exida.com

March 9, 2010: Price Drop on SERH Vol. 3 Box Set and EMCRH!

exida has just announced all new discounted prices for their two popular data books: Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook (Vol. 3) and the Electrical & Mechanical Reliability Handbook (EMCRH 2nd Edition).

The Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook Vol. 3 Box Set (previously $1350 USD) is now $995 USD.

The Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook, third edition, is the ultimate reference book for any safety engineer involved in Conceptual Design and Safety Integrity Level verification. It provides a tremendous amount of detailed reliability data for both specific manufacturer products as well as generic equipment items. Many companies have standardized their reliability evaluations on reliability data published by exida.

Electrical & Mechanical Component Reliability Handbook (previously $995 USD) is now $595 USD.

The Electrical and Mechanical Component Reliability Handbook is an indispensable reference for any engineer involved in designing or analyzing safety related equipment. It is particularly useful for Failure Modes, Effects and Diagnostic Analysis; but its detailed descriptions of failure modes and rates can prove valuable during component selection as well.

March 3, 2010: exida to Sponsor and Present at ISA Applications in Automation Conference

exida to Sponsor and Present at ISA Applications in Automation Conference in Wilmingtom, DE from March 23-25, 2010.

This three-day conference features several of ISA’s most popular training courses, a local ISA technical conference with paper presentations on today’s hottest automation topics, a product and solutions showcase, and an evening event for networking with your peers. The technical conference can be attended in-person or via virtual conference over the web.

Full brochure and schedule can be viewed by clicking the link below.

March 1, 2010: EXIDA CERTIFIES DET-TRONICS X3301 IR FLAME DETECTOR FOR SAFETY per IEC 61508

SELLERSVILLE, PA (Feb. 18, 2010) -- exida, a global supplier of functional safety products, services, and certifications, has certified the Det-Tronics X3301 IR Flame Detector per IEC61508 as Safety Integrity Level (SIL) 2 capable, single use (Hardware Fault Tolerance=0). The product design and development processes were also assessed as suitable for applications up to and including SIL 2.

“The assessment verified that Det-Tronics’ product development processes and product hardware design meet the high quality standards and safety integrity requirements of the IEC 61508 safety standard,” says Michael Medoff, senior safety engineer at exida. “A Failure Modes, Effects, and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA) was done as part of the hardware assessment. This analysis was validated by the field failure study. The combination shows an accurate picture of the random failure rates and demonstrates compliance with SIL 2.”

“We take pride in the X3301’s reliability and immunity to false alarms,” says Jon Miller, Quality and Approvals manager at Det-Tronics. “Achieving certification to 61508 helps reinforce the IR Flame detector’s fit for applications in which risk to personnel is high and where fire might result in a large loss of equipment. We chose exida for the certification process because of their unique ability to do the analysis, their experience, and the recognition of their work globally.”

For more information about exida certification and Det-Tronics flame detectors log on to www.exida.com or www.det-tronics.com.

February 15, 2010: Alarm Management Article at Chemical Processing .com

exida's Director of Alarm Management Services, Todd Stauffer, co-authored an article on Alarm Managemt that has been published at Chemical Processing.com.

Below is an excerpt:

Avoid the Domino Effect

Take advantage of a new standard to improve alarm management and enhance plant safety and productivity.

By Nicholas P. Sands, DuPont, and Todd Stauffer, exida

Most process plants constantly strive to improve their operations. The performance of operators and the alarm system can markedly impact the quest to bolster safety, minimize unplanned downtime, increase productivity and achieve other gains. Help is on the way from a new International Society of Automation (ISA) standard. "Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries," ISA-18.2, provides a framework for the successful design, implementation, operation and management of alarm systems [1]. (The about-80-page document was approved on June 23, 2009, and is available at isa.org.) This article offers an overview of the standard with a focus on how it will impact plants.

February 9, 2010: exida CERTIFIES HONEYWELL’S SAFETY MANAGER
SELLERSVILLE, PA (February 9, 2010) -- exida, a global supplier of functional safety and security services, engineering tools and certifications, has certified the communication security and robustness of Honeywell’s Experion® Safety Manager to the AchillesTM Level I evaluation standard. Certification provides Honeywell and other equipment manufacturers with an independently verified and internationally recognized means to demonstrate the resiliency of their Ethernet-enabled critical control and safety systems to customers.
“There is a growing urgency within hydrocarbon processing industries and other critical infrastructure sectors to ensure that their control systems are protected from intentional or accidental cyber threats,” says John Cusimano, director of cyber security solutions for exida. . “This is particularly crucial for safety instrumented systems (SIS) that are often the last line of defense in preventing serious process safety incidents. “Functional safety certification has been a mandatory SIS requirement for years, but it does not address cyber vulnerabilities,” Cusimano continues. “Functional security, in combination with functional safety, is critical in assessing the overall integrity of a SIS. Communication robustness testing, such as Achilles Level I, provides the foundation of such a program.”
“Honeywell has gone to great lengths to ensure our critical control and safety products are secure by design,” says Kevin Staggs, engineering fellow at Honeywell Process Solutions. “Achieving Achilles Level I certification from exida is a key step in demonstrating that the Honeywell Safety Manager meets stringent industry best practices and performance benchmarks for safety and security.”

January 28, 2010: The IEC 61508 Functional Safety Certification Process for Automation Equipment WEBINAR ADDED
Click the link below to view the webinar

January 21, 2010: ISA-18.2: Setting a new Standard in Alarm Management RECORDED WEBINAR ADDED
With production running ever closer to equipment and facility operating limits with fewer people, alarm management has become a key to achieving operational excellence, increasing plant safety, and reducing unplanned downtime. Changing the practices and procedures used in the plant has become easier and more important with the June 2009 release of a new ISA standard on alarm management -“Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries”. The ISA-18.2 standard, which provides a framework for the successful design, implementation, operation, and management of alarm systems in a process plant, is expected to be adopted by regulatory agencies and insurance agencies as“good engineering practice”. This presentation will provide an introduction to the new standard and discuss how it will affect the process industry.
LAUNCH WEBINAR

January 19, 2010: FREE Webinar Schedule Announced for 1st quarter of 2010

New Webinar Series Focuses on Safety, Security and Reliability: What you need to Know
Did you make a New Year’s resolution to learn something new in the world of automation? Are you looking to enhance your skills to be more successful at work ? exida is here to help.
The exida webinar series is back and better than ever with all new topics and content. Tune in throughout 2010 on Thursdays at 11:00 AM to learn more about the world of safety, security, and reliability. The webinar series will be broken up into four “tracks”:

Functional Safety for OEMs

Functional Safety for End Users

Control System Cyber Security

Alarm Management

Schedule for first quarter: (Thursdays at 11:00 AM)

Date Course Details

Jan. 21, 2010 ISA-18.2: Setting a new Standard in Alarm Management Details

Jan. 28, 2010 The IEC 61508 Functional Safety Certification Process for Automation Equipment Details

Feb. 4, 2010 Introduction to Cyber Security for Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) Details

Feb. 11, 2010 Failure Modes, Effects, and Diagnostics Analysis (FMEDA): Methods and Data Details

Feb. 18, 2010 IEC 61511 Safety Lifecycle Overview Details

Feb. 25, 2010 IEC 61508 Certification for Mechanical Equipment Details

March 4, 2010 Introduction to the Control System Security Lifecycle Details

March 11, 2010 Alarm Management for SIS Details

March 18, 2010 IEC 61511 - Process Hazard Analysis, Engineering Tools Details

March 25, 2010 IEC 61511 - LOPA, Engineering Tools Details

April 8, 2010 IEC 61511 - SIL Selection Details

January 6th, 2010: exida CERTIFIES SIEMENS SAFETY SYSTEM COMMUNICATIONS
SELLERSVILLE, PA (January 5, 2010) -- exida, a global supplier of functional safety and security services, engineering tools and certifications, has certified Siemens Industry, Inc.’s QUADLOG Fail Safe Communication Gateway Function Blocks as suitable for use in SIL 3 Capable applications per the international functional safety standard, IEC 61508.
Siemens recently added the specialized function blocks to its 4-mation configuration software. The function blocks permit the configuration of IEC61508 certified safety critical communications between two QUADLOG controllers via an Ethernet network using the Industrial Ethernet Module (IEM). “exida not only has unequalled knowledge and expertise regarding safety standards, but also is committed to the highest levels of customer service in the marketplace,” says Stacey Jarlsberg, Siemens APACS+ and QUADLOG product manager. “exida worked closely with us to comply with these standards.”
“The certification gives Siemens customers a high level of confidence in the fail safe properties of the function blocks,” says Iwan van Beurden, director of engineering for exida. “Siemens has always been a leader in automation safety and security and this certification is just one more example of this dedication.”
About exida:
exida is a certification and research firm specializing in safety critical and high availability automation systems. exida has performed more process control safety certifications than any other company worldwide. exida's main offices are located in Sellersville, PA, USA and Munich, Germany. exida has worldwide operations with service centers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. For more information about exida visit the company’s Web site at http://www.exida.com.
About Siemens:
A division of Siemens Industry, Inc. (SII), the Industry Automation (IA) Division is a global leader in the fields of automation systems, low-voltage switchgear and industrial software. IA’s portfolio ranges from standard products for the manufacturing and process industries to enterprise-wide automation solutions for automobile production facilities and chemical plants. As a leading software supplier, IA optimizes the entire value chain of manufacturers – from product design and development to production, sales, as well as a wide range of maintenance services. With nearly 43,000 employees worldwide, Industry Automation earned $13.1 billion in sales in fiscal year 2008. www.usa.siemens.com/automation.
Siemens Industry, Inc. (SII) is the U.S. affiliate of Siemens’ global Industry Sector business—the world’s leading supplier of production, transportation and building technology solutions. The company’s integrated hardware and software technologies enable comprehensive industry-specific solutions for industrial and infrastructure providers to increase their productivity, sustainability and profitability. The Industry Sector includes six divisions: Building Technologies, Industry Automation, Industry Solutions, Mobility, Drive Technologies and OSRAM SYLVANIA. With nearly 222,000 Siemens Industry Sector employees worldwide, the Industry Sector posted a worldwide profit of $5.82 billion on revenues of $57 billion in fiscal 2008. www.usa.siemens.com/Industry
###

January 5th, 2010: exida's Director of Alarm Management Services to speak at ISA Function
exida's Director of Alarm Management Services, Todd Stauffer will be the featured speaker at the ISA event entitled: A Journey, not a Destination: ISA's New Standard on Alarm Management
With production running ever closer to equipment and facility operating limits, the importance of alarm management has never been greater. Poor alarm management is a leading cause of unplanned downtime, contributing to over $20B in lost production every year. It also has been a leading contributor to some of the worst industrial accidents on record (Three Mile Island, Bhopal, Milford Haven Refinery, Texas City). Help has arrived with the new ISA-18.2 standard -“Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries”, providing a framework for successful design, implementation, operation,andmanagementofalarmsystemsinaprocessplant. Sincealarm management is a continuous activity, not a “once and done” activity, the standard takes a lifecycle approach (i.e. it is a journey and not a destination). This is an overview of the new standard and will discuss the impact the process automation community.
Date & Time:
Wednesday January 20, 2010: Open 5:15 PM
Location:
Rumsey Electric Automation Solutions - 5 Colwell Lane, Conshohocken, Pa 19428 Phone: (610) 832-9000 Fax: (610) 941-8181
Cost:
FREE! Meal included if registered on time!
*NOTE: If not registered, $10.00 at the door Please register by Monday, January 18th, by calling (215) 637-5534 or E-mail: isaphilaed@msn.com
For more information, click on the link below.

December 22, 2010: exida CERTIFIES PEKOS BALL VALVES FOR SAFETY per IEC 61508
SELLERSVILLE, PA (Dec. 17, 2009) -- exida, a global supplier of functional safety products, services, and certifications, has certified the design and engineering processes for the Pekos Full Trunnion and Floating Ball valves as suitable for applications up to and including SIL 3 per IEC 61508 Parts 1 and 2.
“The Pekos Group has demonstrated that its product development processes and product hardware design meet the specified safety functions and safety integrity requirements of the IEC 61508 safety standard,” says Peter Söderblom, CEO exida Certification S.A. “The results of the detailed assessment are documented in exida’s SafetyCase tool which is used to determine which specific requirements from the standard are applicable”.
exida also performed a detailed Failure Modes, Effects, and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA) as part of the assessment.
“exida’s impressive track record for functional certification of devices was one of the major reasons we selected them for this project,” says Pekos Managing director Daniel Arranz. “Certification to IEC 61508 is one more step in our total quality control system, which is designed to assure that we always exceed the expectations of our customers”
For more information about exida certification and PEKOS Ball valves log on to www.exida.com or www.pekos.es .

December 11, 2009: exida CERTIFIES RGS E*3 series solenoid valves
SELLERSVILLE, PA (December 10, 2009) -- exida, a global supplier of functional safety and security services, engineering tools and certifications, has certified the design and engineering processes for RGS Electro-Pneumatics Ltd. E*3 Series solenoid valves as suitable for applications up to and including SIL 3 per IEC 61508 Parts 1 and 2.
RGS is a leading manufacturer of specialist solenoid valves and pneumatic products for the process control Industries. RGS submitted its 3/2 Pilot Operated and Direct Acting Solenoid Valves to exida for certification. exida assessed RGS’s development process through an audit, created a detailed safety case and performed a detailed Failure Modes, Effects, and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA). exida found that the products met the requirements of SIL 2, single use and SIL 3 for redundant use.
“RGS has clearly taken a great deal of care to ensure that the SIL ratings claimed for its solenoid valves are demonstrably valid,” says Iwan van Beurden, director of engineering for exida. “Its claims are made based on a rigorous safety case, FMEDA and test data on more than 750 million valve operations.”
“We understand that a component’s SIL rating should be taken simply as a guide to its potential,” says Stephen Lord, approvals and certification authority for RGS Electro-Pneumatics Ltd. “It is the probability of failure, the Safe Failure Fraction (SFF), and more particularly the data supporting those figures that is the real substance from which the SIL of a safety-related system can be known. We choose exida certification because its Open IEC 61508 method provides us and our customers with clear visibility into the certification process and results.”

