GRIF at the heart of Industry

As every year, GRIF is publishing a series of articles highlighting its latest news, its users, and the different ways the software supports projects. Last year, the series took the form of "3 questions to…", a short format in which several professionals shared their experience.

To open this year’s edition, we are launching a new format: "GRIF at the heart of industry."
The goal is to give the floor to specialists from various sectors to illustrate the role GRIF plays in their activities.
 

In this first article, we give the floor to three key partners from organizations recognized for their expertise and major role in their sectors:

• Fabien Moulié (Orano) – Nuclear
  Orano is an international player in the nuclear fuel cycle, present in 17 countries and bringing together around 17,500 employees. Its activities cover the entire cycle, from mining to recycling, with flagship industrial platforms (conversion, enrichment, recycling).
   
• Frédéric Lambert (Technip Energies) – Energy
  Technip Energies is a leading engineering and technology company, a leader in energy and decarbonization infrastructures, designing and delivering some of the largest and most complex engineering and construction projects in the energy sector.
  Driven by values of collaboration and excellence in execution, more than 18,000 employees across 35 countries are committed to combining prosperity and sustainability to help build a world designed to last.
   
• Gilles Motet (INSA Toulouse / SEAMOnLine) – Academia
  The SEAMOnLine platform counts over 5,300 registered users from 140 nationalities and offers 26 learning modules totaling about 400 hours of content, with an active‑learning approach focused on dependability engineering.
   

1. How did you discover the GRIF software suite?

Frédéric Lambert – Technip Energies (Energy)
"Within the contractual framework of the MARTIN LINGE project, we acquired GRIF’s Boolean package, and since then we have been using it on almost all of our projects in three different ways:

• For the design and verification of SIFs, mainly using the SIL module;
• As a complement for modeling complex SIFs (SIL, Boolean, and Tree modules) that other tools are unable to handle;
• To resolve uncertainties by cross-checking verification results obtained with other tools."

Fabien Moulié – Orano (Nuclear)
"In 2018 Orano was looking for an efficient software tool to carry out probabilistic safety studies. That’s when life aligned the stars, as sometimes happens.
I was able to attend the Lambda Mu conference thanks to unexpected funding, and I met Nicolas Clavé, who had mistaken me for my twin brother working in corrosion at TotalEnergies in Pau. He showed me his booth and the GRIF software: very interesting! The conversation then took a friendly turn around a pastis and some sausages. The start of a great relationship 😊"

➡️ Find the paper presented by Fabien Moulié at Lambda‑Mu 2024 in this article:  GRIF at Lambda Mu Congress (λμ) 2024 | TotalEnergies GRIF
 

Gilles Motet – INSA Toulouse / MOOC INRIA (Academia)
"SEAMOnLine (https://seamonline.insa-toulouse.fr/) is an INSA Toulouse platform offering online training units covering many aspects of industrial safety.

Together with Jean‑Pierre Signoret (TPA), we wanted to address the challenging topic of dependability through ‘experiential learning’. This is a pedagogical method based on practical experience, or learning by doing.
Developed by dependability specialists to address the needs of dependability specialists, the variety of functionalities in the GRIF suite allowed us to propose experiments illustrating all aspects of dependability assessment and to draw general lessons from them."

➡️ For more information, see this article where Gilles Motet presents the use of GRIF in dependability engineering and in training module development: Reliability Assessment of Safety and Production Systems: a reference work for methods, GRIF for exercises | TotalEnergies GRIF
 

2. Which GRIF modules do you use in your organization?

Frédéric Lambert – Technip Energies (Energy)
"To date, we only use GRIF’s Boolean package, and the use of the modules is broken down as follows:

• SIL: 95%
• Tree: 3%
• Bool & Risk: 1%
• Etree: < 1%."

Fabien Moulié – Orano (Nuclear)
"At Orano Projets we use:

• Boolean package: Tree, ETree, Risk, SIL, and Bool
• Simulation package: Petro, Petri
• Markovian package: Markov (very limited use)"

Gilles Motet – INSA Toulouse / MOOC INRIA (Academia)
"The four training units we developed—about 20 hours of training each—use the following three core GRIF packages:

• The Markovian package, including calculations of basic dependability criteria, multi‑phase models, and tested components
• The Boolean package, including reliability block diagrams, fault trees, and common‑cause failures
• The Simulation package, including Monte Carlo simulation and stochastic Petri nets (including common‑cause failures)

Around forty exercises allow participants to discover the strengths and limitations of the techniques offered by these three packages."
 

3. Why do you use GRIF in your sector?

Frédéric Lambert – Technip Energies (Energy)
"GRIF’s Boolean modules offer high flexibility in parameter settings and are suitable for nearly any situation involving complex SIF architectures in Oil & Gas, Chemicals, renewable energy, etc.
The ease of use of the SIL module enables fast validations with often‑novice users across many projects in our energy‑sector engineering activities."

Fabien Moulié – Orano (Nuclear)
"First of all, GRIF allows us to carry out probabilistic safety studies (PSA) in several formats.

 We also increasingly need to justify the performance of facilities under design, and GRIF helps us carry out:

• availability studies (mainly with Petro)
• flow studies (mainly with Petri)"

Gilles Motet – INSA Toulouse / MOOC INRIA (Academia)
"The classical training approach consists of a formal introduction to new concepts (lectures), a first application (tutorials), then a second combining them (practical work). This approach is not suited to online training because it leads to high dropout rates.
We therefore needed to ‘reverse the process’ by starting with experiments that reveal the need for new knowledge. Furthermore, well‑chosen experiments allow participants to identify both the strengths and limitations of the techniques offered. This way, they acquire initial skills.
This approach also maintains participant engagement and resembles 'serious games'.

Jean‑Pierre Signoret and I hope that the active learning enabled by GRIF, and the French and English versions of the four units, will offer the 5,600 participants currently registered on our platform—and those to come—new skills to improve safety in their 142 countries."

A big thank you to Fabien Moulié, Frédéric Lambert, and Gilles Motet for sharing their experience and their perspective on the use of GRIF in their respective fields. Although very diverse, these fields all reflect the same commitment: advancing functional safety within our industry.

👉 Would you like to try GRIF? Download the free trial version.