Opportunities and threats to process safety in digitalized process system-an overview

Abstract

Digital technologies have been reshaping how the process industries operate. The extensive use of physical and information digitalization called by ambitious revolution to redesign process plants significantly transforms the process safety landscape in the process industries. Digitalization depends on the reliable use of data. This becomes a new focus of process safety in digitalized process systems. Digitalization brings the opportunity to generate and collect digital operational data and reduce human operation for effective process monitoring and control for safety assurance. The system's capability of processing massive data becomes essential for process safety. Meanwhile, digitalization increases the complexity of human-computer interaction and consequently leads to new research and practical problems. With standalone processes connected to the Internet of Things, process plants become more attractive to terrorists. This inevitably invites cybersecurity concerns to process safety solutions. This chapter provides a brief overview of these benefits and issues.