Instrumentation Symposium, Texas A&M University, January 2003. Published in ISA Technical Symposium March 2003. Published as Safety Standards Harmonize: Comparing European and U.S. Safety Standards - InTech, January 2004.
IEC 61511 and the Capital Project Process – A Protective Management Systems Approach - Presented as Beyond Regulatory Compliance: Making Safety Second Nature,at the 7th Annual Symposium, Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center, October 2004. Presented at IEC 61511 Management System Workshop, Instrumentation Symposium, Texas A&M University, January 2004. Published as IEC 61511 and the Capital Project Process – A protective management system approach, Journal of Hazardous Materials, 2006.

ISA 84 – The Standard for Safety Instrumented Systems - Presented as Regulations, Standards, and Safety Instrumented Systems, at European Triconex Users Group, Venice, Italy, May 1998 and at ISA EXPO, October 1998. Presented as Safety Instrumented Systems Under the New Standards, ICEX 99 Workshop, Institute of Instrumentation and Control, Melbourne, Australia, May 1999. Presented as Regulations, Standards, and Safety Instrumented Systems at Mary Kay O’Conner Process Safety Center, Texas A&M University, October 1999. Published as Path to 84 Compliance, Factory Mutual Newsletter, July 2000. Published as Setting the Standard for Safety Instrumented Systems, Chemical Engineering, December 2000.

Safety Instrumented Systems - Published in Perry’s Handbook of Chemical Engineering, Fall 2007
Management Systems
A Process Engineering View of Safe Automation - Published in Chemical Engineering Progress - December 2008.

Achieve  Continuous Safety Improvement - Published in Chemical Processing - April 2007. Presented as Continuous Improvement in SIS at Texas Chemical Council, 2007 Annual Meeting, Galveston TX, June 2007.

ANSI/ISA 84.00.01-2004 and Existing Safety Instrumented Systems - Presented as Are Your SIS ‘Grandfathered’ Under ANSI/ISA 84.00.01-2004 at Emerson Global Users Exchange, Orlando, Florida, October 2005. (Published as Can You Safely ‘Grandfather’ Your SIS in Chemical Processing, August 2005. Published as The Grandfather Clause is Not a Fat Man in a Red Suit in Clobal Control, August 2005.

Avoid Bad Engineering Practices In Safety Instrumented System Design - Published as Safety Can Go Wrong Fast in InTech, November 1999.

Bhopal Could It Happen Again? - Published in Hydrocarbon Processing, March 2005.

Bridging the Safe Automation Gap - Part 1 - Presented at Mary Kay O’Conner Process Safety Center, Texas A&M University, October 2001. Published in Hydrocarbon Processing, April 2002.

Bridging the Safe Automation Gap - Part 2 - Presented at Mary Kay O’Conner Process Safety Center, Texas A&M University, October 2001. Published in Hydrocarbon Processing, May 2002.

Challanges To Continuous Improvement of Safety Systems - Presented at American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Process Plant Safety Symposium, 2007 Spring National Meeting, Houston, TX, April 23-26, 2007

Continuous Improvement in SIS - Presented at American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Process Plant Safety Symposium, Spring National Meeting, April 2007.

Enhanced Risk Management at the Pasadena Plastics Complex - Presented at Center for Chemical Process Safety Conference, Scottsdale, AZ

Keep Operations Safe - Appeared in Chemical Processing, August 2008; presented at 1st Latin America CCPS Conference, Buenos Aires, May 27-29, 2008; presented at American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Process Plant Safety Symposium, 2008 Spring National Meeting, New Orleans, LA, April 6-10, 2008.

Quality Assurance in Safe Automation - Published in Process Safety Progress, 2008; presented at 1st Latin America CCPS Conference, Buenos Aires, May 27-29, 2008; presented at American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Process Plant Safety Symposium, 2008 Spring National Meeting, New Orleans, LA, April 6-10, 2008.

The Evolution of the Cookbook - Presented at the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center Symposium, October 2006.

Safety Integrity Levels; Do You Understand The Odds? - Published as Understanding Safety Integrity Levels, Control Engineering, February 2000.

Safety Instrumented Systems - Published in the 2009 Kirk Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology.

Safety Management is a Virtue - Published in Process Safety Progress, September 2009.

What Every Manager Should Know About the New SIS Standards - Presented at ISA EXPO 2002. Presented at ISA Technical Symposium, Baltimore, Maryland, 2002.
Mechanical Integrity
Lessons Learned While Auditing Automation Systems for PSM Compliance - Presented at 1st Latin America CCPS Conference, Buenos Aires, May 27-29, 2008; Presented at Loss Prevention Symposium, 2009 AICHE Global Conference, Tampa Florida April 23-29 2009.

Random, Systematic, and Common Cause Failure: How do you manage them? - Published in Process Safety Progress, December 2006. Presented as Failure Conundrum at Chemical Engineers Spring National Meeting, April 2006. Presented as Beyond Regulatory Compliance: Making Safety Second Nature at 8th Annual Symposium, Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center, October 2005.

SIF Proof Testing Yields Process Sector Reliability Data - Presented by A.D. Arnold at ISA Internation Expo 2009, October, 2009.

User Approval of Safety Instrumented System Devices - Presented at American Institute of Chemical Engineers Spring National Meeting, April 2006. Published as Meet SIS ‘User Approval’ Mandates, Chemical Processing, May 2006.
Artículos en Español

Aplicando Estándares SIS a Procesos de Coquización - Presented at ISA Mexico, Centro Banamex, Cd. De Mexico, June 6-8, 2007.

Aprobacion de Productos con IEC 61508-Desviandose del Curso - Published in English on ControlGlobal, June 2008.

Aseguramiento de la Calidad y Sistemas Instrumentados de Seguridad

Lecciones Aprendidas Auditando Sistemas Automatizados para el Cumplimiento con PSM - Presented in English at 1st Latin America CCPS Conference, Buenos Aires, May 27-29, 2008. Presented in Spanish at ISA Mexico, Centro Banamex, Cd. De Mexico, June 6-8, 2007. Published in InTech Automatizacion Mexico, October, 2008.

 Mejoramiento Continuo de los SIS - Presented at ISA Mexico, Centro Banamex, Cd. De Mexico, June 6-8, 2007.

 Una Propuesta Alterna para la Proteccion por Presion en Tuberias de Cabezal de Pozo - Presented in English at the Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, Texas, 2007.

La Vision de Ingenieria de Proceso sobre Automatizacion Segura Published in English in Chemical Engineering Progress, December, 2008.
Articoli in Italiano
Links to Relevant Books & Publications
Guidelines for Safe and Reliable Instrumented Protective Systems (IPS) - This 430 page book expalins in plain English how to addresses the good engineering practices defined in IEC 61511 to prevent process safety incidents and achieve desired process reliability.

Buncefield Oil Storage Depot Investigation Recommendations report - This 52 page report, titled Recommendations on the Design and Operation of Fuel Storage Sites, lists 25 recommendations for using high integrity level protection systems.
Links to Relevant Training
 Links to Relevant Material
Links to Major Incident Web Sites

Those who ignore or forget about history are destined to repeat it.
George Santayana (1863–1952)