Placement student funding accelerates process safety product development

Aberdeenshire headquartered process safety firm, Salus Technical, have been awarded funding from The Data Lab to secure a placement student to aid bringing new technology to market.

Robert Gordon University (RGU) MSc Business Analytics student, John Leitch, is joining the company for a 12-week placement, as part of Scotland’s innovation centre for data and AI, The Data Lab’s MSc programme. John will be developing a proof of concept for one of Salus Technical’s future software products which has the potential to revolutionise the hazard and operability (HAZOP) process.

John will be working with Salus Technical MD and founder, David Jamieson, to explore different methodologies and techniques to ascertain which one delivers the most valuable outcome. The project’s findings will be used to seek further investment and bring the product to market.

The product, which is currently in the development phase, uses a library of thousands of process safety incidents to make it less likely for personnel to miss potential sources of major accidents. In coupling the HAZOP process with accidents that have occurred, it uses big data and machine learning to enhance the role of people rather than seeking to replace them. As well as Oil & Gas and Petrochemical, it has the potential to be applied to other major accident industries such as geothermal, carbon capture and hydrogen production.

David Jamieson, MD and founder of Salus Technical said, “I think it’s imperative for those of us in industry to support the learning and development of the next generation. For instance, this year we have been working closely with the Process Safety students at the University of Edinburgh, having given them free access to our Bowtie Master software. Supporting John through the final part of his MSc is a continuation of this commitment.

“It’s really gratifying for us to offer him this opportunity, but equally we will benefit from John applying his state-of-the-art skills and academic knowledge to the development of our new product. We’re really excited about this product as it has the potential to be a game changer for the safety industry, helping prevent incidents and creating new Scottish jobs. We’re very grateful to the Data Lab for awarding us the funding that simultaneously supports John, while enabling us to drive forward with this project.”

John Leitch added: “This is a really exciting opportunity for me to put my learning into practice and gain real-world experience with the Salus Technical team. I’m passionate about exploiting the potential of data to derive new business insights and applications. As such, I’m very much looking forward to working with David and Andrea, and helping them bring a product to market that will save lives.”