December 2024 - Discover how unplanned shutdowns can unlock hidden opportunities to enhance safety testing, optimize maintenance schedules, and improve operational reliability. This article explores the following topics: Click here to read the full article on OHSonline.com Using unplanned shutdowns as partial proof tests for safety systems Identifying which safety components can be effectively tested during shutdowns Understanding the limitations and risks of relying solely on shutdown events for validation Integrating unplanned shutdown insights into regular safety testing protocols Balancing operational safety with extended maintenance intervals by Chris Powell, PE, CFSE , SIS Group Manager at aeSolutions . Read the full article here: Unplanned Shutdowns as Proof Test Credits: What to Know and Steps to Take - OHSonline.com

December 2024 - Learn about six hidden pitfalls that undermine workplace safety culture and learn actionable strategies to foster a more resilient and safety-conscious environment. This article explores the following topics and more: Click here to read the full article on IEN.com Applicability of Process Safety Management (PSM) and Risk Management Program (RMP) Regulations : Many facilities neglect to assess whether these regulations apply to their operations, leading to unstructured safety processes. Mechanical Integrity : While fixed equipment like vessels and piping are usually well-managed, issues frequently arise with rotating equipment and control systems due to inadequate monitoring and maintenance. Management of Change (MOC) : Organizations often fail to implement robust MOC procedures, resulting in unassessed risks when changes occur in processes or equipment. Operating Procedures : Outdated or poorly documented operating procedures can lead to unsafe practices and increased risk of incidents. Training and Competency : Insufficient training programs contribute to a workforce that is ill-prepared to handle safety challenges effectively. Incident Investigation : A lack of thorough incident investigations prevents organizations from learning from past mistakes and implementing corrective actions. by Judith Lesslie, CFSE, CSP, CCPSC , Senior Principal Specialist at aeSolutions . Read the full article here: Safety Culture: Examining Common Shortcomings - IEN.com

October 2024 - Discover how to leverage unplanned shutdowns to facilitate proof testing of safety instrumented functions, improving safety protocols and minimizing downtime. This article explores the following topics: Click here to read the full article on ChemicalProcessing.com Utilizing unplanned shutdowns for safety instrumented function (SIF) proof testing Reducing maintenance frequency by leveraging these events as safety tests Ensuring regulatory compliance through proper documentation and test validation Applying software tools and data analytics to optimize safety testing Exploring future trends like AI and automation in safety management by Chris Powell, PE, CFSE , SIS Group Manager at aeSolutions . Read the full article here: Leverage Unplanned Shutdowns to Enhance Safety Testing - ChemicalProcessing.com

