Safety Critical Elements (SCE): Rationalizing Our Barriers

Safety Critical Elements (SCE) can be described as part of an installation and such of its structure, equipment and systems or any part thereof, whereby failure of which could cause or contribute substantially to the release of a hazard with major risks. In other words, SCEs are the barriers which are in place to prevent or limit the effect of a major accident.

In early 2013, the organization has embarked on the adaptation of SCE as part of Hazard and Effects Management Process (HEMP) and subsequently, business units within the organization has adopted the concept of SCE within their respective processes. Offshore business unit, particularly, had incorporated SCE identification process as part of Safety Case and subsequently, SCE management process within their maintenance system. The SCE identification and management protocols for offshore business units were established based on available standards and practises, from both within the organization as well as from external sources.

As part of the Safety Cases revalidation, which needs to be done every 5 years, the review of the SCEs that were previously identified for operating facilities under offshore business units was also triggered. These reviews highlighted the real challenges or pain points encountered by operating facilities in managing SCEs as part of their day-to-day operation and maintenance. The challenges or pain points can be summarized as follows:

1. The number of items / equipment / system identified and included as SCE for a particular operating facility is high. On an average, it approximately constitutes about 30-40% of the overall asset register.
2. The high number of items / equipment / system tagged as SCEs has resulted in high number of SCE related work orders i.e. inspection, testing and preventive maintenance (ITPM) task being generated through the maintenance management system, which overwhelms the maintenance personnel at site.
3. This causes overdue and subsequently leads to backlog of the SCE specific ITPM task to be carried out, which is reflected in the Facility Status Monitoring (FSM) system.
4. FSM is being directly monitored by higher management and it raises a serious concern on the healthiness status of the SCEs at operating units in relation to its specified function.

Based on the feedback gathered from operating facilities, it is agreed that there is a need for rationalization of the SCEs currently listed in the respective facilities asset register. This paper details the approach for SCE rationalization which was established and implemented for operating facilities, in view of streamlining the list of SCEs to reflect only those items / equipment / system which are critical in-line with the purpose and definition of SCE.