What types of tasks does GFS perform – part 2

Global Functional Safety (GFS) performs many types of tasks – the priority of them are based on Functional Safety (IEC 61508 and IEC 61511). The tasks are not limited to specific industries, but ranges from the food industry to the oil and gas industry. The goal is the same: to create safe workplaces.

This assignment is about verifying that the design and the actually purchased equipment meet the requirements set out in the first 3 activities of the Functional Safety life cycle, namely the qualitative Risk Assessment “Hazard and risk assessment”, the quantitative Risk Assessment “Allocation of safety functions to protection layers ”and the resulting design requirements set out in the“ Safety requirement specification for the safety instrumented system”.

In other words, a calculation of whether the safety functions that are currently being built into a completely new facility somewhere on Funen actually also meets the requirements that have been set for them.

It is both a requirement from the authorities, but also according to the Functional Safety standards, that this SIL verification can be documented before commissioning of a new equipment or a new process.

In this specific task, it is the Customer who delivers the Reliability Block Diagrams (RBD) where the connection between, e.g. a sensor – via a PLC or a relay – to, e.g. the valve that must close (or open) in a given hazardous situation. With other projects and tasks, it is us who make the RBD based on electrical drawings and the P&ID’s.

It is also the Customer who in this case has retrieved all the relevant certificates for the components in the safety funcstions. In other cases, it would be one of our tasks. It depends on the agreement between us and the Customer and on what resources the Customer has for this.

We always use relevant software for the best possible solution of a job. In this SIL verification we use the software ExSILentia from Exida.

The advantage of using globally recognized systems must of course still be seen in the light of the fact that our people are TÜV Rheinland certified FS Engineers and FS Experts.

If you also have a verification task that you would like support or assistance for, contact us here: