In the following series of blogs, we'll go back to basics and run down everything you need to know to get started in functional safety.  We'll start with some more general terms and descriptions and make our way to more advanced material.

1. Functional Safety

Functional safety means the automatic safety function will perform the intended function correctly or the system will fail in a predictable (safe) manner.

To improve plant process safety, functional safety systems enable the orderly shutdown of processing units when abnormal situations occur that are beyond the capabilities of the regulatory control system or operators to correct or to prevent a catastrophe.

Functional safety enables the freedom from unacceptable risk achieved through the safety lifecycle. In general, it is adopted from two main industry standards: IEC61508 and IEC61511. These standards help address the safety lifecycle and address different types of failures from faults. 

Functional safety dives into the core of the company’s quality management system, helps determine the architecture constraints, and also determines a product or systems’ failure rates.