- by Ted Stewart, CFSP, exidaCSP
- Tuesday, March 17, 2020
- Certification
The CFSE Exam is Now Offered Online!
exida, the global leader in functional safety, industrial automation cybersecurity, and alarm management is thrilled to announce a new online testing platform for their CFSE (Certified Functional Safety Expert) and CACE (IEC 62443 Certified Automation Cybersecurity Expert) Certification programs. This also includes the CFSP and CACS…
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- by Dr. William Goble, CFSE
- Thursday, February 27, 2020
- Certification
I Failed the CFSE Exam, HELP!
It is tough to receive an email with this message from a prospective CFSE candidate. I know that when I have failed exams, I want to understand what was wrong so I can study those areas of knowledge more deeply and try again. Given the recognition and prestige…
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- by Ted Stewart, CFSP, exidaCSP
- Thursday, February 13, 2020
- Certification
Psychometrics – Another reason CFSE remains the Gold Standard
In today’s day and age, functional safety certificate and certification programs are becoming common. There are many to choose from with their own set of requirements and expectations.
So how do we know which one to choose?

The…
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- by Dr. William Goble, CFSE
- Thursday, January 09, 2020
- Certification
Getting the Best IEC 62443 Cybersecurity Certification?
After careful planning and development of your system, the last thing you want to worry about is the credibility of your certification. Although it may seem like a given for your certification to be well accepted by your customers, it is never a bad idea to dig a little…
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- by Julia V. Bukowski
- Tuesday, November 05, 2019
- Certification
Guest Blog: Thar’s Gold in Them Thar Failure Data
Failure data collection can seem tedious, time consuming and expensive. Just figuring out what data to collect can be challenging. Failure data analysis can be overwhelming with a sense of “I don’t even know where to begin.” So it is not surprising that these useful, vital activities are often neglected especially when…
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- by Jonathan Moore
- Tuesday, October 29, 2019
- Certification
Why Does My Risk Assessment Require an FMEDA?
If you find yourself faced with this question you might be wondering why it is that having successfully used risk assessments without FMEDA your team are suddenly faced with the complexity of executing FMEDAs.

Maybe us safety people answer with a follow…
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- by Ted Stewart, CFSP, exidaCSP
- Tuesday, September 17, 2019
- Certification
Personnel Certification Concerns? We are Here to Help.
A few weeks ago, we were asked to help a fellow colleague who received a message regarding their FS Engineer (TÜV Rheinland) certificate :
We are aware, that the validity of your FS Expert (TÜV Rheinland) certificate is expiring this month. Kindly be informed that we have had a…
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- by Loren Stewart, CFSE
- Tuesday, July 30, 2019
- Certification
Back to Basics 12 – What is IEC 61508 Certification?
IEC 61508 Certification is a Third-Party Validation against the standard’s requirements, comprising of:
- Detailed Analysis of engineering processes to determine Systematic Capability and Cybersecurity Strength
- Detailed Analysis of hardware design / design margins resulting in Random Failure Rate in all failure modes
- Analysis/Testing to show safe, correct operation and Cybersecurity Susceptibility
To achieve an…
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- by John Yozallinas, CFSE
- Thursday, May 09, 2019
- Certification
PIU May Only Get You So Far…
If you’ve got lots of proven field history for a product, you should be able to claim that good work and get your product certified for use in functional safety applications. It is certainly still a challenge, but it is easier than certifying a new product. The…
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- by Dr. William Goble, CFSE
- Tuesday, March 05, 2019
- Certification
exida Failure Rates are Higher Than TÜV Italia. Who Is Right?
An owner-operator engineer compared the failure rates for two similar products from an exida certificate with those from a TÜV Italia certificate. exida numbers were an order of magnitude higher. Who is right?
There are some relevant fundamental facts in the field of Reliability Engineering:
- Failure rate prediction methods depend…
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- by Dr. William Goble, CFSE
- Thursday, January 24, 2019
- Certification
Who gives exida the authority to publish SILSafeData?

SILSafeData contains upper and lower bound ranges of dangerous undetected failure rates for many automation devices. It was created by exida using statistical analysis of FMEDA failure rate predictions. The component database used in the FMEDAx tool is based on…
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- by Dave Butler, CFSE
- Thursday, November 29, 2018
- Certification
Comparing the IEC 62443 Software Engineering Process to IEC 61508: Where Do They Overlap?
With the appearance of malware and nation state attacks on Industrial Control Systems (ICS), such as the Stuxnet (2010), Industroyer (2016) and TRITON (2017) attacks, the IEC 62433 standards are gaining wider attention.
While the potential targets to attack in an ICS system are many-fold, one plant asset that…
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- by Dr. William Goble, CFSE
- Tuesday, November 27, 2018
- Certification
Functional Safety Certification Started with Logic Solvers
IEC 61508 functional safety certification began in the 1990s. As I recall, the only organizations doing this work in those days were TÜV Rheinland and TÜV Product Services (now TÜV Sud). These two companies remain competitors.
Functional safety certification started with logic solvers. Some engineers and regulators at the…
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- by Dr. William Goble, CFSE
- Monday, October 29, 2018
- Certification
Using SILSafeData to Check Your Failure Data Source

www.SILSafeData.com is a complimentary resource that contains the upper and lower bounds failure rates for many categories of automation equipment, as well as the methodology used by exida to derive the numbers.
Many of you have asked how to…
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- by Dr. William Goble, CFSE
- Thursday, September 27, 2018
- Certification
The New Technology in Logic Solvers
I heard about a “safety certified” PLC in the late 1980s at an ISA SP84 standard committee meeting. The “logic solver” (as they later called it) was the focus of attention in the field of functional safety back then. Many engineers even said, “My system is safe because I…
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