November 20, 2009: exida Web Store YEAR END SPECIAL

Due to popular demand, exida has extended their online book special first introduced at the ISA Show in Houston

Don’t learn safety by accident.
Add to your library – Technical Resources for Safety Practitioners.

15% Off*
Selected Books in the exida Web Store
Use the Coupon Code: YEAREND09 Upon Checkout
GO TO THE WEB STORE

* Applies to the books:

Electrical & Mechanical Component Reliability Handbook (2nd edition), Final Elements and the IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 Functional Safety Standards , Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook (THIRD EDITION) VOL. 01, 02, & 03 - THREE VOLUME SET , Win-Win: A Manager's Guide to Functional safety , Certified Functional Safety Expert (CFSE) Study Guide Safety Book Package
Offer ends January 1, 2010

October 28, 2009: Integrating safety and security in process control Article
exida's Director of Security Services has an article published at SafetyBase.com. Here is an excerpt:
Traditionally, safety and security in process control adhered to a philosophy of separate but equal. Today, that approach is changing. Interest in integrating these two critical functions is accelerating and benefits are accruing—for a number of reasons:
• First and foremost, control systems engineers are recognizing that safety and security have common goals. In the end, both involve life safety. Whether the cause is an unsafe act or a security breach, the fear is the same—that a personnel safety incident might occur. “Avoiding production interruptions and downtime are important, but secondary,” observes Exida’s John Cusimano, director of cyber security. “From a control system standpoint, most companies are less concerned about data falling into the wrong hands than about somebody altering a system in a way that could cause danger to someone.”
• Second, adopting a common methodology or lifecycle approach to safety and security is simply more efficient engineering. It avoids duplication of effort, minimizes the possibility of omissions, and helps develop a safer and more secure system overall. “Doing an automation system safety design, and then going back to see if it is secure enough wastes time and effort,” explains Cusimano. “Doing the two concurrently is more efficient and makes it less likely to overlook something.”
• Finally, security and safety are more readily integrated today because the differences that once separated them are disappearing. As industrial control systems adopt commercial technologies and operating systems, vulnerabilities increase. As networks and open systems proliferate and IT infrastructure is incorporated into control systems, the expertise of IT security professionals is required to help manage these unfamiliar technologies. “We can’t always apply IT security practices to process control as they are applied in the IT environment,” warns Cusimano. “They need to be tailored to the control system. This reality has created the need for an overlap between the two disciplines, fostering a team approach that is becoming critical to effective safety/security integration.”

October 28, 2009: Pursuing the discipline of control system cyber security Article
exida's Director of Security Services has an article published at Plant Engineering. Here is an excerpt:
As a relative newbie to the world of control system cyber security (who isn't?) but an old-timer to control system functional safety, there are two things I have noticed. One, the best performing companies approach safety and security as an engineering discipline. Two, they maintain discipline by having a deeply embedded safety and security corporate culture.
What does it mean to approach safety and security as an engineering discipline? It's easier to answer that today by looking at functional safety, because that field is far more mature than "functional security," which, as a term, is just beginning to be defined and adopted by industry. About 15 years ago, there were no broadly accepted standards on how to design and implement a safety system. In fact, there was not even consensus on what these systems were called.
Names ranged from emergency shutdown system to Safety Instrumented System (SIS) with about a dozen names in between. With a lack of standards and very little published material on how to design these systems, most control system engineers avoided safety system design like the plague. Those that dared work on these systems were revered in the same way ancient cultures revered the medicine man.
Click the link below for more information.

October 19, 2009: exida “Shows the Way” at the ISA Show

“exida Can Show You the Way” was our theme at the recent ISA Show in Houston from Oct 6th – 8th. Although we were a veteran of past ISA technical conferences, this was our first year to have a physical booth on the floor of the tradeshow. It was a great success, giving us an opportunity to meet with customers and prospects that we would not have met otherwise.

Highlights of the booth included:

exSilentia product demonstrations

Continously running “video” on a 52” LCD TV showing all of the instruments that have been certified by exida to IEC 61508 (our instrument vendor customers really liked this !)

Book display and sale – showing that “exida wrote the book on functional safety”

Brochures and collateral to discuss our capabilities around functional safety, control system security, and alarm management

Exida is everywhere

We were also one of the show’s major sponsors – making it impossible to attend the show without seeing the “exida” name. The “exida” logo was present in the registration area and the entrance to the show.

Awards & Recognition

There was other recognition for exida at the show. We won, or were finalists, for several awards:

Chris O’Brien received the Keith Otto Award for the best Intech article of 2009 (“High-integrity overflow protection”)

Todd Stauffer received a Standards & Practices award for his contributions as a technical editor of the ANSI/ISA-18.2-2009 standard on alarm management

exida was one of thirteen finalists for the Intech Innovator’s award

The Launch of Functional Integrity Certification

Exida held a press conference on Tuesday October 6th to announce our new Functional Integrity Certification program – The world’s Certification program that combines Functional Safety, Security, and Availability. The successful press conference was attended by some 14 members of the trade press.

http://www.controlglobal.com/industrynews/2009/274.html

http://www.automation.com/content/exida-first-to-offer-combined-certification-for-functional-safety-security-and-availability

Presentations at the ISA Technical Conference

At ISAExpo, it wasn’t all about the tradeshow. We were also busy in the technical conference (especially John Cusimano) with numerous presentations.

“Securing Safety Instrumented Systems - A Recipe for Bolstering the Security of the Nation's Critical Infrastructure”, exida presenters: John Cusimano and Todd Stauffer.

“SIS Equipment Justification: Certification or Prior Use or Both?”, exida presenter: William Goble.

“Safe and Secure: Assurance of Availability, Reliability, and Maintainability for the Plant Floor (Panel Session)”, exida presenter: John Cusimano.

“The Elusive Beta Factor - Is it Fact or Fiction”, exida presenter: Joseph Siebert.

“How ISCI is Rationalizing Standards and Regulations to Form the Basis of ISA Security Compliance Programs”, exida presenter: John Cusimano.

Presentations on the Tradeshow Floor Theaters

ISA also provided “theaters” on the tradeshow floor for attendees to get an overview on key technology topics. The exida team delivered multiple presentations in the areas of safety and security, including:

“Improve Safety and Quality through IEC 61508 Certification”, presenter: Chris O'Brien

“What Went Wrong? A Real Look at Industrial Cyber Security Incidents”, John Cusimano,

“Making it easy to follow the ISA-84 Safety Lifecycle”, presenter: Iwan van Beurden.

“Safety Instrumented Systems Verification: Practical Probabilistic Calculations”, presenter: William Goble.

Standards Participation

Several members of the team were busy with attendance and participation in meetings around key standards.

The ISA-18.2 (alarm management) committee meeting was attended by Todd Stauffer

The ISA-84 (functional safety) committee meetings were attended by Bill Goble, Iwan van Beurden and Joe Siebert

The ISA-99 (control system security) committee meetings were attended by John Cusimano

To read more about the ISA Expo: www.isa.org/expo

October 19, 2009: exida First to Offer Combined Certification For Functional Safety, Security, and Availability
Functional Integrity Certification™ Benefits Automation Vendors and Customers

SELLERSVILLE, PA (October 6, 2009) -- exida, a global supplier of functional safety, security, and alarm management services, engineering tools and certifications, is the first company to offer a holistic evaluation of the most important attributes of an automation product – functional safety, functional security and availability.

Introduced today at ISA Expo 2009 in Houston, exida’s Functional Integrity Certification™ is the only independent, third party assessment that examines functional safety, security and availability attributes of an automation product through assessment of its design, testing and manufacturing. The program also scrutinizes how a product performs under stress, in the field and over time.

“This is a win-win for everyone,” says Dr. William Goble, exida principal partner. “Functional Integrity Certification helps automation suppliers demonstrate the safety, security and reliability of their products. This also saves engineering time and money through a streamlined, single source assessment process. In turn, prospective buyers are provided with objective information to help guide their purchasing decisions.”

“This program follows our open assessment policy,” says Rainer Faller, exida principal partner and CEO of exida GmbH. “Technical assessment reports are openly available on the exida web site.”

For functional safety, a product and its development process are evaluated per the international standard IEC 61508 to determine its Safety Integrity Level (SIL). The SIL level is a measure of the probability that a product will perform its intended protection function when needed.

Functional security assesses a product’s resiliency to intentional or accidental manipulation that could cause it to behave differently than was intended. A combination of network robustness testing, security feature assessment and software development process assessment helps detect and avoid vulnerabilities and systematic design faults. The certification is based on the ISA Security Compliance Institute (ISCI) Embedded Controller Security Assurance (ECSA) test specification.

Finally, an availability assessment ensures the dependability of automation products in critical applications. exida uses modeling and probabilistic methods, combined with empirical data, to help predict product reliability.

For more information about Functional Integrity Certification visit www.exida.com or call +1-215-453-1720 or +49-89-4900-0546.

October 16, 2009: Exida, anuncia el lanzamiento de la Guía de Estudio CFSP / CFSE en Español

Exida, se enorgullece en anunciar la versión en Español de su popular Guía de estudio para CFSP / CFSE.
Este es un servicio para la industria de la automatización llamado “Certificación de Experto en Seguridad Funcional y Certificación de Profesional en Seguridad Funcional. El propósito de estos programas es certificar a expertos y profesionales que puedan demostrar un conocimiento completo, capaz y reciente en el campo de Sistemas Instrumentados de Seguridad. El comité administrativo CFSE ofrece exámenes en los siguientes campos de experticia: ingeniería de desarrollo, ingeniería de aplicación y administración del ciclo de vida de la seguridad. Estas 100 páginas de la guía de estudio desarrollada por Exida, explica el proceso de aplicación y prueba de las áreas del conocimiento cubiertas, así como un examen completo de ejemplo para realizar una autoevaluación antes del tomar el examen. Esta guía está también disponible en formato de documento portátil (PDF), sin costo de envío y licenciado para una copia.
(Soft Cover-- published by exida.com, L.L.C.)

September 29, 2009: Operators on Alert Cover Story in Intech
exida personnel Todd Stauffer and David Hatch have a cover story published in the September 2009 issue of InTech. The article is entitled: "Operators on alert". Below is an excerpt:
As plants run closer to their performance limits with fewer operators and support staff, alarm management is becoming paramount to maintaining plant safety. The key to maximizing the safety protection the operator provides is creating an environment where they are able to detect, diagnose, and respond to alarms properly and on time. One way to do this is adopt the requirements and recommendations of the standard on alarm management (ANSI\ISA-18.2 standard, Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries) and take a coordinated approach to alarm management and safety instrumented system (SIS) design. The ANSI\ISA-18.2 standard offers guidance on how alarm management can help a plant operate more safely. The standard can also bring together the disciplines of alarm management and safety-system design, which must work more closely to prevent future accidents.

September 23, 2009: New ABB System 800xA safety libraries achieve SIL2/3 certification from exida
Wickliffe, Ohio, June 4, 2009 –- ABB announced today that a number of its System 800xA High Integrity safety applications have received SIL 2/3 certification from exida Certification SA, an independent third party firm that offers functional safety certification and consultation. This certification designates that these applications, designed for the specific process safety needs of upstream (exploration and production) oil and gas customers, meet the highest industry standards for reliability and safety and can operate under the broadest range of conditions.
The recently certified applications, called OGP (oil, gas & petrochemical) REUSE solutions, provide specific key process protection functions for upstream processes for oil, gas & petrochemical. They provide the foundation for critical solutions such as process shutdown (PSD), fire and gas (F&G) and emergency shut down (ESD) applications on the System 800xA AC 800M HI Controller. System 800xA High Integrity already had the highest certification for its standard safety applications and hardware.
“This important certification is part of our ongoing commitment to provide our customers with flexible, high integrity safety applications to protect and optimize all points in the upstream process,” said Alicia DuBay, Director of Systems Marketing, ABB Inc. “These applications leverage our many years of Oil and Gas industry and safety solutions experience to provide our customers with the critical safety protection they need for their process, people and the environment.”
ABB’s OGP REUSE Solutions have been deployed and field proven in numerous installations over the years, including on StatoilHydro’s Grane offshore oil production platform in the North Sea.
System 800xA High Integrity is ABB’s next generation safety system. This SIL 3 rated Safety Instrumented System (SIS) provides the highest level of integration of safety and control on the market today, and a unique embedded diverse technology architecture that provides superior protection of the process, plant, personnel, and the environment while it optimizes overall process efficiency. The newest version of System 800xA High Integrity was recently installed to control emergency shut down applications on StatoilHydro’s Troll A offshore gas production platform, 70 km off the coast of Norway.
ABB has been at the forefront of safety system development and delivery since 1979, when it commissioned the first emergency shut down system on the Statfjord B offshore oil platform in the North Sea. ABB is commemorating its 30 years of extensive safety experience in 2009; these solutions have protected literally generations of personnel and processes.
ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 120,000 people.

