exida explains Blog

Performing site audits for numerous customers can be very telling.  All sites have their own unique layout, procedures, documentation, and people.  Did you know that failure rates differ from site to site?  Are you surprised?  According to our recent webinar results, the majority of people aren’t, and in fact…

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Good things happened in the fields of functional safety and control system cybersecurity in 2015.  I am not going to include the exciting new Star Wars movie as an event in the list as it does not really fit into the topic. But keeping focused, my highlights is 2015…

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The IEC 61511 Standard requires the user to create a Safety Requirements Specification (SRS) for a Safety Instrumented System (SIS) that incorporates all the analysis done during the Risk Assessment, HAZOP/PHA and LOPA reviews.  The SRS falls into two types: an initial conceptual SRS, often referred to as the…

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Site audits have shown many differences in how things are done from site to site. This impacts many variables in a safety instrumented system!

A key metric for process industry designs is called average Probability of Failure on Demand (PFDavg).  After several studies of many field failure and proof…

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The adoption of the functional safety standards continues to gain momentum in turbine applications. Both industrial and power turbine sites are now requiring compliance to IEC 61511. This blog will review both technical requirements and market trends related to functional safety system design. Market trends will cover which standards…

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exida has launched the web site www.silsafedata.com. SILSafe Data is a web site listing a number of product categories used in process control and the expected range of failure rates for process industry applications. The use of realistic and application appropriate failure rate data has a significant…

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We all know when we’re finished with the product development cycle; it’s printed in a little box on the project schedule Gantt chart.  The end of July… right there on the schedule, and it’s been there since the project inception.  So what happens when you reach 31-July and your…

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While channel surfing the TV this weekend, I happened to stop on an old show called “My Mother The Car.”  (Ok, I’m dating myself, but it was filmed in color, as opposed to some other favorite old shows still in black-and-white).  The fictional car, a 1928 Porter built for…

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The adoption of the functional safety standards continues to gain momentum in turbine applications. Both industrial and power turbine sites are now requiring compliance to IEC 61511. This blog will review both technical requirements and market trends related to functional safety system design. Market trends will cover which standards…

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The adoption of the functional safety standards continues to gain momentum in turbine applications. Both industrial and power turbine sites are now requiring compliance to IEC 61511. This blog will review both technical requirements and market trends related to functional safety system design. Market trends will cover which standards…

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Hacking public transportation systems is always depicted on TV and movies.  And they make it seem so easy… it only takes seconds for these fictional experts.  Is it a reality?

Well, the Amtrak train derailment that occurred earlier this year in Philadelphia got me thinking about “hacking” as a…

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The “see something, say something” mantra is being used as a countermeasure for terrorism and crime, but it can also be effective to improve functional safety in development teams and plant sites.  It could be useful in general process improvement as well.

This can be especially evident during training…

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Click here to read the first entry in this blog series (What is SIL compliance?)

Click here to read the second entry in this blog series (How is SIL Used?)

As we now know, a Safety Integrity Level (SIL) can only be given to a…

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Click here to read the first entry in this blog series 

Once the Safety Integrety Level (SIL) of a product is found, it will be used FOUR ways:

1. To establish risk reduction requirements
2. Probabilistic limits for hardware random failure
3. Architectural constraints 
…

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The Safety Integrety Level (SIL) of a product is determined by three things:

1. The Systematic Capability Rating
2. The  Architectural Constraints for the element
3. The PFDavg Calculation for the product

The Systematic Capability Rating

Systematic Capability is established by having your quality management system audited per IEC 61508.…

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