Process safety concerns in process system digitalization

Abstract

While efforts to use digital solutions in process operations are gaining wider acceptance, there are serious safety concerns that need to be addressed when adopting digitalization. Process operations have evolved from batch operation to continuous operation, and from smaller plants to large-scale plants. Automation and digitalization of processes, especially in process monitoring, instrumentation, and control are becoming the norm. Safety issues have also evolved with these developments, from simple equipment failure to failure of process systems (equipment with electronic systems), monitoring and control systems, data encryption systems, and most recently, software systems. How these evolving process safety issues should be taught in the classroom to educate and train the next generation of chemical engineers is a challenge with an opportunity. If such issues are not taught in academia, this will create a gap between education and practice, which would have a negative impact on the overall safety of process facilities. Therefore, proactively converting this challenge to an educational opportunity and bringing digital process safety issues into the classroom are of paramount importance to help reinforce the concept of making process safety learning a conscious choice. This will hopefully lessen our reliance on learning from accidents. The current paper presents the need to incorporate digital process safety as part of the chemical engineering curriculum to adequately address the process industry’s emphasis on digital solutions in process operations.