E.S.M. produced a Functional Safety Management Plan and User Requirement Specification for elements of a large natural gas power station.
The Functional Safety Management Plan produced by E.S.M. was used by the Client to demonstrate compliance with functional safety standards for the operation and maintenance of the power station. The Plan covered through-life support and management-of-change.
E.S.M. engineers also worked to enhance the Client’s design for gas turbine generator sets by writing a User Requirement Specification. This supported the Client’s achievement of certification from the state gas regulator.
E.S.M. tasks on this project were carried out in accordance with the functional safety standards: AS IEC 61508 Functional safety of electrical / electronic / programmable electronic safety-related systems and AS IEC 61511 Functional safety – Safety instrumented systems for the process industry sector Framework, definitions, systems, hardware and software requirements.
Functional safety is a specific application of systems engineering for safety-critical control and protection systems. It is part of the overall management of a system and relates to the reliability and integrity of a control system used as a safety function. It aims to detect potentially hazardous situations, analysing the inputs, processing logic and outputs that drive a system to a safe state. It also looks at the safe management of likely operator errors, hardware and software failures and environmental changes.