September 21, 2009: exida Joins ISA Security Compliance Institute
Research Triangle Park, NC (14 September 2009) - The ISA Security Compliance Institute announces the recent addition of exida LLC as a Technical Member.
Founded in 2007, the ISA Security Compliance Institute’s mission is to provide the highest level of assurance possible for the cyber security of industrial automation control systems. The Institute is well into development of an industry consensus cyber security specification for the ISASecure designation. Conformant products will carry the ISASecure designation, enabling suppliers to substantiate claims of compliance. The designation will also provide asset owners with independently validated cyber security characteristics for products when making procurement decisions.
Andre Ristaino, managing director of ISA's Automation Standards Compliance Institute, comments on the addition of exida to the Institute. “Dr. William Goble and his organization are globally recognized experts in engineering practices in the field of safety. Many of the same concepts are applicable to cyber security of control systems. exida’s insights and contributions from their top-drawer professionals will improve the quality of the ISASecure test specification.”
Headquartered in Sellersville, PA and Munich, Germany, exida is a significant provider of functional safety and control system security services, and certification and engineering tools. The company has extensive experience in major markets such as oil and gas, chemicals, power, automotive, and pharmaceuticals. exida has certified over 70 safety products to the ISO/IEC 61508 international standard.
exida also owns Byres Research, located in Vancouver, British Columbia. Byres Research is a world-class team of security and controls systems professionals dedicated to helping corporations and government agencies protect critical industrial automation and control systems from cyber incidents.
“We are very pleased to be a Technical Member of the ISA Security Compliance Institute”, says Dr. Goble, principle partner of exida. “Membership is consistent with our overall goal to help rapidly mature the field of control system security, including the design, certification, and application of products used in critical applications."
About the ISA Security Compliance Institute:
Founded in 2007, the ISA Security Compliance Institute’s mission is to provide the highest level of assurance possible for the cyber security of industrial automation control systems.
The Institute was established by thought leaders from major organizations in the industrial automation controls community seeking to improve the cyber security posture of Critical Infrastructure for generations to come. Founding Members include Chevron, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering, Honeywell, Invensys Process Systems, Siemens, and Yokogawa. Key Technical Members include exida, Mu Dynamics, Rockwell Automation, and Wurldtech Security Technologies.
The Institute’s goals are realized through industry standards compliance programs, education, technical support and, improvements in suppliers’ development processes and users’ life cycle management practices. The Institute’s ISASecure designation ensures that industrial automation control products conform to industry consensus cyber security standards, providing confidence to users of ISASecure products and systems and creating product differentiation for suppliers conforming to the ISASecure specification.

September 8, 2009: How critical is Proof Test Coverage? Article in Canadian Process Equipment & Control News
PIroblem: It is natural to assume that a small ∆ in a parameter of a system will result in a small ∆ in system output. Our calculations (see Table 1) demonstrate this is not true for the effect of proof test coverage on PFDAVG and the achieved SIL. This impact is so significant that many SIFs may not be achieving the expected SIL!
To undertand this, we need to look at what testing achieves. Both IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 (ISA S84.01) require testing to demonstrate that silent failures are detected and repaired in order to meet the target SIL. Two kinds of tests are recognized: diagnostic tests and manual proof tests.
Diagnostic tests are automatic tests and may be credited where the test interval is at least 10 times shorter than the expected demand interval. Additionally, they serve no practical purpose unless they are significantly more frequent than proof tests. For low demand applications, both requirements are easily met by logic solvers and many process transmitters, which can per- form internal diagnostic tests every few seconds or minutes. If automatic partial valve stroke testing (PVST) is also performed relatively frequently, then it too may be credited.
Click the link below to read the rest of the article.

September 3, 2009: exida CERTIFIES Bently Nevada™ Gas Detection Monitor

SELLERSVILLE, PA (September 2, 2009) -- exida, a global supplier of functional safety and security services, engineering tools and certifications, has certified the design and engineering processes for GE Energy’s Bently Nevada™ 3500/63 Gas Detection Monitor as suitable for applications up to and including SIL 2 per IEC 61508.
The 3500/63 Gas Detection Monitor, which is part of the Bently Nevada 3500 Series Machinery Protection System, is the latest addition to the 3500 Series Functional Safety (FS) offerings and also includes Overspeed Detection, Radial Vibration, Thrust Position, Case Vibration, Temperature and Process Variable Input monitors. The Bently Nevada protection systems contribute to significant safety enhancements by enabling the initiation of automatic shutdown of critical production machinery and early detection of system characteristics that may precede hazardous failure. GE’s System 1® condition monitoring software platform further complements the 3500 monitor’s capabilities by quickly delivering information about complex machine problems in a straightforward manner.
"Most customers and regulatory agencies require certification of protective instrumentation systems used in safety critical applications," says Iwan van Beurden, director of engineering for exida. "These applications, where the cost of a false or missed trip can be enormous, require instrumentation be capable of meeting stringent quantitative safety and reliability assessments."
"We switched to exida certification because we wanted an open IEC 61508 certification using full probabilistic analysis methods that provides our customers clear visibility into the certification process,” says Landon Boyer, product line manager, Bently Nevada Asset Condition Monitoring, GE Energy. “Exida even offered training and helped us develop our own FMEDA analysis capability which will dramatically reduce the time and effort to develop and certify future products."

August 18, 2009: InTech High-integrity Overflow Protection Article Posted
The article entitled "High-integrity Overflow Protection" by exida Partner Chris O'Brien, CFSE has been posted on the exida web site. The article was first published in the June 2009 issue of InTech. Below is an excerpt.
Year 2005 was a tragic year for level protection systems.
First, there was the 23 March 2005 explosion at the BP Deer Park oil refinery near Texas City, Tex. Then on 11 December 2005, another explosion occurred, this time at the Buncefield fuel depot near Hemel Hempstead, U.K.
The resultant investigation reports for each produced a lengthy list of senior executive and plant management failures and inadequacies. However, when you look at the timeline leading up to these disasters, it is a failure of the level protection systems to perform-on-demand that failed to prevent the deaths of 15 people, injury to over 200 more, and the expenditure of billions of dollars.

August 11, 2009: exida CERTIFIES Emerson’s Ovation SIS per IEC 61508
SELLERSVILLE, PA (August 11, 2009) -- exida, a global supplier of functional safety and security services, engineering tools and certifications, has certified the design and engineering processes for Emerson’s Ovation® Safety Instrumented System (SIS). Part of Emerson’s Smart SIS offering, Emerson’s Ovation SIS was certified as suitable for SIS applications up to and including SIL 3.
"Along with other industries identified as critical infrastructure sectors, there is growing demand within the power industry to follow the IEC safety standards and utilize certified equipment, especially for applications such as burner management and unit protection," says Iwan van Beurden, director of engineering for exida. "Ovation SIS employs digital intelligence and diagnostics to take a complete safety instrumented function approach which increases process availability, reduces life-cycle costs and eases regulatory compliance."
"We wanted an open IEC 61508 certification using the Safety Case methodology because it provides our customers clear visibility into the certification process giving them confidence in our design processes and products." says Gary Woodward, director product marketing & business development at Emerson’s Power & Water Solutions division. "We chose exida because it is the market leader in open IEC 61508 certification of products, especially products for process automation."

August 7, 2009: exida Featured in Automation World article on Cyber-Security
Safety Integrated Systems: Security and Safety Follow Parallel Paths
Written by Wes Iversen, Managing Editor
By picking the brains of functional safety experts, industrial cyber-security standards makers hope to make gains. Meanwhile, some companies are launching new business plans based on a tighter alignment between safety and cyber security.
Read More By Clicking the Link Below

August 6, 2009: exida Director of Alarm Management Services a Featured Speaker at ISA event
Todd R. Stauffer, Director of Alarm Management Services at exida, will be a featured speaker at an ISA event in Bethlehem, PA Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 6:00 PM.
New Standard on Alarm Management A Journey, not a Destination
With production running ever closer to equipment and facility operating limits, the importance of alarm management has never been greater. Poor alarm management is one of the leading causes of un- planned downtime, contributing to over $20B in lost production every year. It also has been a leading contributor to some of the worst industrial accidents on record (Three Mile Island, Bhopal, Milford Ha- ven Refinery, Texas City). Help has arrived in the form of the new ISA-18.2 standard -“Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries”, which provides a framework for the successful design, imple- mentation, operation, and management of alarm systems in a process plant. Since alarm management is a continuous activity, not a “once and done” activity, the standard takes a lifecycle approach (i.e. it is a journey and not a destination). This presentation will provide an overview of the new standard and will discuss how it will impact the process automation community.
About Todd
Todd is responsible for marketing and business development of exida’s alarm management products and services (training, consulting, engineering tools). He is an editor and voting member of the ISA-18 standards committee on alarm management. He previously worked for Siemens Energy & Automation where he held Product Management responsibility for APACS and PCS 7, as well as led key activities around alarm management and control system security. Recent publications include: “Don’t be Alarmed: Avoid Unplanned Downtime from Alarm Overload”, “Safety & Security: Can You Have the Best of Both Worlds”, and “DCS or PLC? Seven Questions to Help You Select the Best Solution”.
A graduate of Penn State University, Todd holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering and earned a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. Todd is currently a registered professional engineer in the State of Pennsylvania and is a member of ISA and IEEE.

August 6, 2009: How critical is Proof Test Coverage? Article in Canadian Process Equipment & Control News
The article "How critical is Proof Test Coverage?" by exida partner David Fournier appears in the August 2009 issue of Canadian Process Equipment & Control News. To find out where get a copy, please visit their web site by clicking the link below.

July 24, 2009: Feature Article on exida and Security Incidents Organization in Automation World
The newly formed Security Incidents Organization aims to provide affordable public access to the Repository of Industrial Security Incidents.
It’s been a long wait. But finally, the database of industrial cyber security incidents formerly housed at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) is coming back to life. Automation World first reported in April 2008 that Eric Byres—the former BCIT research faculty member who oversaw the database—had secured funding from “a large government body” to revive the database. That funding, as it turned out, was not enough to make it happen, reports John Cusimano, director of security services at exida (www.exida.com), a Sellersville, Pa.-based safety and security services firm.
But when exida earlier this year acquired Byres Research Inc., of Lantzville, British Columbia, Canada, the deal provided the catalyst to resuscitate the database, which had been dormant since Eric Byres left BCIT in mid-2006. “When we got the exida deal together, we finally found the resources, the analysts, the money…all the stuff you need to jump-start something like this,” says Byres, chief technology officer of Byres Research, now part of exida.
Read More of the Article By Clicking The Link Below

July 14, 2009: Meridium and exida Announce Integration of Tools for More Effective Safety Instrumented Systems Management

Roanoke, VA and Sellersville, PA – July 9, 2009 – Meridium, the leader in asset performance management (APM) software and consulting solutions, and exida, a certification and research company specializing in safety and high availability automation systems, announced today the integration of exida’s exSILentia SILver calculation engine and the Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook database into Meridium APM software’s new Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) Management module.
Meridium APM software improves the performance of production assets with effective asset strategies based on best practices, rigorous analytics and plant history. Meridium APM software also aligns key performance indicators with corporate goals and provides critical analyses to decision makers about their production assets on an enterprise, plant, system, equipment, and component level. The new Meridium SIS Management software addresses safety lifecycle requirements and allows users to:

Assess Safety Integrity Level (SIL)

Validate that Safety Integrity Level (SIL) validation

Conduct proof testing

Provide continuous monitoring of equipment performance to ensure actual failure rates comply design specified failure rates

Meridium’s SIS Management module is integrated with Meridium’s Hazards Analysis application and can leverage the complete suite of APM tools provided by Meridium. This integration saves time and speeds up the SIL assessment by reducing the data entry process. The software uses the Hazards Analysis risk assessment as the most recent SIL assessment for new Protective Instrumented Functions (PIF). Key to an effective SIL reassessment process is using evergreen data from integrated EAM systems to validate the design failure rate data on an ongoing basis.
exida’s exSILentia software is an integrated safety lifecycle engineering tool used for compliance with IEC 61511 / ANSI/ISA 84.00.01-2004 and provides a structured, consistent approach to the various safety lifecycle tasks. The Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook is the ultimate reference for any functional safety engineer involved in conceptual design and safety integrity level (SIL) verification. The Handbook offers a vast amount of detailed reliability data for both specific manufacturer products as well as generic equipment items. Many companies have standardized their reliability evaluations on reliability data published by exida, and independent studies done by ARC have also concluded that the exSILentia software is the market leader in the SIL selection and SIL verification software market.
“The extensive and well defined reliability data in the Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook drove our decision to include this wealth of information in our SIS Management software,” said Steve Soos, product manager for Meridium. “A natural partner to the content in the handbook is exida’s Markov calculation engine for SIL validation, which is TUV certified and is integrated with the SERH database.”
“The inclusion of this content into Meridium APM will provide our customers with comprehensive, easy to use SIS life cycle management system,” said Iwan van Beurden, Director of Engineering of exida. “The exSILentia software is more focused on an individual user basis whereas Meridium’s focus is on enterprise solutions, consequently this cooperation is a perfect match. Seamless data exchange between the two tools will help overall efficiency. During these times of increased drive for cost effective solutions, we expect that the Meridium and exida toolset to become the industry standard for safety lifecycle engineering information.”

July 9, 2009: exida Podcast on the New ISA Standard on Alarm Management

exida is proud to present a series of podcasts focusing on today’s hot topics in the field of functional safety, security, and reliability.

EPISODE 1
SAVED BY THE BELL: A look at ISA’s New Standard on Alarm Management
Keywords: Alarm Management, ISA Standard on Alarm Management, ISA 18, Alarm Management Compliance, ISA-18.2
Description: This podcast reviews the new process industry standard on alarm management (ISA-18.2) focusing on what it will mean to owner/operators and how it can be used to improve safety, decrease unplanned downtime, and increase operator productivity in a process plant.
To subscribe to this podcast, right click on the subscribe icon below and select COPY SHORTCUT. You'll need to paste that shortcut into your favorite podcasting application (such as iTunes or Winamp).

Or you can download the program by clicking the icon below.