Learn how aeSolutions was able to help our clients overcome their unique and challenging difficulties. Also see the Industry, Geography, Unit Operation, Governing Autority of the site Project Success Stories Learn how aeSolutions was able to help our clients overcome their challenges. Heater Controls Upgrade Improves Safety and Resilience of Arctic Pipeline Pump Stations The client engaged aeSolutions to evaluate and modernize their aging heater and heater control systems supporting critical pipeline pump station operations in an Arctic environment. These heaters provide essential building heat, ensuring pump stations remain operational during extreme cold conditions. Through a phased, lifecycle-based approach, aeSolutions supported the client from... Read More Custom SI-BMS Solution Enhances Reliability and Safety for Critical Pipeline Transportation Facility A critical pipeline transportation facility required a custom Safety Instrumented Burner Management System (SI-BMS) upgrade for their incinerator operations. The project involved implementing a SI-BMS compliant with NFPA 86, integrating alarm and first-out features, and establishing seamless communication with their existing Distributed Control System (DCS)... Read More Achieving a High-Risk Systems Overhaul on an Accelerated Schedule When TGES America, Ltd. needed a critical overhaul of the complex control system and instrumentation for the central utilities plant (CUP) of a specialty materials manufacturing plant, they turned to aeSolutions, a Siemens Solution Partner. Subsequently, due to the need to complete the project four months early, the planned cold cutover to the new systems had to be done as a hot cutover without disrupting production. TGES America, aeSolutions, and Siemens made it happen, much to the delight of the customer. Read More Multi-Fuel Boiler BMS Upgrade for Chlor Alkali Production Facility A multi-fuel boiler project for a chlor alkali production facility resulted in significant modernization and operational improvements. The client's legacy relay-based Burner Management System (BMS) was upgraded to a DeltaV CHARM Safety Logic Solver, providing enhanced visibility, safety, and operational flexibility. This project not only modernized the client's system but also ensured compliance with NFPA 85 codes and met all Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) requirements. Read More Chemical Facility FEL3 & Detail Design Achieves PSM OSHA Compliance Under Total Installed Cost Budget | A Masterclass In aeSolutions’ Lifecycle Solutions Capabilities aeSolutions was tasked to provide Front-End Loading (FEL) and Detail Design for a newly acquired legacy agricultural chemical facility in order to meet full compliance with PSM OSHA 1910.119 standards and the client’s corporate safety requirements. Read More Designing and Implementing a Fire & Gas Detection System for a Hydrogen Production Plant aeSolutions was challenged to create an effective detection system that could handle the complexities of hydrogen's properties while ensuring the safety of personnel and the facility. Read More A Strategic Integration of SIS, BMS, and PSM in a Boiler Fuel Conversion Project Implementing Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) and Burner Management Systems (BMS) within tight deadlines and supply chain disruptions is challenging. A recent project converting boiler fuel from coal to natural gas with a Safety Instrumented BMS met strict safety standards despite these hurdles. Read More Alarm Management for a Greenfield LNG Facility A Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility was being newly constructed (i.e., Greenfield) and the company wanted to conduct an alarm rationalization on the process prior to initial startup. Existing facilities (i.e., Brownfield) have the benefit of historical operating trends and data during a rationalization session to recognize whether setpoints are effective and which alarms might give troubles. Read More Pharma Company Detecting Natural Gas Leaks in Boiler House A pharmaceutical client determined they needed a natural gas leak detection and isolation system for a utility building based on a PHA recommendation. aeSolutions installed a combustible gas leak detection system to shut off the gas supply to the boiler, bringing the facility into compliance with the safety program requirements. Read More Large Specialty Chemical Company Reduces Alarm Floods A large specialty chemical company was facing alarm floods in their utility unit. With aeSolutions guidance, the site was able to effectively prioritize and reduce alarms through the rationalization process, which includes reviewing, validating, and justifying alarms needed for avoiding potential process upsets or abnormal deviations from normal operation. Read More Simplified, Cost-Effective, and Consistent Acidic Compound Detection New acid detector placement philosophy led to reduced maintenance , lowered costs, a reduced the likelihood of confusion during leaks, and helped create a uniform response strategy. Read More Energy Company Reduces Regulatory Compliance Costs Saving Almost $50 Million A client was facing a lengthy compliance process to upgrade a fleet of fired heaters. With aeSolutions guidance, the client reduced their compliance scope by 50%. Focusing on the NFPA 86 prescriptive design applicable to waste gas thermal oxidizers and applying our experience in Process Safety Management (PSM)... Read More Water Cannons Protect Community from Anhydrous Ammonia Leaks Client needed to reduce liability and risk associated with anhydrous ammonia storage tanks. aeSolutions provided a leak detection and suppression system that alerts personnel and provides the means to contain the resulting vapor cloud to the storage tank area using high-pressure, high-volume water cannons integrated with the control system. Read More Pharmaceutical Company Required Toxic & Combustible Gas Detection System A large-scale pharmaceutical manufacturing facility needed to develop and implement a gas detection system at their site to mitigate risk to personnel and equipment from a potential combustible or toxic gas leak. The project progressed from the assessment stages of developing a gas detection philosophy to ultimately integrating an industrially designed GDS 1400 MK II panel for the gas detection control and alarm system. Read More Complex Hot Cutover of Large Natural Gas Processing Facilities Due to facility siting factors, control rooms of one of the world’s largest natural gas (NG) processing and compression facilities were relocated from a possible blast zone to a Blast Resistant Modules (BRMs). This complex cutover for personnel relocation needed to be accomplished without a shutdown (S/D) of either interdependent ... Read More Specialty Chemical Site’s Increasingly Complicated Cutover When a project that began with standard safety system upgrades quickly expanded to a much broader scope of engineering with tight deadlines, aeSolutions responded with an experienced engineering workforce to deliver above-quality expectations while meeting key deadlines. Read More “Fit for Purpose” Solution Reduces Planned Downtime by 66% aeSolutions’ hybrid safety system design enabled the client to maintain safe continuity of their fired equipment, meet NFPA compliance, and significantly lower planned downtime. Read More Protecting Personnel with Practical Gas Detector Placement A pharmaceutical company needed to implement gas detectors at their facility to protect personnel from potential leaks of toxic and combustible gases. aeSolutions evaluated the gas detector placement and number of detectors that would provide the earliest warning to personnel based on the expected dispersion and behavior of specific gas release scenarios. Read More Alarm System Rationalization and Safe Operating Limit for Energy Production A current client was adding a new energy production unit with an innovative process to an existing site and wanted to ensure the new design incorporated the site’s existing alarm management practices that were previously set up by the aeSolutions alarm management team. Read More

