The Safety
Users Group, with representatives from Emerson, Shell and DuPont has
engaged with the International Electro-technical
Commission (IEC) to explore the maintenance of the IEC’s 61511 safety
standard. Members shared practical experiences of the standard and its adoption
in the chemical process, oil refining, tank storage and offshore industries.
A 2007 Frost and Sullivan report ‘World Safety Systems Markets for Process Industries’
estimated the safety systems market at around $1 billion annually. However,
despite the boom in safety programmable systems and growing awareness within
industry, the IEC 61511 standard is still misinterpreted. The results of the
group’s deliberations are available as a series of free online videos. More
from
www.safetyusersgroup.com.
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The US Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has written to over 100 US-based oil refineries emphasizing the need to comply with all applicable OSHA standards, particularly the Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals. The OSHA Refinery National Emphasis Program identified several compliance issues. The OSHA is now ‘urging’ refiners to comply with their obligations under the process safety management (PSM) standard. The standard requires employers to develop and incorporate comprehensive, site-specific safety management systems to reduce the risks of fatal or catastrophic incidents. More from www.oilit.com/llinks/0906_13.
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Speaking at the 2009 PNEC Data Integration Conference, PPDM CEO Trudy Curtis described the organization’s work on business rules and data quality. These topics are getting attention from oil and gas companies—increasingly aware of the business consequences of bad data. Curtis’ paper reflects a shift of emphasis for PPDM and its flagship database. For Curtis, the PPDM data model is really a collection of terms and rules ‘that just happens to be a database too.’ Focus today is increasingly on the business itself—notably via the PPDM Business Rules WorkGroup. PPDM’s ‘What is a well?’ workgroup is underway—and under the business rules umbrella. Curtis proposes to bring all rules together in a central location, based on the PPDM 3.8 data model and possible leveraging the OMG’s Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules (SBVR) standard. More from www.oilit.com/links/0906_14.
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