June 2, 2026
10:30AM - 11:30AM

Process Safety Track

Critical but Misunderstood - Identification and Management of Safety Critical Equipment in New and Mature Facilities

Speaker: Dave Summers

Every process and facility has hazards, and so each one has Safety Critical Equipment (SCE) that is installed and maintained to prevent hazardous events from occurring. However, there is a significant challenge in identifying which equipment should be designated safety critical, and then most effectively distributing time and resources to keep a required level of reliability. If equipment is not identified as safety critical when it should be, then critical components will not receive the maintenance and testing that they need to keep the facility safe. If too many devices are identified as safety critical, there will not be adequate maintenance resources to be able to maintain them all to the level required, and critical devices may be overlooked. Additionally, if identified safety critical devices are not maintained to a required standard and frequency, they cannot be relied upon to provide the risk reduction that is needed to operate safely.

In facilities that have been operating for many years, budget and staffing changes, shifting priorities, and lost documentation can result in safety critical equipment being overlooked or insufficiently maintained, creating unidentified and increasing risk over the years.

Any of the above scenarios can have a significant impact on the operating risk of the facility. Critical safety devices that were relied upon at the design phase to maintain a tolerable level of risk may not work correctly, increasing the likelihood of a hazardous event occurring. This increased risk may not be identified until the hazardous impact occurs.

This session will provide best practices for identifying and managing Safety Critical Equipment in order to support an effective design, reliability and maintenance program, with correct resource allocations to ensure that the operating risk of the facility is controlled to the level expected. I

It will address the key pitfalls to avoid during the design, risk assessment and operating stages, including for mature facilities, and will also discuss how to identify the impact on risk if a device cannot be confirmed to be operating correctly. By following these best practices, you can help to avoid hidden risks from growing during the operation of your process, preventing unforeseen damage to equipment, lost production, environmental impacts, or harm to personnel.