June 30, 2009: exida ANNOUNCES exida Consulting MEXICO
During the last 10 years, Smart Safety and Control Provider, has Represented exida in Mexico, supplying Functional Safety Services, Consulting, Products and Tools to all Important Industrial Customers, Engineering Firms , Users and Instrument Companies in Mexico and trained hundreds of Safety Specialists .
“exida Consulting Mexico”, represent in addition to an important invest in the Country , an important expansion of resources, services and specialists, to meet actual and future needs of Customers and Users in Mexico, Spain, and Countries of Latin America . The Mexican Company accumulates more than 40 years of experience assisting and servicing Industry with Certified CFSE Safety Specialists.
The new exida company is based on the exida passion and commitment to supply the world, its Advanced Safety Knowledge, the Services , the Assistance , the Innovation , making of Safety a Profitable factor in the implementation of Automatic Systems .
The new company is, in a fact, a result of the confidence of Exida on the brilliant future of Mexico and Safety as one of most important levers for progress.
En español
Exida Consulting México, Un nuevo paso adelante de Exida sirviendo a la Industrial Mundial.
Durante los últimos 10 años Smart Safety and Control Provider ha Representado a Exida en México y suministrado Servicios de Seguridad Funcional, Consultoría, Productos y Herramientas del conocimiento, a todos los industriales importantes del País, Firmas de Ingeniería, Usuarios, Compañías de instrumentación y capacitado cientos de especialistas en la Seguridad Funcional.
“Exida Consulting México”, la nueva empresa de Exida, representa además de una importante inversión, una importante expansión de los recursos, los servicios y sus especialistas, para cubrir las necesidades actuales y futuras de clientes en México, en España, Centro y Sudamérica. La Compañía integra más de 40 años de experiencia asistiendo y sirviendo a la industria y es pionera en la Certificación CFSE de su Personal .
La nueva empresa responde a la pasión y el compromiso de Exida para llevar a todo el mundo sus conocimientos avanzados de seguridad, la innovación, la disponibilidad y la asistencia para hacer de la seguridad un factor de rentabilidad de las plantas y la disminución de los costos en la implementación de los sistemas automatizados.
Exida Consulting México es producto de la confianza de Exida en el brillante futuro de México y los países hispanos y de su convicción de que es la Seguridad es un factor estratégico de progreso.
exida Consulting Mexico
Giorgione No. 6
Col. Nonoalco Mixocac
Mexico, D.F. 03700
Mexico
PHONE: 52-55-5-6-11-98-58
FAX: 52-55-5-6-11-45-41

June 30, 2009: exida CERTIFIES MICROPACK FDS 301 FOR FUNCTIONAL SAFETY per IEC 61508

SELLERSVILLE, PA (June 17, 2009) -- exida, a global supplier of functional safety products, services, and certifications, has certified the design and engineering processes of the Micropack FDS 301Visual Flame Detector.
“Micropack’s visual imaging flame detection technology is naturally suited to automatic protection applications,” says exida Partner William Goble. “In addition to passing a detailed analysis of product design and product failure modes, Micropack has demonstrated compliant development and manufacturing processes that meet the requirements of the IEC 61508 safety standard.”
Part of exida’s certification process, a Failure Mode Effect and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA) generated accurate failure rate data for the FDS 301Visual Flame Detector. The results are included in the exSILentia SIL verification tool database that helps end users quickly design products.
“exida is the market leader in 61508 certification of field instrumentation products,” says Micropack Senior Marketing Manager Adrian Lloyd. “The exida analysts are demanding, but we wanted a certification that will give our customers confidence in our design processes and products.”

June 17, 2009: exida CERTIFIES ASCO NUMATICS SOLENOID VALVES FOR SAFETY per IEC 61508

SELLERSVILLE, PA (June 11, 2009) -- exida, a global supplier of functional safety products, services, and certifications, has certified the design and engineering processes for ASCO Numatics 551/552/553 Series Solenoid Valves and the 8314, 8316, 8320 3 Way/2 Position Solenoid Valves.
“ASCO Numatics has demonstrated that its development processes and product characteristics meet the requirements of the IEC 61508 safety standard,” says exida Partner Chris O’Brien. “The results of the detailed audit are documented in exida’s SafetyCase tool that ensures all relevant requirements of standard are satisfied.”
O’Brien says exida’s stringent probabilistic analysis uses a Failure Mode Effect and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA) that generates accurate failure rate data. The certification also requires manufactures to develop a safety manual available to end users.
“exida has the technical capability needed to certify mechanical devices,” says ASCO Numatics Senior Marketing Manager Bill Reeson. “The exida analysts have a strong understanding of the mechanical design process. This certification will give our customers additional confidence in our design processes and products.”

June 8, 2009: exida Article Published in ISA Brazil (in Portuguese)
Justificando Investimentos em Sistemas Instrumentados de Segurança (SIS).
Monica Hochleitner, CFSE
Safety Engineer da exida.com LLC Independente do tipo de indústria, as pessoas a seu redor – funcionários e comunidade – estão interessadas em que a operação dessas plantas seja segura. Os acionistas e gestores, além da segurança, preocupam-se também que elas sejam eficientes. Evitar acidentes é essencial para o bem estar das pessoas, para a preservação do meio ambiente, para manter a imagem e perpetuação da empresa no mercado e, entre outras coisas, para efeito das negociações com seguradoras do empreendimento.
Em alguns países, a legislação obriga que as organizações apresentem garantias do gerenciamento de riscos de seus processos industriais – desde a fase de projeto até a fase de desativação da planta, passando naturalmente pelos procedimentos de operação e registros de manutenção das atividades críticas das unidades – com base em critérios conhecidos. Políticas de segurança não só enfatizam o compromisso com a saúde dos funcionários, mas também promovem atividades que resultam em um local de trabalho seguro e protegido para empregados, contratados, visitantes e vizinhos.
Por isso, ao longo dos últimos anos, a indústria de processo vem gradativamente aderindo à utilização de Sistemas Instrumentados de Segurança especificados, projetados, instalados, operados e mantidos conforme normas de segurança internacionalmente reconhecidas por seus requisitos em garantir e documentar a confiabilidade e disponibilidade da segurança de processos industriais.
Como é de se supor, esses sistemas precisam de dedicação e espera-se que eles sejam extremamente caros. No entanto, o que não falta é justificativa para tais investimentos. O custo da parada de uma planta em função de uma falha segura, isto é, quando o sistema de segurança atua sem que um risco esteja realmente ocorrendo, pode muitas vezes ser maior do que o custo da engenharia necessária para analisar individualmente as malhas críticas do processo e de como prevenir que elas aconteçam. A tabela a seguir mostra o custo médio das falhas seguras (Spurious Trip Cost – STC) em diferentes indústrias de processo:

Aplicação Spurious Trip Cost – STC

Plataformas de Óleo e Gás Até US$ 2 milhões/dia

Planta de Poliestireno 20 dia para recuperar a produção a US$ 20 mil/dia

Unidade de Coque US$ 35 mil/dia

UFCC US$ 500 mil

Refinaria totalmente parada US$ 1 milhão /dia

Planta de Amônia US$ 1 milhão /dia

Geração de Energia US$ 1 mil/MW hora até US$ milhões /unidade

Planta de Eteno US$ 1 milhão até especificar o produto

Fonte: “Win-Win: a manager’s guide to functional safety”, C. Miller, exida, 2008.
As melhores práticas discutidas e avaliadas por um seleto comitê estão inclusas na norma IEC-61508, com foco nos fornecedores de instrumentos e sistemas de segurança, que serve como diretriz para outras normas, como a IEC-61511 e sua equivalente ANSI/ISA S84.01, endereçadas aos usuários finais.
Um projeto de Sistema Instrumentado de Segurança não pode começar até que seja determinado o nível de redução de risco necessário para cada perigo perigo presente no processo. Ou seja, cada malha crítica (SIF) é dedicada a diminuir a freqüência com que um único perigo ou risco venha a acontecer ou a minimizar as conseqüências na ocorrência de um acidente. Assim, o primeiro passo do projeto é conhecer o Risco Tolerável do empreendimento, normalmente definido pela organização ou pela legislação local (vide referências em “Safety Integrity Level Selection”, E. Marzal e E. Scharpf, ISA, 2002).
A partir desta informação, devem ser utilizados métodos conhecidos para determinar a segurança necessária para levar o risco presente até o nível de Risco Tolerável pela organização. Esta atividade é chamada de seleção ou determinação do Nível de Integridade de Segurança - “safety integrity level (SIL)” – único para cada malha crítica, chamada na literatura de Função Instrumentada de Segurança - “safety instrumented function (SIF)”.
Uma vez determinado o SIL requerido para uma malha em particular, o usuário parte para a seleção dos componentes da malha crítica/SIF (elementos sensores, unidades de processamento da lógica e elementos finais) que, em conjunto, atendam ao fator de redução de risco (SIL) necessário. Novamente, o importante é que o método e critérios considerados sejam bem documentados. A atividade de identificar se a instrumentação, tecnologia e arquitetura selecionadas para determinada SIF atende ao SIL determinado é chamada de Verificação de SIL.
Geralmente, melhorar a segurança do dispositivo menos seguro entre os componentes da SIF proporcionará maior impacto na redução de risco que a malha crítica conseguirá atingir. Quando as medições oferecem impacto significante na segurança, alguns passos devem ser observados:

Substituir chaves por transmissores;

Evitar problemas de robustez devido a common cause (problemas que podem afetar no correto funcionamento de mais de um componente simultaneamente). Diversificar a tecnologia de instrumentos redundantes pode ser uma boa alternativa;

Reduzir o intervalo de testes do instrumento, reduzindo a média da probabilidade de falha na demanda (PFDavg);

Usar diagnósticos; e

Adicionar redundância, lembrando que quanto mais hardware, maior o custo de aquisição, instalação e manutenção e maior a probabilidade de falhas seguras (spurious trip).

Cada um desses passos inclui melhoria na seleção da tecnologia e nas práticas de instalação e manutenção. Por exemplo, para melhorar a resistência a common cause em ambientes de alta temperatura, pode-se utilizar transmissores robustos disponíveis no mercado (robustez), instalar os transmissores distantes do local com alta temperatura (práticas) ou utilizar transmissores providos de software que podem indicar de forma preditiva falhas devido a alta temperatura (diagnóstico). Quando justificada a utilização de redundância, deve-se escolher uma tecnologia resistente a alta temperatura alternativa a do primeiro elemento (diversidade).
Essas abordagens envolvem tradeoffs entre segurança e o custo do projeto. Por exemplo, em uma aplicação que se substitui um transmissor existente por outro mais estável (seguro), mantendo-se um intervalo de teste/calibração fixo, obtem-se maior segurança. Alternativamente, se na mesma aplicação ao invés de trocar o instrumento decide-se alterar a freqüência de teste/calibração do instrumento existente, sem sacrifícios também se conseguirá maior segurança. A chave é maximizar o “Retorno de Investimento (ROI) em Segurança” utilizando-se novas tecnologias e práticas que resultem em mais segurança com o menor aumento no custo total durante toda a vida do empreendimento e não só durante o projeto.
A adoção de instrumentos certificados por agências independentes com a FM, TÜV e/ou exida resulta em conhecer informações importantes sobre os produtos, como taxas de falha nos diferentes modos de falha, em diferentes arquiteturas (níveis de redundância) e suas possíveis restrições. Essas são as informações mínimas contidas no Manual de Segurança fornecido pelo fabricante. Esses dados incluem o impacto da robustez, diversidade e diagnósticos, porém resultam de um ambiente de laboratório. Para sistemas de controle, este laboratório de segurança pode fornecer informações o mais próximo possível da realidade, mas para equipamentos de campo a experiência mostra que a segurança instalada é sempre muito menor do que os resultados obtidos em laboratório.
Finalmente, o cálculo do “Retorno de Investimento (ROI) em Segurança” deve considerar os custos resultantes de um acidente com ou sem fatalidades, os custos com prêmios de seguro e, principalmente, o custo intangível da imagem e reputação da empresa. Certamente esses números serão suficientes para justificar os investimentos em um projeto de Sistema Instrumentado de Segurança “como manda o figurino”.
Artigo escrito em 8 de maio de 2009.
Monica Hochleitner pode ser contatada via monica @ exida.com
Bibliografia:
"Selecting Transmitters for Safety Instrumented Systems", de Brown S. & Menezes M., apresentado na ISA de 2001, em Houston, EUA; "Safety Integrity Level Selection", E. Marzal e E. Scharpf, ISA, 2002; "Win-Win: a manager's guide to functional safety", C. Miller, exida, 2008.

May 28, 2009: IEC 61511 - Proof Test Design and Planning Webinar Recording
In the process industries, many safety instrumented functions operate in "low demand" mode where a dangerous condition exists very infrequently. In such situations, a "Proof Test" must often be done to detect certain failures in the equipment. Various types of proof test techniques are discussed along with tradeoffs in coverage and expense. The exSILentia Proof Test tool is used to show examples of proof test planning documents.

May 13, 2009: IEC 61508 Certification Process Webinar Recording
IEC 61508 is a detailed standard for functional safety. It is used to certifiy equipment as well as systems. This seminar presents an overview of the standard, the equipment certification process and an overview of equipment certification requirements. The seminar examples include a microprocessor based sensor, a microprocessor based control system and a simple mechanical device.

May 7, 2009: IEC 61511 - SIF Verification, Engineering Tools Webinar Recording
An overview of the SIF verification process is presented in this seminar. The design verification steps needed to ensure full compliance with IEC 61511 are presented along with the concepts and challenges of this important task. The exida exSILentia tool will be demonstrated in the context of SIF verification calculations and checks. Example verification automatically generated by the exSILentia tool will be shown.

May 7, 2009: CFSE - Introduction to Personnel Competency Program Webinar Recording
The CFSE program was established in 2000 in response to an industry need to have some measure of personnel competency to supplement company functional safety management programs. The different levels, CFSP and CFSE, are described. The different application specialties are described. The program requirements are described and sample exam questions will be presented.

