IEC 61511

Functional safety
for the process industry

Part 1. The principles of Functional

Safety
The risk reduction approach

Bernard Luong

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The previous activities have shown us how to determine a
hazard and analyze a risk. We have seen that a risk is
always associated with a cause (with a certain frequency
of occurrence) and consequences (with a certain
severity).

Your car

Now, let’s take the example of using a car. No doubt you

will agree that it isn’t so bad if it doesn't start once every
5 years. But you will feel differently if it doesn’t start every
morning. To be sure that it will start every day, you take
action: you use it, and ensure that it is regularly
maintained.
You could say that by doing this you have, in a sense,
completed a risk reduction process. You are taking these
actions so that the risk of your car not starting in the
future is within a range that is acceptable to you.

Industrial facility

The same risk analysis approach is adopted at an

industrial facility, leading to decisions. For example, it has
become unacceptable to think that it is normal for daily
(or even occasional) accidents to occur when operating a
chemical reactor. Any accidents must be very unlikely, and
have no serious consequences. This does not mean that
accidents, even benign ones, will happen at this
frequency; instead it means that the possibility cannot

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exceed this frequency: this is our threshold of
tolerability.
Therefore, it is necessary to not only know the risks
associated with running the facility (identification) and the
consequences of these risks (analysis), but also to know
their threshold of tolerability and, finally, to identify
measures that can reduce these risks to an acceptable
level (i.e., below the threshold).

Summary

The following diagram summarizes the approach.

Initial risk

Threshold of
Acceptable final risk tolerability

Need for risk reduction

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