Litre Meter has launched the third in a series of oil and gas industry safety surveys.

The survey (http://tinyurl.com/LM-PMI-Survey) is designed to enable manufacturers and resellers of process instrumentation to test assertions about functionality and construction, as well as quality of manufacture.

The new survey concentrates on positive material identification (PMI) and one lucky respondent will win a Kindle for taking part.

PMI is a well-accepted analytical materials testing and materials identification technique used within the metal alloy industry. It guarantees the materials’ chemical composition as required for quality control.

PMI testing allows the manufacturers to ensure every part in a process system conforms to specification, identify the correct alloy grade where a critical part is to be replaced and to facilitate inward goods inspection to ensure all bought-in materials are to specification.

"We want to make sure that our manufacturing focus is on safety in relation to both the environment and industry trends."

Using PMI correctly can help avoid the potential failure of a critical component, which could lead, in the worst case, to a catastrophic failure of a process and loss of life.

Litre Meter CEO Charles Wemyss said: "There has been increased focus on safety issues in the offshore sector over recent years. We want to make sure that our manufacturing focus is on safety in relation to both the environment and industry trends.

"Issues surrounding the environment and hydrocarbon releases, asset ageing and life extension drive the focus on safety. We want to be able to help in the process of recognising hazards and reducing risk, as well as help engineers take ownership of risk and asset integrity through proving assertions about the functionality and construction of instruments.

"Asset integrity management ensures that the people, systems, processes and resources that deliver integrity are in place, in use and will perform on demand over the asset’s lifecycle.

"Being able to prove assertions about the manufacture and functionality of equipment are vital in this process."

Earlier this year, Litre Meter conducted surveys of the use of safety integrity levels (SIL) in the specification of instrumentation in the oil and gas sector and the relevance of the EU Pressure Equipment Directive outside Europe. The results of the SIL survey are published at http://tiny.cc/sil-result and the results of the PED survey can be found at http://tinyurl.com/PED-results.