April 23, 2009: IEC 61511 - LOPA, Engineering Tools Webinar Recording
Layer of protection analysis (LOPA) has been shown to be an effective method of determining the needed SIL of any defined safety instrumented function. The method does particularly well with optimized SIL selection and often results in lower SIL levels being selected when compared to estimated methods commonly in use. This webinar presents the basic concepts of LOPA along with new generation engineering tools used to reduce cost when doing LOPA analysis.

April 19, 2009: exida Booth at ISA Calgary

An exida booth will be present at the ISA Show in Calgary on April 22 - 23, 2009. The show will be held at Stampede Park - Roundup Centre Halls B & C Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Stop by booth 426 to say hello.

Summary
The Calgary ISA show is the largest instrumentation show in Western Canada. This multi-industry biennial event focuses on innovative solutions for industrial measurement and control activities.
General Information
The Calgary ISA show is the largest instrumentation show in Western Canada. This multi-industry biennial event focuses on innovative solutions for industrial measurement and control activities.
Attendee Information
More than 5,500 qualified buyers visit the show looking for new products, new applications, and new technologies. Measurement and control professionals represent a wide range of Canada's major industries including oil and gas, pulp and paper, mining, food processing, aerospace and ordinance, chemicals, drugs, plastics, construction, petroleum, gas and mining.
Exhibitor Information
Over 188 exhibitors from a wide range of companies display measurement and control instrumentation services and equipment including computer technology, valves, activators, drives, components and various other accessori

April 17, 2009: Introduction to Process Control Cyber Security Webinar Recording
Are you concerned about the cyber security of your control or safety systems? Are you wondering if the automation products you supply meet the latest cyber security standards? Or are you simply interested in learning more about what you’re reading about in all the trade magazines regarding control system security? If so, please tune into this 1 hour informative webinar providing an overview control system cyber security. Attendees will learn why control system cyber security is important, what the US and other governments are doing to support industry, the status of ISA SP 99 and other control system security standards, and where to learn more about cyber-security.

April 17, 2009: exida Releases SERHviewer (Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook Viewer)
exida, a certification and research company specializing in safety and high availability automation systems, announced today the release of the SERHviewer software.
SERHviewer provides an electronic format of the immensely popular Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook.
The Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook (SERH) is the ultimate reference for any functional safety engineer involved in Conceptual Design and Safety Integrity Level verification. It provides a tremendous amount of detailed reliability data for both specific manufacturer products as well as generic equipment items. Many companies have standardized their reliability evaluations on reliability data published by exida. SERHviewer has an easy to use interface that will allow users to get an overview of available reliability data for specific types of products, specific manufacturers, specific assessment levels, etc.
The Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook Database is the basis for the equipment item selection in the exida exSILentia® SILver tool. The exSILentia® team is also responsible for the development of the SERHviewer tool.
With the purchase of the SERHviewer tool, the user will receive a hardcopy of the Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook which is published in a three volume set constituting the third edition of the Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook ISBN 978-0-9727234-9-7.

April 16, 2009: IEC 61511 - Process Hazard Analysis, Engineering Tools Webinar Recording
Many consider the hazard analysis to be the most critical part of the safety lifecycle. Systematic methods have been developed over the last few decades to identify potential hazards in a process. An overview of these methods will be presented along with current generation engineering tools used to assist those perfroming and documentating the analysis.

April 15, 2009: FMEDA - Methods and Data Webinar Recording
The Failure Modes Effects and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA) technique has been developed over many years as an accurate method to determine the failure rates, failure modes and diagnostic capabilities of products. In this seminar the FMEDA technqiue will be described along with an example electronic circuit and an example mechancial device. The needed failure rate and failure mode data will be shown. Attendees of the webinar will learn basic FMEDA concepts and principles.

April 13, 2009: IEC 61511 - Equipment Justification: 61508 vs. Proven In Use Webinar Recording
The IEC 61511 standard requires that equipment used for automatic protection be justified. This can be done via a "self-certification" scheme called Prior Use jsutification or via the use of IEC 61508 certified products. Both procedures will be described. A sample process for self-certification is explained. Lists of IEC 61508 certified products will be shown. Attendees of this webinar will understand equiment justification requirements of IEC 61511 and the methods used to meet those requirements.

April 9, 2009: IEC 61508 Software Development Processes Webinar Recording
IEC 61508 is a standard for functional safety with many requirements to ensure high design quality. Many of these requirements are directed toward software design and development. This webinar presents an example process that would meets the requirements of SIL 2 and SIL 3. The various design, review and test steps are described. Example documentation is presented. This an excellent introduction for anyone wanting to get an overview of IEC 61508 software development requirements.

April 1, 2009: IEC 61508 Certification for Mechanical Devices Webinar Recording
More and more end users are asking automation suppliers to provide reliability data or equipment certified to IEC 61508. The requirements of IEC 61508 are new to many manufacturers of mechanical components used in final control elements and other parts of the safety loop. This webinar provides a comprehensive overview of the requirements of the standard when applied to mechanical equipment as well as insight into the market trends driving customer demand. Attendees of the webinar will develop an understanding of the steps required for IEC 61508 certification, learn about the market drivers creating the demand for certified equipment and develop an understanding of the benefits of utilizing certified equipment.

March 31, 2009: Byres Research and exida Merge to Form First Safety and Security Certification and Consulting Company

Sellersville, PA – March 31, 2009 – exida, a certification and research firm specializing in safety and high availability automation systems, announced today it has merged with Byres Research, Inc., a leader in critical infrastructure security, to form the world’s first company offering functional safety and security certification and consultation.
Because weaknesses in safety and security can lead to the same negative consequences, the intersection of safety systems and cyber security has been gaining increasing attention among companies operating critical petroleum and energy generation facilities.
“The philosophy of Secure by Design is broadening to Safe and Secure by Design,” said Eric Cosman, Dow Chemical Company engineering solutions consultant and co-chair of the ISA 99 Committee on Control System Security. “Rather than putting band aids on systems after the fact, the trend now is to design security and safety in at the beginning. This announcement makes perfect sense because it brings safety and IT security together under one roof.”
While Byres Research will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of exida, the two companies will combine to offer an impressive depth of expertise to end users and suppliers of industrial automation products and systems.
Eric Byres, chief technology officer, Byres Research, is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts in the field of critical infrastructure security. “There is much to learn from safety engineering on how to provide sound security analysis and services,” he said. “It is a perfect synergy – a mature market joining with an evolving market to get the best from both worlds.”
“We are pleased to welcome Byres Research into the exida family,” said John Cusimano, exida director of security services. “This merger represents a major step in bringing the safety and security communities together with a common goal of helping to protect our critical facilities.”

March 26, 2009: IEC 61511 Safety Lifecycle Overview Webinar Recording
This seminar presents an overview of a detailed safety lifecycle process designed to meet the requirements of IEC 61511. The various steps in the engineering procedure are described along with documentation to be created at each step. The seminar also describes engineering tools available to streamline and optimize the tasks of the safety lifecycle.

March 23, 2009: Overview of exSILentia Safety Lifecycle Engineering Tools Webinar Recording
A recording of the Overview of exSILentia Safety Lifecycle Engineering Tools conducted last week is now available on-line.
We will be adding more in the future , so please keep checking back. And, again, thank you to all who attended.
Click the link below to view the webinar.

March 23, 2009: exida at Finnish Automation Society in Helsinki, Finland

exida principal partner, Dr. Bill Goble presented three speeches at the Finnish Automation Society in Helsinki, Finland on March 17, 2009.
The subjects were:

Keynote Address – The Global Impact of IEC 61508 (picture)

Cost Effective Implementation of the Safety Lifecycle

An Open IEC 61508 Certification Program

March 17, 2009: Wurldtech and exida Announce Global Partnership to Expand Cyber Security Certification
Leading Industrial Cyber Security & Functional Safety Experts Partner to Deliver the Achilles Cyber Security Certification Program to Vendors & Operators of Control Systems Worldwide
Vancouver, BC, CANADA – March 17, 2009 - Wurldtech™ Security Technologies, a leading provider of industrial cyber security testing and certification solutions and exida, a global supplier of functional safety products, services, and certifications, today announced that the two companies have entered into a strategic partnership. The agreement integrates Wurldtech's Achilles™ cyber security certification program into exida’s safety service portfolio and establishes a foundation for joint development of future cyber security and safety certifications.
Launched in 2007, and now widely adopted as the standard for cyber security certification throughout the industrial automation industry, the Achilles Certification program boasts certified control systems from major suppliers such as: Emerson, Invensys, ABB, Yokogawa, HIMA and many others.
“The Achilles Certified brand is trusted globally as a benchmark for security and its adoption has resulted in a significant improvement in the security and reliability of global critical infrastructures,” said Wurldtech President Tyler Williams. “By partnering with exida, we are able to expand our current program into new markets and leverage their unparalleled safety expertise to jointly evolve the program to meet the certification needs of the automation industry today and into the future.”
This partnership was formed in response to customer requests to accelerate the expansion of the current Achilles program and include new categories such as control applications, industrial networking infrastructure and both operator integration and vendor development processes. By combining the leading security certification criteria, technology and expertise with well-established policies, procedures and best practices from the safety industry, Wurldtech and exida will be able to offer the most comprehensive and streamlined certification process to the global industrial automation industry.
“Process control system operators want to minimize risk and maximize uptime and suppliers want to be first to market with certified, reliable systems,” said John Cusimano, exida director of Security Services. “By bringing the safety and cyber security certification processes together, operators and suppliers have a single source for all of their certification needs and that positively impacts the bottom line.”
The partnership takes effect immediately and is already catching the attention of process industry vendors and manufacturers.
“Having worked with both Wurldtech and exida since their inception on independent certification efforts we see the value that this partnership will bring in being able to focus our certification activities,” said Bob Huba, DeltaV Security Architect at Emerson Process Management. “Having a single certification process for safety and security is consistent with our integrated approach to DeltaV and DeltaV SIS. Combining our product security certification activities with our safety certification process, we can now introduce new versions of our systems without the overlap of going to several locations. That will certainly help get products to market faster and more efficiently.”
About Wurldtech™ Security Technologies, Inc.
Wurldtech™ Security Technologies, headquartered in Vancouver, BC, Canada, is a leading provider of cyber-risk and compliance management solutions for industrial automation industries worldwide. Wurldtech has a proven track record in recognizing and responding to cyber-security threats; developed the industry’s first available controller certification program; and has certified the largest number of products from global suppliers of the systems used in today’s critical infrastructures. Wurldtech is committed to delivering breakthrough products and services that help protect global critical infrastructure and address the security needs of major industrial organizations and government agencies worldwide.
The “Wurldtech” and “Achilles” logos are trademarks of Wurldtech™ Security Technologies, Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. © 2007 - 2009 Wurldtech™ Security Technologies. All rights reserved.
About exida:
exida is a certification and consulting firm specializing in safety critical / high availability automation systems and control system security. exida's main offices are located in Sellersville, PA, USA and Munich, Germany. exida has worldwide operations with service centers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Netherlands, and New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
If you would like additional information on exida, or any of our products or services, please visit our website at www.exida.com.

March 16, 2009: ARC Analysis Finds exida Top Process Safety Lifecycle Design Software Supplier
exida®, a certification and consulting firm specializing in safety and high availability automation systems, is the world’s process safety lifecycle design software market leader according to a recent analysis by the ARC Advisory Group.
The report, “Process Safety Lifecycle Software Market Analysis,” conducted by ARC Advisory Group Vice President Asish Ghosh, compared the sales of international suppliers offering packaged safety lifecycle software for analysis and design. The analysis focused primarily on process industries, including oil and gas, refining, chemicals and power.
Available to ARC advisory service subscribers, the analysis showed that in 2007 the packaged safety lifecycle design software market was $2.2 million. ARC estimates that the market grew approximately 18 percent in 2008 and will continue to grow approximately 10 percent annually.
Ghosh said the rising popularity of process safety hardware and lifecycle software can be attributed to a number of factors. “People are becoming more conscious about safety, and the regulations and standards for safety are becoming better known,” he said.
Iwan Van Beurden, exida director of engineering, said exida holds the market leadership position because, since 2001 when exSILentia software was introduced, the company has helped its customers simplify safety lifecycle work.
“The exSILentia integrated safety lifecycle suite connects the three most important steps in the safety lifecycle -- SIL selection, safety requirements specification and SIL verification,” said Van Beurden, exida director of engineering. “It is a real time saver because the embedded equipment data base shortens engineering time. Also, the accuracy of the data is ensured because exSILentia is independently certified by TUV to be IEC 61508 compliant.”

March 16, 2009: Jobs available at exida
exida South Africa PTY LTD and exida Canada is looking for Senior Safety Engineers. Please click on the link below to apply.

March 10, 2009: exida Free Webseminar Schedule Announced for 2009

Click Here to Learn How the Web Seminars Work

exida is proud to present several FREE Web Seminar "Webinar" geared towards today's safety engineering professional. The dates and courses for the first half of 2009 have been announced.

