News

GRIF on the line-up at the EPSC conference!

Published on 13/12/2023
2 min reading time
EPSC (2)

At the European Conference on Plant & Process Safety (EPSC) on 13 and 14 December 2023 in Maastricht, Dirk Roosendans, Deputy Director of the Major Risks Division, and Els Janssens, Process Safety Engineer, both employees of TotalEnergies, presented GRIF Risk. The software, which has been developed in-house for more than 40 years, has been enhanced with a module that displays the status of critical prevention and protection barriers in the form of a bow-tie or a LOPA (Layer Of Protection Analysis) table. A tool of interest to all industries exposed to technological risks.

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Why did you promote GRIF at EPSC?

Dirk Roosendans: When the GRIF software suite was created more than forty years ago, it was aimed more at specialists, mainly reliability specialists. Over the years, it has evolved to include all those working in process safety, engineers and technicians. The Major Risks Division, to which we belong, provides technical and financial support for GRIF's new developments, which offer real added value for the HSE business. For example, we contributed to the development of Risk, one of the seven modules in the Boolean package, which uses a bow-tie to explain major accident scenarios visually, using very simple drawings. We are currently working with GRIF on a module for non-specialists, BART, for visual management of the status of safety-critical barriers. We presented GRIF to the EPSC because it is a solution that today has its place among the tools recommended for technological risk studies.

 

What are the main advantages of GRIF for HSE?

 

Els Janssens: GRIF is an all-in-one solution! Of course, there are software packages on the market that do the same thing as GRIF, but in a fragmented way. One does reliability calculations, the other bow-tie modelling... But not both at the same time! GRIF has the advantage of being a modular software package that can perform complex calculations for reliability specialists but also offer simple graphical solutions for those who just need to visualise scenarios. GRIF is the only multi-purpose platform that is so complete. That's what sets it apart from other products. All the modules are integrated and interconnected. All the business lines work with the same software, which makes for greater efficiency, speed and performance. The internal version of GRIF provides user-friendly access to TotalEnergies' risk matrix: frequency data, failure probabilities, etc.

 

What do you bring to GRIF?

D.R : Feedback from our customers, branches and TotalEnergies sites. We listen to their needs to guide the development of GRIF and update the modules. The aim is to answer all questions and make GRIF a high-performance tool for all industries faced with technological risks.

 

What features do users like best? 

E.J : The bow tie is in vogue, and is being used more and more by industry majors. Not only can GRIF generate this bow tie, but it can also zoom in on a barrier, its equipment and architecture, and perform advanced calculations. 
Another requested feature is the ability to view critical barriers online. Today, major accidents in our industry are mainly linked to the malfunctioning of one or more critical barriers. The long-term objective is to visualise the state of these barriers and raise awareness before an accident occurs, anticipating those that could be degraded and create risks for people, installations and the environment. This is a solution that we are seeking to develop within GRIF.

 

A final message?

D.R : TotalEnergies recently approved a three-year technology risk improvement plan. Dynamic visualisation of the status of critical barriers will play an important role in the Company's major accident prevention strategy. 

 

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