Speakers Name:
William Cowdroy
Job title:
Consulting Director
Organisation:
ERM
Biography:
William Cowdroy is a Consulting Director at ERM leading their UK Technical Safety services in Diversified Energy, which includes Oil & Gas (upstream, midstream and downstream), Hydrogen (production, transport and storage) and CCUS.
William specialises in Process Safety and Functional Safety, primarily supporting operators of high‑hazard facilities to design, operate and maintain their plants and safety critical systems to protect people, the environment and their assets.
With a 14-year career rooted in Chemical Engineering, William began working on major industrial assets including a Carbon Capture Pilot Plant at Ferrybridge Power Station, Trimble County Power Station in the United States, and Stanlow Oil Refinery. He later moved into Process Safety and Risk Management, developing his expertise through roles at DNV, ESC and ERM. His cross‑sector experience includes Diversified Energies, Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Biosafety, Manufacturing and Defense, giving him a broad perspective on risk across complex, high‑hazard industries.
William is also an experienced project manager for major capital and energy transition programmes with emerging regulatory frameworks. Notably, he led the Safety, Planning, Permitting and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for Equinor’s Hydrogen to Humber (H2H) Saltend Project, one of the UK’s flagship blue hydrogen developments, delivering planning consent in 2024.
In parallel to his leadership roles, William remains actively involved in delivering process & functional safety studies including regularly chairing HAZID, HAZOP and LOPA workshops; conducting Reliability Analysis using RBD and FTA techniques; and leading Process Safety Management audits. He also regularly delivers Functional Safety activities and assessments to ensure compliance with international standards IEC 61511 and IEC 61508.
Presentation abstract/summary:
The Need For Compliance Driven Safety
Industries and commodities of the world are undergoing a fourth industrial revolution through digital technologies. These technological advancements are focusing on automation, smart technology and big data, however as industry 4.0 advances so the need to manage risk remains applicable and is a constant threat to people and the environment. The management of risk has been fundamental in all previous industrial revolutions and functional Safety, the cornerstone of safety in automation and control systems, is driven by a need to demonstrate compliance through standards such as IEC 61508. As demand increases for automation so too are the requirements of functional safety so the urgency for innovative solutions in how we demonstrate compliance is accelerating. By combining advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) with deep industry expertise, we can analyse vast datasets to uncover hidden risks and insights into how safety and control systems are performing. This shift away from traditional methods is allowing industry to move from a compliance driven safety to intelligence driven risk management, essentially turning "unknown knowns" into "known knowns" for safety engineers.
Operational availability as a strategic imperative
With an ever growing focus on automation, availability and effectiveness of safety critical barriers such as alarms, trips and other protection layers, is a cornerstone strategy. Historically, instrumentation, safety, and reliability engineering advancements have already yielded significant improvements in safety system design with ever increasing levels of diagnostics and ultimately availability. While digitisation has generated massive amounts of highly detailed and relevant data, though, the sheer volume and complexity of that makes it hard for human experts to identify and validate opportunities for safety system performance improvements.
Today, advances in AI and data analytics allow us to unlock a new level of actionable opportunities for performance of safety critical barriers. Leveraging real-time data, industries can obtain a new understanding on complex safety systems, providing greater insight into their operational availability and effectiveness. Paired with the right insights for immediate correction, safety engineers gain a powerful tool to increase availability and uptime of plants ensuring production levels can be maintained.
Towards a Safer Future
The narrative on safety system performance must evolve from mere compliance through strategic business imperative and regulatory compliance. ERM are convinced this transitioning from Compliance Driven Safety to Intelligence Driven Risk Management in Industry 4.0 requires collaboration, innovative thinking, and a commitment to leveraging technology for impactful change.