Date Course Details

March 19, 2009 Overview of exSILentia Safety Lifecycle Engineering Tools Details

March 25, 2009 IEC 61508 Certification Process Details

March 26, 2009 IEC 61511 Safety Lifecycle Overview Details

April 1, 2009 IEC 61508 Certification for Mechanical Devices Details

April 2, 2009 IEC 61511 - Equipment Justification: 61508 vs. Proven In Use Details

April 7, 2009 Introduction to Process Control Cyber Security Details

April 8, 2009 IEC 61508 Software Development Processes Details

April 15, 2009 FMEDA - Methods and Data Details

April 16, 2009 IEC 61511 - Process Hazard Analysis, Engineering Tools Details

April 22, 2009 FMEDA for Mechanical Devices Details

April 23, 2009 IEC 61511 - LOPA, Engineering Tools Details

April 29, 2009 CFSE - Introduction to Personnel Competancy Program Details

April 30, 2009 IEC 61511 - Safety Requirements Specifications Details

May 6, 2009 Introduction to Process Control Cyber Security Details

May 7, 2009 IEC 61511 - SIF Verification, Engineering Tools Details

May 13, 2009 IEC 61508 Certification Process Details

May 14, 2009 IEC 61511 - Level Protection Applications Details

May 27, 2009 IEC 61508 Software Development Processes Details

May 28, 2009 IEC 61511 - Proof Test Design and Planning Details

June 3, 2009 Introduction to Process Control Cyber Security Details

June 4, 2009 Overview of exSILentia Safety Lifecycle Engineering Tools Details

June 11, 2009 IEC 61511 - Proof Test Data Collection and Analysis Details

June 18, 2009 CFSE - Introduction to Personnel Competancy Program Details

March 4, 2009: New exida White Paper: Statistical Signature Analysis
Statistical Signature Analysis: Modeling Complex λD(t) from Proof Test Data and the Effects on Computing PFDavg
by Julia V. Bukowski, Ph. D. for exida.com L.L.C.
In order to assign a SIL to equipment in low demand applications, we must be able to compute PFDavg. To compute PFDavg, we must first have a model for λD(t), the failure rate of the equipment in the dangerous failure mode. A dangerous failure occurs when equipment designed for prevention or mitigation of an unsafe condition cannot properly respond to the unsafe condition, i.e., the equipment fails on demand. For example, consider a PRV, which, in normal operation, is closed. Should it fail in the "stuck-shut" mode, it would be in a state of dangerous failure as it would be unable to respond to an overpressure event if one occurred.
You can read more by clicking the link below.

February 12, 2009: John Cusimano Joins Exida as Director of Security Services
Sellersville, PA - Feb. 12, 2009 – exida, a certification and consulting firm specializing in safety and high availability automation systems, has named John Cusimano as director of the company’s newly formed security services division.
A process automation safety systems expert, Cusimano will lead a team devoted to improving the security of control systems for companies worldwide.
“John has a unique understanding of the security challenges facing both automation system end-users and suppliers,” said Dr. William Goble, principal partner of exida. "He and his team will give our current and future global clients the knowledge and tools they need to improve the security, and thus the safety and reliability, of their products and systems."
Cusimano joins exida from Siemens where he led market development for the company’s process automation and safety products. Prior to joining Siemens, Cusimano implemented and managed automation projects for Eastman Kodak Company. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Clarkson University and holds a CFSE certification.
“In the coming months we will add new business relationships that will complement our existing capabilities,” Cusimano said. “I am confident that exida will take the lead in integrating functional safety with control system security. The result will be reduced engineering requirements as well as safer, more reliable systems for our clients.”

February 12, 2009: Final Elements and the IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 Functional Safety Standards Book NOW SHIPPING!

This book reviews and explains the application of the IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 functional safety standards as they apply to final control elements. The overall safety lifecycle and reliability requirements are reviewed with special focus on the challenges encountered when dealing with complex electro-mechanical subsystems. Throughout the book requirements for designing and implementing reliable and effective safety instrumented functions are covered in a clear step by step manner.

The authors review the application of failure analysis as it applies to mechanical components that are utilized in final elements and discuss in detail sources of failure rate data. Various valve, actuator, and control technologies are reviewed along with their strengths and weaknesses when applied in safety applications. Example analysis's and calculation reinforce the concepts covered in the book and questions at the end of each chapter help readers focus on key points. Appendixes cover the steps and provide sample documents necessary for certification to the IEC 61508 standard.

(Hard Cover-- published by exida.com, L.L.C.)

February 6, 2009: exida Joins EEMUA
exida is pleased to announce their membership of EEMUA (Engineering Equipment and Materials Users' Association) which is represented by exida UK Partner David Hatch.
EEMUA is a European based, non profit distributing, industry association run for the benefit of companies that own or operate industrial facilities and aims to improve the safety, environmental and operating performance of these facilities in the most cost-effective way.
David has joined the IRG (Industry Review Group) for EEMUA 191 (Alarm Systems – A guide to Design, Management & Procurement) and EEMUA 201 (Process Plant Control Desks Utilising HMI – A guide to the Design, Operational and Human Interface Issues) and will provide valuable industry knowledge & experience to these key standards.
EEMUA 191 is currently the global standard for Alarm Management and is founded on 4 key principles:

Usability (Consider users needs & capabilities.)

Safety (Realistic human performance/ reliability claims.)

Performance monitoring (Initial design, commissioning, audit.)

Engineering investment (Justify and engineer all alarms.)

The UK HSE (Health & Safety Executive) expect Users to Review, Evaluate, Prioritise & Modify alarms and ensure new designs meet the principles of EEMUA 191.
David is already an active voting member of the ISA S18.02 committee for the development of an international standard for Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries and Exida are now in a unique position to contribute to the creation and advancement of both of these important Alarm Management documents.
Exida offer Alarm Management solutions through formal training, philosophy & procedure development, alarm analysis & rationalization (using their proven SILAlarm™ application) and project & plant support.
Please contact David Hatch or your local Exida partner for more information.

January 9, 2009: exSILentia Users Group Meeting

exida is proud to announce the first exSILentia Users Group meeting. The Users Group meeting is scheduled for May 19th through 21st in Houston, TX.
The Users Group meeting will provide you an opportunity to meet face-to-face with other users as well as the exSILentia development team.
Attending this meeting will provide the following benefits:

Exchange ideas and experiences with other users

Hear presentations from other users and exida partners

Discover advanced techniques

Learn about new software functionality and development roadmaps

Learn about the integration of SILSuite and exSILentia

Provide input into the future functionality of exSILentia

Participate in software demos

Meet face to face with the exSILentia development team

Participate in the open panel discussion

In addition to the Users Group meeting there will be a one day exSILentia training class.

January 7, 2009: Functional Safety Engineering I & II in Houston, TX
exida will be conducting a 4 day training class on their popular CFSE exam refresher courses Functional Safety Engineering I & II.
The course will be held the week of February 23 – 26, 2009 with an option to take the CFSE / CFSP exam on the 27th.
The course will be given at the Hilton Garden Inn Galleria in Houston.

December 4, 2008: exida Present at 2008 ISA Expo in Brazil

Monica Hochleitner, CFSE, of exida presented her paper on the Safety Life Cycle at Brazil's ISA 2008 ISA Expo and Conference in São Paulo, Brazil. She also presented a one day mini-course on Safety Life Cycle services.

November 17, 2008: Safety Instrumented System Design in the 21st Century
exida Partner Dr. William Goble will be speaking on “Safety Instrumented System Design in the 21st Century”.
Date: Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Time: 6:00 p.m. Sandwiches & Soda
7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Program Meeting
Location: ASCO Valve Inc., 50 Hanover Road, Florham Park, NJ 07932
New global functional safety standards, including IEC 61508 and IEC 61511, provide a new risk based framework for optimal Safety Instrumented System (SIS) design. This presentation will introduce the fundamental concepts from these new standards including:
What is an SIS? What is the “Safety Lifecycle (SLC)?” How can the steps of the SLC be cost effectively implemented? How is the need for a safety system expressed? What are the fundamental design issues for an SIS? What must be done to justify equipment used in an SIS? What are the advantages of using safety certified equipment? What are the requirements for SIS operations and maintenance?

October 2, 2008: Functional Safety in the Life Science Industries
exida Partners David Hatch, Iwan van Beurden, and Eric Scharpf have authored an article entitled "Functional Safety in the Life Science Industries". The article appears in the September / October 2008 edition of Pharmaceutical Engineering magazine .This article presents an overview of functional safety within the life science industry based on international standards.
Introduction
For life science companies, the chemical safety of the process (plant design & operation) is as critical as the pharmacological safety of the products (drug quality). The use of flammable solvents, corrosive fluids, toxic gases and explosive dusts present significant threats to the safety of production personnel, the local community, surrounding environment, and, often expensive, manufacturing equipment.
Functional safety contributes towards overall process safety and relies on the correct reaction (both action and speed) of automatic devices in response to actual or potential dangerous conditions thus preventing hazardous events or mitigating harmful consequences.
Instrumented protective functions using electrical or electronic technologies achieve this via sensors to detect process deviations, logic solvers to evaluate the sensor data and final elements to execute the required action to achieve or maintain a safe state. These safety instrumented systems (SIS) have been widely used in the general process and pharmaceutical industries for many years providing protection against deviations in pressure, temperature, level and flow and other critical process parameters.
Correct management of the functional safety aspects of process plants is now globally recognised as the best way to reduce the inherent risks in hazardous industrial processes. International standards are driving major end users in the process industry to adopt the IEC61511 (ANSI/ISA–84.00.01 equivalent) lifecycle approach to safety. The aim of these standards is to make safety a priority throughout the entire life of any potentially hazardous plant or process.
Read the full article by clicking the link below.

September 19, 2008: SILSuite to exSILentia Converter Released!

exida announces the release of the SILSuite to exSILentia Converter. The converter will take any SILHazop database, extract the potential Safety Instrumented Functions / Instrumented Protection Functions out of that database and create an exSILentia exi project file for further evaluation of those SIFs / IPFs using exSILentia SILect, SIF SRS, and SILver. In addition the converter will take any SILClass database and extract all defined SIFs / IPFs including their target SIL and (if applicable) target Risk Reduction Factor for further evaluation using exSILentia SIF SRS and SILver.

The SILSuite to exSILentia Converter is a free utility that can downloaded from the www.exida.com website (see http://www.exida.com/software/exsilentia-downloads.asp). In addition to the converter utility, the exida exSILentia Team also released a set of instructions on how SILSuite SILCalc calculation results can be used in the exSILentia SILver software. The pdf file with instructions can also be downloaded via the website listed above.
Iwan van Beurden, exida’s Director of Engineering, stated “The SILSuite to exSILentia Converter release marks the completion of the first phase integration of the two software platforms. This converter will allow users of the SILSuite products to benefit of the market leading exSILentia SIL verification software.”

September 4, 2008: Jobs at exida
exida launched a new section of their web site advertising job openings within the company.
exida is currently looking for a Senior Safety Engineer.
Please refer to the link below for more information.

August 21. 2008: exida Authored Article Appears in Control Engineering Asia
An article entitled "Providing Proof" appears in the August 2008 edition of Control Engineering Asia. The decision to use proven in prior use components in an SIS application requires the development and maintenance of a self-certification process that conforms to international safety standards. By Dr William Goble.
It is fairly common for companies to develop a “preferred list” of transmitters, valves, actuators and other process control components and subsystems. Such lists are usually the result of long-time relationships between the engineering and/ or maintenance departments and the various devices themselves. Because of unique process conditions, these preferred lists often include “no substitute” notations for specific plant areas.
Within the minds of those who helped develop these lists, each device is on the list because it has proven its capability, reliability and suitability in prior use. When contributors to the list are asked about a specific component or subsystem they will expound, often in great detail, how a particular device achieved its preferred list status. However, when asked to produce supporting documentation, most simply cannot.
Thus the preferred list is all but non-existent when it comes to selecting components and subsystems that will produce a safety instrumented system (SIS) that conforms with International Electrotechnical Commission’s (IEC) 61511-1 standard.
Read the rest of the article by clicking the link below.

July 29, 2008: New White Paper: Field Failure Data – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Keywords: safety instrumented system, component failure rates, random failures, systematic failures, field failure studies.
Abstract
The benefits of having quality product failure rate data include:

The ability to achieve less process downtime [ISO06]

identification of efficiency/reliability improvement opportunities[Skwe08]

optimized (lower cost) maintenance programs

opportunities to optimize the timing of equipment

reduced environmental impact [ISO06]

proper application fit of instrumentation products

data that can be used to optimize safety instrumented system verification calculations [Skwe08, Gobl05]

Good high quality field failure data has often been described as the ultimate source of failure data. However, not all field failure studies are high quality. Some field studies simply do not have the needed information. Some field studies make unrealistic assumptions. The results can be quite different depending on methods and assumptions. Some methods produce optimistic results that can result in bad designs and unsafe processes. This paper presents some common field failure analysis techniques, shows some of the limitations of the methods and describes important attributes of a good field failure data collection system.
Read the rest by clicking the link below

July 25, 2008: exida Partner Featured in Article
exida Partner Dr. William Goble is featured in an article by ControlGlobal.com entitled: The 'Must Knows' of Process Safety.
Here is an excerpt:
Better Products, Better Engineering Tools, Safer Plants and Lower Costs
“Process safety is getting less expensive to engineer and keep current,” said Bill Goble, principal partner and co-founder of exida, a provider of process safety consulting, training and certification services.
Goble provided a detailed overview of the state of the safety instrumented system (SIS) world at this week’s Siemens Automation Summit in Chicago. He noted that when the standard ANSI/ISA84.01-2004 was first published, it created a firestorm of protest from people who insisted that it was impossible to engineer to, too expensive to comply with, and would never be implemented. With the inrush of training and tools available to today’s safety engineer, that simply is not the case, he said. “Today it is easier and less expensive to implement IEC 61511/ANSI ISA 84.01-2004, and this trend will continue,” Goble declared.
Click the link below to view the full article.

July 2, 2008: New exSILentia Viewer Available

The new exSILentia Viewer is available for download. The latest version of the viewer is compatible with exSIlentia Version 2.
The exSILentia Viewer is a FREE downloadable tool that you can use to review projects created with any of the exSILentia platforms. The Viewer application allows reviewers who do not have an exSILentia license to look at an exSILentia project. Users of the exSILentia Viewer software will not be able to make changes to the exSILentia project, however they will be able to generate reports in PDF.
A licensed user of exSILentia only has to provide the project .exi file to the exSILentia Viewer user.
You can download the latest viewer by clicking the link below.