A spurious trip refers to an unplanned or unintended shutdown of a system, often triggered by false alarms or erroneous signals from monitoring equipment. These incidents can cause operational disruptions, safety risks, and unnecessary downtime in industrial processes such as power plants, oil and gas facilities, or manufacturing systems. Acronyms & Terms Glossary <- More Definitions Spurious Trips A spurious trip refers to an unplanned or unintended shutdown of a system, often triggered by false alarms or erroneous signals from monitoring equipment. These incidents can cause operational disruptions, safety risks, and unnecessary downtime in industrial processes such as power plants, oil and gas facilities, or manufacturing systems. Our Services The PHA Recommendation Playbook | Part 3 | Managing Scheduling and Operational Disruptions Scheduling and operational disruptions are among the most common barriers to closing PHA recommendations. When safety improvements require outages or process changes, timing becomes the challenge. This article explores how facilities can plan ahead, manage risk, and turn scheduling constraints into long-term operational resilience. Understanding UL 508A Certified Control Panels | Enabling Safer, More Resilient Industrial Facilities UL 508A certified control panels give industrial facilities a clear path to safer, code-compliant operation. This article explains what the standard covers, how SCCR is established, what changed in 2025, and why working with a certified panel shop helps reduce risk, streamline inspections, and support long-term maintainability. Whitepaper: Achieving 84-92% Urgent Alarm Reduction Through Comprehensive Lifecycle Implementation: A Dual-Unit Midstream Case Study Awarded Best Paper Award at the 2025 TEES Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center-TAMU (MKO) Safety & Risk Conference Abstract November 2025 — Greg Pajak, aeSolutions Senior Specialist, ICA — A midstream facility implemented a systematic alarm rationalization program across two critical units, achieving unprecedented reductions in urgent alarm loads. Unit A reduced urgent alarms from 45% to 7% (84% reduction), while Unit B decreased from 62% to 5% (92% reduction). This paper

Complex Hot Cutover of Large Natural Gas Processing Facilities Due to facility siting factors, control rooms of one of the world’s largest natural gas (NG) processing and compression facilities were relocated from a possible blast zone to a Blast Resistant Modules (BRMs). This complex cutover for personnel relocation needed to be accomplished without a shutdown (S/D) of either interdependent ... Challenge At the time it was built, the NG facility was the largest in the world. Some sections of piping are approximately 5 foot diameter and compression is achieved with enormous gas turbines - jet engines. The number of drawings, valves, wires, and control schemes that needed to be evaluated and understood was extensive and complex. Additionally, the magnitude and complexity of migrating the controls was tremendous. Normal gas operation controls such as turbine controls, panel boards, and valve interfaces needed to be migrated, as well as process safety controls such as the Basic Process Control System (BPCS), safety systems, Fire & Gas (F&G) systems, Halon fire suppressant circuits, and Emergency Shutdown (ESD) circuits. Furthermore, the NG facility equipment spanned 50 years of modifications and many upgrades were needed to universalize and modernize the many generations of equipment, including digitalizing hardwired signals into a the BPCS and installing a new PLC-based BPCS Honeywell C300 control system. Yet the biggest challenge was migrating the hard-wired emergency stop (E-stop) button from the old to new control room with minimal transition time and without a widespread outage. The circuit was designed fail-safe, meaning if the circuit opened up the relay, an activated emergency event could result in several effects: relieve gas pressure to flare, isolate system in place, or a plant S/D. Solution aeSolutions not only designed the new control room but took responsibility for all stages of the project, managing tasks from the conceptual and preliminary engineering to detailed design to managing on-site activity and personnel during the complex cutover. Specifically, aeSolutions: • Developed detailed cutover procedures and checklists and an integration schedule that identified specific people and detailed daily tasks for the next year for both NG facilities • Performed a detailed option analysis to evaluate potential best solutions • Analyzed every wire to understand what it does and temporary bypasses to be put into place; maintained a well-documented log to track what had been completed • Developed a contingency plan to guard against emergency events and mitigate risk of valve position changing during cutover process for safety purposes • Set up a local integration center, i.e., Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) lab, to convene equipment and everyone involved; determined ways to install additional panels; designed, fabricated, and tested the new control panels that were needed for the E-stops and F&G system and provided cabinets that were needed; developed a scheme of transitioning existing terminations to new termination locations without causing a S/D • Managed on-site activities helping direct the cutover process while implementing the cutover plan, including directing facility operators, engineers, support staff, construction, and even IT staff Results aeSolutions’ role evolved from system integrator and helping move the control rooms to becoming the focal point of coordinating schedules and staffing and choreographing the entire cutover project. We developed an execution strategy and found ways to integrate multiple teams into the plan. The FAT lab particularly provided a tremendous benefit to establish how components worked, verify detailed FAT plans and test procedures, and develop methods to quickly (dis)connect test panels with everyone in the same room. This integration strategy saved time and travel costs to successfully cutover the controls on a NG operating plant without impact to production. Learn more about how aeSolutions could help you with a similar project. Industry: Natural Gas Geography: Pacific Northwest Unit Operation: Control Center, Compressed Gas Valves Previous Story Next Story