Achieving safety is a fundamental process for every operation. In fact, under the current regulations, organizations and their managers and owners are responsible for the safety of employees, citizens and environment and must thoroughly prevent risks. Choosing a specialized partner, rather than facing the issue on their own, is the best way for companies to guarantee that plants, equipment and processes are safe. And when it comes to safety, the choice is quite difficult and complex, as the market offers numerous solutions and there are many companies operating in the sector. So, how do we choose the partner? The point here is being sure that the final result of the partnership meets the initial expectations and that the performances of the systems put in place to address the safety issues guarantee risk-free functioning. The only guarantee that such objective is attained is certification.
Generally speaking, a specified certification guarantees that certain products, professionals or organizations have specified characteristics and meet specified requirements, as demonstrated by the results of proper reviews, assessments, audits or tests often conducted by external and independent parties qualified by a process called “accreditation”. Nowadays, certification is a fundamental aspect of every industry, especially those dealing with heavy regulatory corpus and having to face safety issues. An example of such situation can be found in the aerospace industry, where safety of passengers, environment and crew is so critical that all the stakeholders involved in the process of conducting a flight or manufacturing an aircraft must be certified in order to guarantee that procedures and technology meet the requirements established by authorities to avoid accidents which would be strongly detrimental to society. Economical considerations are a part of this scenario: nobody would ever fly on a plane without the guarantee that sufficient risk-prevention is in place, with the consequence that the sector would face a dramatic collapse of revenues. Mobility of people would be negatively affected by that, with a definitively dramatic impact on society advancement. This example demonstrates that certification is the heart of modern and advanced economical and production systems. Economical growth of countries itself strongly relies on certification of products, professionals and organizations.
The situation in the process industry is similar. While the probability of accidents-causing failures can be low, the consequences of such failures are so costly in economical and social terms that R, defined as F x C (R=risk; F=frequency of accidents and C=consequences), can reach high values. As a result, risk reduction to an acceptable level must be enforced, since regulations (as IEC 61508) define safety as “freedom form unacceptable risk” and tolerable risk as “risk which is accepted in a given context based on the current values of society”. Such definitions highlight the social aspects of safety discussed in the previous paragraph. In addition, a quantitative approach to safety emerges from it. Safety can be measured by reference to a quantified acceptable risk. As a consequence of these considerations, the only way to achieve certain values of safety is having the confirmation that the safety systems put in place perform as needed to reduce the risk to the acceptable level. With this quantitative perspective in mind, the importance of certification is clear and evident.
The main certification deriving from the definitions and requirements of IEC 61508 is that of the Safety Integrity Level (SIL), guaranteeing that specified levels of risk reduction are achieved by a Safety Instrumented Function (SIF). The use of SIL certified hardware and software is the first step towards achieving safety. Furthermore, safety systems must be certified in relation to operating conditions as temperature, pressure, etc..., and organizations must meet quality standards, as the ISO ones, certifying that their processes and systems guarantee the delivery of defect-free products.
In conclusion, we can summarize all the considerations previously discussed stating that to choose a certified partner is the only option available to those willing to face safety issues with the objective of resolving them and achieving a quantified and acceptable level of risk. Certification is the heart of modern industries. And safety strongly depends on it.