June 24, 2008: Functional Safety Engineering I & II, CFSE Review (Spanish) Reschedule
exida will be conducting a CFSE course training course in SPANISH on December 8-12, 2008 in Houston, TX. This 4 day SPANISH course will help individuals review and apply:
• Functional Safety Standards
• Safety Lifecycle Concepts
• SIL Verification
• Safety Integrity Level Selection (SIL)
• Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA)
• Safety Instrumented System Design (SIS)
• Risk Management
• Probabilities
• CFSE & CFSP Exam Preparation
• and much more!

June 18, 2008: 10% off exSILentia and/or SERH Coupon

More about the products

SERH THIRD EDITION VOL. 01, 02, & 03 THREE VOLUME SET

exida is pleased to present the third edition of the Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook. The first and second editions of the handbook were exida #1sellers. Due to the vastly expanded number of equipment items, the third edition is published in three separate volumes:

Volume 01: Sensors
Volume 02: Logic Solvers and Interface Modules
Volume 03: Final Elements

The Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook, third edition, is the ultimate reference book for any safety engineer involved in Conceptual Design and Safety Integrity Level verification. It provides a tremendous amount of detailed reliability data for both specific manufacturer products as well as generic equipment items. Many companies have standardized their reliability evaluations on reliability data published by exida.

The Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook provides the ultimate reference source.

All The Important Safety Lifecycle Steps In One Tool?

With exSILentia version 2 exida provides a single tool interface for all available platforms, and continues to build on the successful first release.

New and interesting features and available plug-ins enhance the efficient safety lifecycle experience.

Approved Calculation Engine

The exSILentia SILver calculations and development process have been independently verified and certified by a 3rd party. The tool can be used for Safety Instrumented Functions up to SIL 4. The independent assessment relieves the end- user burden of demonstrating the calculation method for each Safety Instrumented Function or System project.

Automated Documentation Generation

Integration of the SIL selection, Safety Requirements Specification, and SIL verification Lifecycle tasks allows for a clear overview of your functional safety standards compliance. The exSILentia tool enables you to specify several Safety Instrumented Functions within a single project, each having its specific SILect, SIF SRS, and SILver records. The automated documentation generation in exSILentia provides easy complete reports for compliance with functional safety standards like ANSI/ISA 84.00.01:2004, IEC 61508, and IEC 61511 that require these Safety Lifecycle activities.

June 16, 2008: exSILentia Course Announced

On June 24th, exida will be conductiing a one day only training course on exSILentia in Houston, TX.
The exSILentia™ integrated Safety Lifecycle Engineering Tool is a powerful aid for any engineer involved in safety lifecycle tasks such as SIL selection, Safety Requirements Specification, and SIL verification. For users who are new to functional safety engineering or just want some additional guidance, exida developed a one-day training course to familiarize users with all facets of the exSILentia tool and ensuring efficient implementation of the Safety Lifecycle tasks.
Objective
To familiarize exSILentia users with tool features and general SIL selection and SIL verification concepts resulting in improved speed and efficiency of Safety Lifecycle tasks.
Target Audience
Individuals responsible for using exSILentia to perform Safety Lifecycle tasks. These individuals may include the Safety Lead, Conceptual Design Engineer, Requirements reviewer, or other people involved in completing the respective Safety Lifecycle tasks.
Prerequisite
Attendees should have a basic understanding of Windows-based software applications. General Safety Lifecycle knowledge is expected, i.e. the course will focus on the use of exSILentia and limit Functional Safety training. A limited number of computers will be available for use by the students. To increase course effectiveness it is suggested that students bring their own personal computer with exSILentia installed. Internet access will be provided so that exSILentia Online customers can access their accounts.
Course fee, $895 per student. If sending multiple students or purchasing exSILentia, discounts are available. Click the link below to sign up.
Download Brochure

February 29th, 2008: Fire and Gas Equipment – Functional Safety Certification per IEC 61508 Lecture
exida Partner Dr. William Goble will be giving a lecture on Fire and Gas Equipment – Functional Safety Certification per IEC 61508 on May 13th, 2008 at Advantage Fire Protection, Houston, TX.
In many industries quantitative and semi-quantitative risk analysis is being done to improve overall safety and optimize costs. In many cases a Fire and Gas Protection function is specified as a mitigation layer of protection. These systems may be subject to ANSI/ISA 84.01-2004 (IEC 61511+).
This presentation will discuss:
1. What’s the difference between 61508 and 61511 (equipment and installation of equipment)
2. The 61508 certification process for equipment.
3. Differences between Prior Use justification and 61508 certification.
4. What is an FMEDA analysis and how does it produce failure rate data for an instrument like a Flame Detector?
5. How do FMEDA results compare to the “Generic Reliability Numbers” for various pieces of equipment?
6. What are the recognized functional safety problems with installation and maintenance?
7. How Deluge Valves play into the picture.
8. What is the industry doing wrong and what can be done to improve.

February 27th, 2008: exida Webinars POSTPONED

exida has announced its Web Seminar "Webinar" Schedule for Winter 2008. Please fill out the exida contact form stating which webinar you would like to attend. You will then get a confirmation email a week before the webinar starts with login instructions. There is limited capacity. So it will be on a first come, first serve basis.

February 28th
11:00 - 12:00 PM Eastern Time
POSTPONED

The exida webinars Safety Lifecycle I: The Analysis Phase & Final Control Elements and IEC 61508 scheduled for February 28th have been POSTPONED. Exida is in the process of upgrading their webinar platform to facilitate the demand for these webinars. We will send out rescheduled invites in about two weeks. Thank you for your interest and sorry for the inconvenience.

March 27th
11:00 - 12:00 PM Eastern Time
POSTPONED

Introduction to the Functional Safety Standards
In recent years both the IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 standards have been adopted and are rapidly gaining momentum. These standards address both equipment design and system implementation and have broad implications on Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS). This seminar will give attendees an understanding of when and how to apply the standards and introduce them to the Safety Lifecycle, a detailed process for the analysis, design and implementation of SISs.
Attendees of the webinar will:
Develop an understanding of the applicability, contents, and benefits of using IEC 61508 and IEC 61511
Develop and understanding of the Safety Lifecycle
Review industry best practices
4:00-5:00 PM Eastern Time
Safety Lifecycle II: The Design Phase
The safety lifecycle can be segmented into three phases; Analysis, Design and Implementation. Each phase addresses specific issues important to achieving a high level of functional safety. By gaining a better understanding of each phase you will be able to more effectively and efficiently implement high quality safety systems.
In this seminar we will look at the Design Phase. The Design Phase addresses the activities starting with the conceptual design of the safety instrumented system through the validation of the completed system.
Areas addressed in the Design Phase include:
Conceptual Safety Instrumented System Design Selection of System Technology, Architecture and Test Philosophy
Equipment Selection
SIL Verification

February 25, 2008: exida Purchases Safety Lifecycle Tools Supplier ‘Asset Integrity Management’

Sellersville, PA - February 25, 2008 - exida.com®, LLC (exida), a privately held leading consulting and certification company to the process safety community, today announced it has completed the purchase of Asset Integrity Management (AIM) of Aberdeen, Scotland, U.K.

Dr. William Goble, exida’s principal partner says, “AIM and exida have been working under a mutually beneficial licensing agreement for quite some time. During that time we have demonstrated to our clients and ourselves how much the strengths of AIM’s SILSuite™ complement the strengths of exida’s exSILentia® product offering. However, we each came to the realization that in order to deliver end users a more tightly integrated software solution, one that is designed to encompass the IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 safety standards life-cycle model, we needed to become one company.”
The feasibility of using software tools that assist users in consistently, efficiently, and cost effectively applying the various phases of the IEC safety standards life-cycle model has been thoroughly reviewed and discussed among users, consultants, and suppliers for several years. However, most commercially available safety system software tools available today have been developed to assist with only a portion of the safety life-cycle model. Though these tools generally will support import/export capabilities, the differing database toxicology of each application frequently results in significant pre-import data manipulation as data-sets are passed from application to application.
A few suppliers, including AIM and exida, have developed suites of software applications but even such software application suites have not covered all aspects and all phases of the safety life-cycle model.
Goble says that exida is fully committed to supporting existing AIM and exida products while it aggressively engages in taking the best of both and integrating them into a robust, tightly integrated software suite that is specifically designed to assist users at all phases of the safety system life-cycle model.
Providing a hint of exida’s future plans, Goble said, “Once we have completed the integration of SILSuite and exSILentia we have already begun formulating plans for additional modules. Our goal is to produce a software suite that ensures accuracy and promotes consistency while lessening the user’s burden of conforming to IEC standards.”
Chevron’s Dennis Zetterberg, a user of both AIM and exida products says, “We have worked with both SILSuiteTM and exSILentia and agree that a software solution that combines the strengths of both of these would help us reduce costs by streamlining the various phases of the safety lifecycle as well as achieve consistency in our Safety Instrumented System design, implementation, operation, testing and maintenance throughout our global facilities.”
About AIM SILSuite:
AIM’s SILSuite software is a widely adopted, comprehensive set of software tools designed to address several phases of the safety life-cycle. It is being utilized by many global refining and chemical companies including BP, British Gas (HRL), Occidental, and Texaco North Sea.
SILSuite modules include SILAlarm™, SILHazop™, SILClass™, SILCalc™, SILLopa™, and SILLife™.
SILAlarm is a ‘front end’ application for prioritizing alarms using the Consequence Graph or the Summating the Consequences includes safety, economic and environmental consequences capability, as well as full user calibration facility for both methods.
SILHazop is ‘front end’ application that allows directly importing client HAZOP (Hazard Analysis and Operability) information including team disciplines, fluids, guidewords, lines, nodes, causes, consequences, measurement types and units, parameters, priorities and much more. Completed HAZOP assessments are reported using structured worksheets for process nodes and lines by using all the traditional guidewords and parameters (deviations) while tracking all adjacent lines and nodes.
SILClass is a ‘front end’ application for performing SIL determination using client configurable risk graphs, or matrices, that include safety, economic and environmental consequences capability; plus an option to take credit for independent protection layers (IPL).
SILCalc provides a pre-defined user library of components and sub-system failure rates to enable rapid model building as well as the configuration of assemblies (series combinations of components) using selected components and the calculation of assembly failure rates. It also supports modeling and calculating component level PFD of complex systems.
Visit www.assetintegrity.co.uk/SILSuite.html to learn more about AIM’s SILSuite
About exida exSILentia:
exida’s exSILentia software is an integrated safety lifecycle tool set that has been widely adopted in North America and Asia and is being utilized by many global refining and chemical companies including Atomic Energy of Canada, Chevron, Dow Chemical, and many more.
Available as an online application, exSILentia includes SILect, SRS, and SILver™.
SILect is a safety integrity level selection application that assists in determining the required target safety integrity level for a defined safety instrumented function (SIF). In other words, SILect assists in determing the required SIF design criteria; an important first step in establishing the tolerable risk that becomes an input to the Layer of Protection (LoP) analysis that eventually results in an implemented safety instrumented system that conforms to IEC safety standards.
SRS is a Safety Requirements Specification (SRS) development application designed to assist users develop and maintain the all important SRS documentation necessary to conform with IEC safety standards. A few years ago the United Kingdom’s highly respected Health, Safety & Environmental Agency (HSEA) completed a detailed study of the contributing factors that resulted in SIS failures. The HSEA report indicates that 60% of SIS failures were “built into the SIS” and 85% of those failures were engineering related, thus revealing the importance of developing accurate and complete SRS documentation. SRS software assists users by providing a robustly designed template for collecting all safety requirements.
SILver is a software application that assists in calculating the reliability metrics that are needed for safety system design. SILver provides the necessary and often difficult to find failure rate data and completes the calculations needed to implement a safety instrumented system that conforms to IEC 61511 standards.
Other exida safety system related products include: Safety Automation Equipment List - free on-line database of equipment that has been assessed and certified by recognized third-parties for use in safety instrumented system applications. Safety Case DB provides users with a Requirements Management application that includes an extensive knowledge of arguments and information necessary in understanding and meeting IEC 61508 standards.
Visit http://www.exida.com/applications/ to learn more about exida’s exSILentia and other product offerings.
About Asset Integrity Management (AIM):
Asset Integrity Management (AIM) provides specialist risk assessment, technical training and consultancy, and associated software tools to regulated industries worldwide from its offices in Aberdeen, Scotland, U.K.; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; and Somerset West 7130, South Africa.
AIM’s client list reads like the “Who’s Who in the Process Industries” and includes Aker Kvaerner, BP, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, GlaxoSmithKline, Millennium Chemicals, Polimerj Eruopa, SudiChevronPhillips, and Texaco North Sea.
AIM Consultants are multidiscipline professionals with worldwide experience in the process industry. They have extensive knowledge in the areas of Oil and Gas Exploration and Production, Refining, Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals and Nuclear Energy and have particular expertise in the field of safety management. They are highly skilled HAZOP and SIL determination team leaders using either risk graphs or Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) techniques to determine Safety Integrity Levels to provide an appropriate level of risk reduction. AIM consultants offer an extensive practical working knowledge of IEC 61508, IEC 61511, ISA S84.01 and EEMUA Guideline 191.
Visit http://www.assetintegrity.co.uk/ to learn more about Asset Integrity Management (AIM)
About exida.com:
exida.com is an independently owned and operated consulting and certification firm founded on a passion for innovative high performance safety and availability of automation systems. Specializing in safety critical and high availability automation systems, exida brings together the knowledge and experience of over 50 functional safety experts from around the world. exida has helped pioneer the field of functional safety by; the participation on international committees, the authoring of technical and reference books, the development of procedures for the design, maintenance, installation, and operation of safety systems, IEC 61508 certification of products and extensive teaching and consulting activities.
exida was established as a U.S. LLC by several of the world's top safety and reliability experts. Using a combination of over 60 years experience in safety and reliability of automation systems, exida.com has developed a series of proven sample documents, templates, techniques and procedures to assure quick and effective service.
exida was represented in the transaction by Edward Curry of Curry and Hurd.
Visit www.exida.com to learn more about exida.
exSILentia® and SILver™ are marks owned by exida.com®. Other marks are the property of their respective owners.

