Could you briefly explain the Maersk’s approach to obsolescence management?

A structured way of assessing known and new obsolescence issues to clarify required actions, enabling to buffer future capital expenditure expectations to deal with the issue at hand. I.e. some forward planning of technical projects and funds needed.
Then linking it to vendor bulletins abt. obsolescence to have a radar for new obsolescence issues. 

What are the main factors that should be taken into account when foreseeing obsolescence of systems and components?

Developing a risk assessment tool that yields the risk appetite level in the company. I.e. what systems are critical enough to be actioned based on the input factors (available spares, consumption rate, etc.). By this management allows funds and focus in the right places giving the minimal impact on operations. Then a good inventory overview and history of systems failures and remaining lifetime expectancy of system. 

Please tell about the planning challenge. How do you align this issue with the management?

Sharing war stories of what “factory downtime” we avoided just by chance or dumb luck. The list was long.  At the same time presenting one way it could be handled (principles) and offering the internal resources to run the project phase.
After setting up the system in our CMMS, using the system is embedded in our maintenance function. Everybody in the company (with access to our CMMS) can input potential/actual obsolescence knowledge for the HQ function to deal with in a structured way 

What risks are in the way of securing safety-critical systems?

This is back to the above Risk Matrix. Safety critical systems are always designed in a way that only long-term unavailability of parts will become an issue. Short term it will only hit uptime/operations, not safety. Safety systems are typically redundant (Electrical and automation parts). 

What would you like to achieve by attending the 3rd Edition Process Safety Excellence Conference?

Inspiration to a “Dashboard” indicating truly the integrity of “Safety Barriers” on systems. A tell tale way of giving online/real-time KPIs for the integrity of barriers. Technical (technical systems like a fire detecting system or effectiveness of passive fire protection), Operational (processes, procedures, instructions and information) and Organisational (competence and training). I would like a data/fact driven system giving general transparency of all our safety barriers (integrity) on a real time basis. Preferably with a visual interface that can be shared on all screens from CEO office to OIM on board.