Document Responsibility: Pumps, Seals and Mixers SABP-G-017

Issue Date: 10 April 2010

Next Planned Update: TBD Equipment Criticality Assessment

 ECA is not meant to replace or substitute any of Risk-Assessment analysis.

Performing an ECA does not exempt Plants’ from, timely and adequately,
performing the required Risk-Assessment studies to mitigate and control the
risks within their plants and facilities. Risk-Assessment studies include:
Process Hazard Analysis PHA, Hazard and Operability (HazOp) analysis,
Hazard Identification (HAZID), Major Hazard Analysis (MHA), Layers of
Protection Analysis (LOPA), etc.

b. Equipment Importance

This criterion characterizes the consequences of an equipment failure in

the production process as defined by the logical Process Flow Function. It
is a holistic assessment of equipment failure consequences in plants’
business objectives and shall reflect the interdependence of different
equipment in the production system.

The objective with this criterion is to segregate plants’ equipment in one of

the following categories:
 Strategic equipment,
 Important equipment,
 Primary equipment,
 Secondary equipment, and finally
 Back-up equipment.

Equipment Importance shall be defined and ranked according the Criteria

Scoring Guidelines defined in Section 5.2 (Equipment Criticality Scoring
Guidelines).

c. Equipment Reliability

This criterion characterizes the equipment overall health and repair

constraints. Equipment reliability can be characterized in general from its
Mean-Time-Between-Failure (MTBF), its failure rate (infant mortality,
fatigue, wear-out, etc.), its precision and its operating conditions (operating
envelops, service factor, actual/design utilization rates, vibration,
temperature, humidity, dust, etc.), and finally the obsolescence of its parts
and the state of its components.

Equipment Reliability criterion shall also take into account equipment

existing maintenance practices that would reflect the health of the
equipment based on the actual or assumed quality of preventive
maintenance tasks carried out on the equipment.

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