February 18th, 2008: Electrical and Mechanical Component Reliability Handbook 2nd Edition NOW SHIPPING!

exida is pleased to present the second edition of the Electrical and Mechanical Component Reliability Handbook. The first edition successfully met the need of safety and design engineers seeking a single reference for component failure rates and modes, selling out in a matter of months. This second edition builds on its predecessor’s success. It features many new components, updates to failure rates and modes for existing components. Also a new environmental profile, Unprotected Outdoor, for mechanical components has been included.
The Electrical and Mechanical Component Reliability Handbook is an indispensable reference for any engineer involved in designing or analyzing safety related equipment. It is particularly useful for Failure Modes, Effects and Diagnostic Analysis, but its detailed descriptions of failure modes and rates can prove valuable during component selection as well.

January 23rd, 2008: New exida Book: Win-Win: A Manager's Guide to Functional Safety

New book publised by exida.com LLC authored by partner Curt Miller!
Although there have been huge technical strides in process safety over the last twenty years, there is still a gap between the current practice of many firms and what could be called “good safety engineering practice”. This book will identify where some of these gaps exist. The book also seeks to provide an introduction to the opportunities to bridge those gaps through applying various functional safety management tools. It is written at the introductory level to provide engineers and engineering managers with a basic understanding of what they can do to both improve safety and reduce costs. However, to achieve both of these goals, proper support from management, engineering, operations, maintenance, and process safety professionals is needed. The objective is to make these good safety engineering practices the norm.
What is good safety engineering practice? It is the creation and effective use of safety lifecycle procedures and practices to prevent systematic and random flaws from jeopardizing plant safety. Safety equipment and support tools have made significant progress in the last fifteen to twenty years – now the high quality assessment, design, operations, and maintenance procedures need to embrace these advancements and take full advantage of them.
But just creating the procedures is not the cure all. The fact that even the earlier process industry safety lifecycle standard released in 1996 lacked these planning and coordination elements strongly suggests that management had not fully bought into the complete lifecycle concept. The objective of the first chapter “Why Embrace the New ISA 84” is to show that with good management support, functional safety can (and should) benefit the bottom line. The rest of the book then covers functional safety management and each safety lifecycle step, providing information and advice on how to put everything together to achieve positive results most effectively. If done properly, applying the new standard should give you a safer and more economical plant operation and this book will have served its purpose. (Hardbound -- published by exida, L.L.C.)

January 22nd, 2008: exida Webinars Announced

exida has announced its Web Seminar "Webinar" Schedule for Winter 2008. Please fill out the exida contact form stating which webinar you would like to attend. You will then get a confirmation email a week before the webinar starts with login instructions. There is limited capacity. So it will be on a first come, first serve basis.

February 28th
11:00 - 12:00 PM Eastern Time
POSTPONED

The exida webinars Safety Lifecycle I: The Analysis Phase & Final Control Elements and IEC 61508 scheduled for February 28th have been POSTPONED. Exida is in the process of upgrading their webinar platform to facilitate the demand for these webinars. We will send out rescheduled invites in about two weeks. Thank you for your interest and sorry for the inconvenience.

March 27th
11:00 - 12:00 PM Eastern Time

REGISTRATION OPEN
Introduction to the Functional Safety Standards
In recent years both the IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 standards have been adopted and are rapidly gaining momentum. These standards address both equipment design and system implementation and have broad implications on Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS). This seminar will give attendees an understanding of when and how to apply the standards and introduce them to the Safety Lifecycle, a detailed process for the analysis, design and implementation of SISs.
Attendees of the webinar will:
Develop an understanding of the applicability, contents, and benefits of using IEC 61508 and IEC 61511
Develop and understanding of the Safety Lifecycle
Review industry best practices
4:00-5:00 PM Eastern Time
Safety Lifecycle II: The Design Phase
The safety lifecycle can be segmented into three phases; Analysis, Design and Implementation. Each phase addresses specific issues important to achieving a high level of functional safety. By gaining a better understanding of each phase you will be able to more effectively and efficiently implement high quality safety systems.
In this seminar we will look at the Design Phase. The Design Phase addresses the activities starting with the conceptual design of the safety instrumented system through the validation of the completed system.
Areas addressed in the Design Phase include:
Conceptual Safety Instrumented System Design Selection of System Technology, Architecture and Test Philosophy
Equipment Selection
SIL Verification

January 2nd, 2008: New Article Posted: MECHANICAL DATABASE VERIFICATION
MECHANICAL DATABASE VERIFICATION REPORT
by Julia Bukowski
The purpose of this document is to report on our successful efforts to validate statistically certain random equipment failure rate data used in a mechanical parts failure rate and failure mode database and, by extension, to validate the techniques used to derive the data. To accomplish this, a Failure Modes, Effects, and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA) is initially used to predict the useful- life failure rate for the fail-to-open condition of a particular pressure relief valve (PRV) using the failure rates from the mechanical parts database. Next, this prediction is statistically tested against three independent data sets consisting of proof test data for PRV provided by Fortune 500 operating companies. The data sets all meet the intent of the quality assurance of proof test data as documented by the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) Process Equipment Reliability Database (PERD) initiativ

December 18th, 2007: SERH - Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook Third Edition NOW SHIPPING!

SERH THIRD EDITION VOL. 01, 02, & 03 THREE VOLUME SET
exida is pleased to present the third edition of the Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook. The first and second editions of the handbook were exida #1 sellers. Due to the vastly expanded number of equipment items, the third edition is published in three separate volumes:
Volume 01: Sensors
Volume 02: Logic Solvers and Interface Modules
Volume 03: Final Elements
The Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook, third edition, is the ultimate reference book for any safety engineer involved in Conceptual Design and Safety Integrity Level verification. It provides a tremendous amount of detailed reliability data for both specific manufacturer products as well as generic equipment items. Many companies have standardized their reliability evaluations on reliability data published by exida.
The Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook provides the ultimate reference source.
NOW SHIPPING! FREE SHIPPING

Individual volumes can be purchased seperately by following the link below.

December 18th, 2007: exSILentia 2.0 RELEASED

exida has announced an upgrade to their popular Integrated Safety Lifecycle Software tool exSIlentia.
Some of the key features of exSILentia 2.0 include:
• Plug-in capability, optional plug ins for importing data from your PHA’s or creating Cause and Effect diagrams based on your SILver input selections.
• The ability to define user roles and access rights.
• German and Portuguese report languages.
• Determine SIL capability of the equipment items that you select
• Calculate the Unit MTTFS
• Automatic SERH update utility
Current users can upgrade by clicking the link below.

November 27th, 2007: exida purchases AIM SILSuite™ Software

Sellersville, PA- November 27, 2007 - exida.com, LLC (privately held) today announced the purchase of a license to merge the Asset Integrity Management (AIM) SILSuite™ product line into the exSILentia® Suite. The SILSuite™ product line is a set ofleading software tools that have been widely adopted in Europe and is utilized by many global refining and chemical companies. The strengths of SILSuite™ complement the strengths of exida’s exSILentia® product offering and allow exida to broaden its safety lifecycle software solution.
SILSuite™ is a comprehensive product with modules that address many phases of the safety lifecycle. SILSuite™ modules include; SILAlarm™, SILHazop™, SILClass™, and SILCalc™, Iwan van Beurden, exida Director of Engineering, stated that “the integration of these two software platforms will result in an unparalleled tool for customers striving to increase functional safety and achieve compliance while managing costs”.
Ted Heale of AIM stated that “exida was a perfect strategic fit to leverage the strong technology embedded in the SILSuite™ software product”. Clive Timms of AIM stated "The realneed for SIS practitioners is to have a good set of integrated lifecycle tools to aid compliance with the standard, and reduce the time and associated costs with each lifecycle stage".
exida plans to support both product platforms and integrate the features into a combined product that will be marketed under the exSILentia brand. The combination of SILSuite™’s integrated safety lifecycle concepts with exSILentia’s extensive equipment database and unmatched SIL verification engine will result in a clear market leading solution for functional safety customers.
Dennis Zetterberg with Chevron stated the following: "We believe that an integrated safety lifecycle approach that is supported by a software solution is much needed in the industry. We have worked with both AIM SILSuite™ and exSILentia and agree that a software solution that combines the strengths of both of these would help us reduce costs by streamlining the various phases of the safety lifecycle as well as achieve consistency in our Safety Instrumented System design, implementation, operation, testing and maintenance throughout our global facilities.”
Asset Integrity Management (AIM) is located in Aberdeen, Scotland, UK and provides IEC 61508/61511 related consultancy and tools to regulated process industries worldwide.
exida is a consulting and certification firm specializing in safety critical and high availability automation systems bringing together the knowledge and experience of over 40 functional safety experts from around the world. exida has helped pioneer the field of functional safety by; the participation on international committees, the authoring of technical and reference books, the development of procedures for the design, maintenance, installation, and operation of safety systems, IEC 61508 certification of products and extensive teaching and consulting activities. exida was advised in the transaction by Ed Curry of Curry & Hurd LLC.
With main offices in Philadelphia and Munich and a network of service centers throughout the world exida is situated to provide support for your global functional safety needs. If you would like additional information on the exSILentia products, exida, or any of our other products, please follow the link below.

October 30th, 2007: exida Meets with ITEI
Exida and ITEI held an initial cooperation meeting in Shanghai on September 20 during the MICONEX Expo.
ITEI is a non-profit government funded organization tasked by the Chinese federal government to translate, develop and promote Chinese safety standards for everything from Process safety to transportation (railroads). ITEI is located in Beijing with over 100 people, including 20 Engineers and 5 Professors. The current headlines about the safety of Chinese exports have brought a lot of attention to safety and the Chinese government thru ITEI and other similar agencies is moving aggressively to address this issue.
ITEI is the principal organization in China today studying and translating the current International Standards, (including 61508 and 61511) and developing Chinese standards that meet both International norms and Chinese standard practices. ITEI plans include the development of the necessary knowledge and capacity to provide training, Safety Life Cycle Services and Instrument certifications. Given the size and rapid expansion of the Chinese economy, the evolving terminology in this technology, and the difficulties created by language barriers, this will be an enormous challenge and Exida is ready to join in this effort. Exida is anxious to find ways to work with ITEI through training, seminars and other means of cooperation.

October 18th, 2007: exida announces the formation of a new subsidiary, exida South Africa (Pty) Ltd.

exida.com, LLC (privately held) today announced the formation of a new company, Exida South Africa (Pty) Ltd. supporting the Southern territory of the EMEA region.
Chris O’Brien, Director of Business Development from exida, explained “We continue to invest in global infrastructure to provide consistent safety lifecycle services anywhere those services are needed.” “Future opportunities are strong in the fast growing Oil & Gas industry in southern Africa. We needed strong local capability to completely fulfill the needs of our customers.” said Owen Tavener-Smith, Managing Director of Exida South Africa.
The new company currently serves the Functional Safety needs of the South African petrochemical refineries in addition to several other customers in the nuclear, chemical and related industries operating in the southern Africa region.
exida is an engineering consulting and certification firm specializing in safety critical and high availability automation systems. exida personnel have pioneered the tools and procedures used around the world for the design, maintenance, installation, and operation of safety instrumented systems. exida also provides Functional Safety engineering software in its exSILentia® product suite.
exida's main offices are now located in Sellersville, PA, USA; Munich, Germany and Westville, South Africa with a network of service centers in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand.
exida South Africa (Pty) Ltd
29 Maryvale Road Westville KZN 3629
South Africa
Tel: +27 31 2671564
Fax: +27 31 2671567
Mobile: +27 (0)832284484
owen.tavener-smith [at] exida.com

September 27th, 2007: exida releases Safety Process Measurement Instrumentation Market Report
Sellersville, PA, USA - September 17th, 2007- exida.com, LLC (privately held) today announced the release of a new market study covering safety process measurement instrumentation for the process and industries. Titled “Safety Process Measurement Instrumentation Market Study,” the document provides information on market segments, market attributes and market size.
“The Safety Process Measurement Instrumentation market is a rapidly growing segment within the overall SIS market” says Chris O'Brien, Director of Business Development for exida and primary author of the report. “The overall market for certified instruments has grown to over $148 million and is expected to grow at over 20% per year making it an attractive segment for equipment manufacturers.”

September 25th, 2007 : exida Partner appears on Internet Radio Show
Bill Goble was interviewed along with Charlie Fialkowski of Siemens by Walt Boyes of CONTROL Magazine. Subjects included safety and control separation, new standards and 61508 certification. The conversation was recorded, podcast and made available on the CONTROL Magazine web site.

September 25th, 2007: exida Represented at the Emerson Users Group
exida was represented at the Emerson Users Group. Iwan van Beurden manned a booth for both the CFSE Board and exida. Bill Goble presented three speeches on the CFSE program and got the “Best in Conference” presentation award for safety category.
The exida certification program was widely promoted with signs appearing with several of the products exida has certified. In addition, many of the product groups announced their completed exida certifications in their new products sessions with pictures of our certificates in the presentations.
Several end users told exida that they were surprised to see them “all over the show.”

Aplicação	Spurious Trip Cost – STC
Plataformas de Óleo e Gás	Até US$ 2 milhões/dia
Planta de Poliestireno	20 dia para recuperar a produção a US$ 20 mil/dia
Unidade de Coque	US$ 35 mil/dia
UFCC	US$ 500 mil
Refinaria totalmente parada	US$ 1 milhão /dia
Planta de Amônia	US$ 1 milhão /dia
Geração de Energia	US$ 1 mil/MW hora até US$ milhões /unidade
Planta de Eteno	US$ 1 milhão até especificar o produto