2011…A Year in Review
Thursday, January 12, 2012Viewed 1473 times
2011 was a good year in many ways for Functional Safety and Cyber Security. Several instrumentation products achieved IEC 61508 certification. exida Certification alone issued 64 product certifications (http://www.sael-onine.com). With most certification projects, improvements to the design and quality are made. Some manufacturers are now quite focused on significant improvements to future products that should improve safety and reliability. Innovation in automatic self-diagnostics also occurred in 2011. The statistical analysis packages introduced last year in pressure transmitters are currently used to detect plugged impulse lines. The technique is finding new diagnostic applications finding other failures. I have seen more compliance voltage monitoring in transmitters, new methods for detecting sensor failures in transmitters, better partial valve stroke monitoring, and…