In the 1980’s, there was a raging debate in the functional safety committee about redundancy versus diagnostics. Some said functional safety could only be achieved with redundant systems. This was strongly supported by Triple Modular Redundant (2oo3) safety PLC vendors.
Others argued that diagnostics would be an equal or…
Internet of things or IoT can be defined as the interconnection via the internet of computing devices embedded in everyday objects enabling them to send and receive data. The Internet of Things is revolutionizing the way we operate our systems today. As IIoT (Industrial IoT) devices and gateways populate the industrial…
The Cuckoo’s Egg & How it Relates to Cybersecurity
Let me be the first to say that I don’t normally do book reviews. Frankly, I thought I left them behind years ago when they were required assignments for my undergraduate classes. Nevertheless, I find myself writing one today, not because I must, but because there are so many cybersecurity professionals…
Why Data Science Knowledge is Required in Alarm Management
The alarm system is a daily encounter for most operations across different industries. For oil and gas, the alarm system alerts and reminds the operation to take action(s) to revert the process back to the normal operating range. For pharmaceuticals and batch operations, the alarm system can be used…
I’ve been teaching our FSE100 course now for nearly 10 years and it always amazes me that when teaching the course, the number of times I find that end users in the class are not really measuring the performance of their SIS. In most cases, they are doing…
The New Year is a great time to make resolutions, but often as the weeks pass, these resolutions fall to the back burner. A study completed in 2016 showed that less than 25% of those who set a resolution successfully followed that resolution for a year.1 When we think about…
The Perfect Match of Lockpicking and Cybersecurity
First off, an introduction is in order. My name is Greg Houser, and I’m one of the new fish here at exida (no, that’s not a typo – the ‘e’ is lowercase in “exida”). And…
To Be Meaningful & Useful Failure Rates Must Be Validated
Engineers and managers who work with safety equipment have likely seen a failure rate of some kind quoted for the equipment. Some equipment even comes with a safety certification stating the failure rate given certain assumptions about how the equipment will be used.
Evolution of Engineering Design – Advanced Diagnostics vs Redundancy
I recently studied the design changes made on the T series of old British cars (a hobby) made by the MG Company in England from 1936-1955. Models progressed over that time period including the TA, TB, TC, TD, and TF. I noted a strange looking two position switch on the dash…
Functional Safety Assessments – Why Aren’t They Being Done?
It’s an interesting fact that many end users and engineering companies that I’ve talked to have not or do not undertake Functional Safety Assessments (FSAs). Why is this? My view is that many do not realize and/or understand the true purpose of and benefit of performing FSAs. The IEC61511 standard identifies 5…
TL;DR Tools used in developing safety related automotive systems do not receive an ASIL. Some tools and the way they are used may not be suitable for the development of automotive safety electronics and this depends on the ASIL. When a tool vendor mentions an ASIL they might be…
Reliability Engineering experts know there are many variables that impact operational failure rates. These variables even include how operations and maintenance are done at a specific site. Sometimes it feels like there are so many variables that no realistic failure rate can ever be predicted without a few hundred hours of…
It finally happened. Alarm management problems at the plant led to an incident and now management wants action. You have “volunteered” to put together a plan to execute alarm rationalization. You need to create a defendable estimate of how long rationalization will…
Preparedness is defined as being in a state of readiness (Webster, 2022). This can take many different forms but when it comes to cybersecurity, a big part is knowing what threats lie in wait within the cyber landscape. It’s difficult to prepare against threats or vulnerabilities you don’t know exist. Being able…
The exida explains blog has been around for over five years and gives expert and sometimes candid insight into the world functional safety, alarm management, and industrial cybersecurity.