【2025 Standards】GB/T 32857-2025 \"Guidelines for the Application of Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA)\」released
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**On December 2, 2025, the State Administration for Market Regulation (**Standardization Management Committee**) issued Announcement No. 33 of 2025 under the **Standards of the People’s Republic of China**, officially approving the release of GB/T 32857-2025, \"Guidelines for the Application of Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA)\\", with an implementation date of July 1, 2026. This standard is under the jurisdiction of the National Technical Committee for Standardization of Industrial Process Measurement, Control and Automation (SAC/TC124). The Sub-Committee on System and Functional Safety of SAC/TC124/SC10 is responsible for organizing its revision. The drafting units include the Comprehensive Technical and Economic Research Institute for Instruments and Meters in the machinery industry, Sinopec ** Petrochemical Project Risk Assessment Technology Center Co., Ltd., China Global Engineering Corporation, Nanjing NARI Relay Protection Engineering Technology Co., Ltd., and Zhongke Synthetic Oil Technology Co., Ltd., among others.
The protective layer analysis method is a semi-quantitative risk assessment technique that determines whether the existing protective layer can reduce risks in specific scenarios to the level required by acceptable risk standards, by analyzing the probability of hazardous failures associated with the requirements of that protective layer. LOPA is an important assessment tool for Safety Integrity Levels (SIL), and compared to graphical methods, LOPA can provide more accurate results. This semi-quantitative risk assessment method can reduce the subjectivity of qualitative analysis methods, and it is also easier to implement than quantitative analysis methods; as a result, it is being used more and more widely in risk assessment.