OIL , GAS & ENERGY
SLICE AND DICE SIS DATA
Phillips 66 is using SIS-TECH’s SIL Solver Enterprise to chart a clear path for downstream and processing operations, turning decades of data into actionable, digital insights for safety, operations, and uptime
hen it comes to digital transformation, refining and processing operators face unique challenges. Unlike other industries already leveraging digital twins to improve design, enable predictive maintenance, and boost operational efficiency, the refining and processing sectors often struggle with data management. Many facilities have accumulated vast quantities of data over decades. This data is often
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scattered across departments, locked in outdated formats, and managed by tools from different generations. Such fragmentation makes digital transformation complex, as updating one document can render others outdated, creating uncertainty about which version is accurate. Muthiah Nagappan P.E, CFSE – Phillips 66 Safety Instrumented Systems Lead, Industrial Control Systems, and his team were tasked with leading the digital transformation of the company’s Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS). Their mission: identify the best way to consolidate decades of dispersed and inconsistent safety data into a smarter, more practical system. This innovative solution aims to eliminate data silos, deliver enterprise-wide visibility, and bring greater clarity to safety lifecycle management.
Phillips 66, headquartered in Houston, operates nine refineries and initially set out to pursue full lifecycle digitalisation when it began its digital journey over five years ago. This would allow it to replicate its entire safety system digitally from front-end design through to commissioning. In theory, the process would deliver enormous savings in both time and money: design one unit, press a button, and replicate it across sites.
“As much as it was intellectually satisfying to conceptualise the digitisation of the entire process, including front-end design to operation and maintenance, we quickly realised that the ROI just wasn’t there,” said Nagappan.
The true opportunity wasn’t in digitising front-end design data but in focusing on
26 JUNE 2025 | PROCESS & CONTROL
operations, maintenance, and safety performance data of the existing assets. Phillips 66 made a strategic decision to reorient its digitalisation efforts around SIS during the operations and maintenance (O&M) phase - where proactive decisions directly impact reliability, uptime, and safety. This approach aligned with guidance from the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) Recommended Practice 754, which classifies safety metrics into four tiers. While Tier 1 and Tier 2 reflect incidents that have already occurred, Tier 3 metrics act as leading indicators - revealing that a safety protection system was activated to prevent a potential event.
“Before we started utilising SIL Solver Enterprise, our safety data lived in siloed digital formats,” explained Nagappan. “You could read it - but tracking, comparing, or integrating this safety design basis was much harder.” Phillips 66’s safety lifecycle tool, SIL Solver Enterprise, was developed by Dr. Angela Summers, and has evolved into a fully integrated safety management platform. It supports the entire SIS process - from design and documentation to compliance and governance - enabling digital transformation, eliminating data silos, and providing consistent visibility across the enterprise.
The secure, cloud-based architecture from SIS-TECH allowed Phillips 66 to centralise all SIS data across its refining assets. Rather than managing static reports in disconnected systems, teams now work within a dynamic environment where safety data can be filtered, analysed, and compared across units and facilities. Updates made in one area are
automatically reflected across all related documentation, ensuring accuracy and alignment from field operations to corporate safety audits.
“It was a paradigm shift - going from exchanging documents to exchanging data,” said Nagappan.
SIL Solver enables Phillips 66 to compare SIL ratings across similar systems, standardise processes, ask deeper operational questions and uncover patterns that were previously hidden.
The ongoing efforts to access, analyse, and visualise SIS data in aggregate are helping Phillips 66 become increasingly proactive in its safety management. As this work progresses, their teams are beginning to identify systemic issues and risk clusters, moving beyond merely addressing isolated failures.
Phillips 66’s Safety Instrumented Systems digital transformation aligns with the Industry 4.0 Maturity Index’s six stages of digital maturity (the six stages are listed in full here:
https://processandcontrolmag.co.uk/from- safety-silos-to-strategic-insights-phillips-66- digitally-transforms-sis-management/). After several years of focused effort – and with the right tools now in place – Phillips 66 sees itself firmly in Stage 2 (connectivity) and advancing toward Stage 3 (visibility). At that level, SIL Solver Enterprise will enable the comparison of “evergreen” static safety design data, which reflects how systems should operate, with real-time operational data from the field, to generate Tier 3 Metrics aligned with API-752. The next step, Stage 4 (transparency), is where Nagappan believes real efficiencies will begin to emerge.
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