This is the next in a series of blogs and papers on the benefits of cyber certification. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here. Certification provides you with the opportunity to…
This is the next in a series of blogs and papers on the benefits of cyber certification. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here. Certification provides you with the opportunity to…
Understanding operator decision-making is a good first step in improving operator effectiveness. Operator decision-making depends on the person (their level of expertise) and the situation (how familiar). A popular behavioral model from Rasmussen proposes…
It’s interesting that I had been preparing a webinar on pipeline safety and security since there have already been numerous incidents reported regarding pipeline accidents and leakage. Now the Read More...
No, you probably don’t want to hurt me. But if your product is used in a safety application, and my job depends on your product doing its job, will it hurt me if it fails?
With…
According to numerous industry studies, significant improvement has been made over the last 20 -30 years in occupational safety, but not so much in operational safety (process safety). New process safety incidents continue to occur…
The term SIL is rapidly spreading to Request for Proposals (RFP) and purchase requirements in many industries. But in many of those industries, few have heard about SIL and fewer have a grasp of the…
This is a topic which comes up time and again, especially when reviewing legacy systems. Although IEC61511 doesn’t preclude the use of shared devices, it does however provide guidance under Clause 11 of what…
Insurance Companies are hedging their bets through premiums while the Manufacturing Industry is placing their wagers on luck.
The worlds of gambling and insurance are similar in many ways. Both are built upon elements…
The Oldsmar Water Treatment Facility in Pinellas County Florida was compromised by hackers on February 5th. Hackers took advantage of the TeamViewer application that was still installed on the water facilities network to gain…
When we were doing safety system designs in the 1980s, there was no Windows, there was no TCP/IP, there was no in Ethernet. We had to write our own protocols to transmit data to…
Successful alarm rationalization combines both art and science. From the scientific point of view, rationalization follows a systematic process that applies alarm management principles to determine whether an alarm is justified (needed) and to…
The increasing global adoption of alarm management standards (ISA-18.2 and IEC 62682) is bringing the importance of alarm rationalization to the forefront. Rationalization is defined as the “process to review potential alarms using the…
This is the next in a series of blogs and papers on the benefits of cyber certification. You can read part 1 here. Certification provides you with the opportunity to work with an experienced…
The March / April 2020 issue of Intech contains an excellent article by Nick Sands and Donald Dunn, the co-chairs for the ISA-18 committee.
The article reviews some of the most frequently…
It’s interesting that the majority of the time when people talk about functional safety, they are usually thinking about hardware: what sensors to use, which logic solver, what actuator, solenoid or valve to…