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Blog Entry: exida Cyber Blog Series: 01 - What is Cyber Hygiene?
exida would like to welcome our new director of cybersecurity services Dave Gunter . Dave will be taking us through a multi part blog series based on general cybersecurity evolving into how it pertains to your industrial work environment and what you should do to protect your company and its…
News Item: Webinar Recording: From Failure Rates to SIL – PFDavg Plays its Part
This webinar provides a high level overview on how the probability of dangerous failures affects everything from failure rates to safety integrity levels. We cover: Probability of Failure Unreliability / Reliability Repairable Systems Probability of Mode Failure Mission Time Impact of Proof Testing Proof Test Coverage Automatic Diagnostics Valid Test…
Recorded Webinars: From Failure Rates to SIL – PFDavg Plays its Part
This webinar will provide a high level overview on how the probability of dangerous failures affects everything from failure rates to safety integrity levels. We cover:
• Probability of Failure
• Unreliability / Reliability
• Repairable Systems
• Probability of Mode Failure
• Mission Time
• Impact of Proof Testing
• Proof Test Coverage
• Automatic Diagnostics
• Valid Test Intervals – Continuous/High and Low Demand
News Item: exida Announces Business Partnership with Champion Technology
exida, a global supplier of functional safety products, services and certifications is pleased to announce a business partnership with Champion Technology . “Champion is very excited to partner with exida, a recognized world leader in Functional Safety and Alarm Management solutions for the process industry,” says Mehrdad Ghorashi, President for…
News Item: Maximizing the Reliability of Operator Response to Alarms Webinar
The webinar entitled Maximizing the Reliability of Operator Response to Alarms has been posted to Youtube. “Closing the Holes in the Swiss Cheese Model” Layers of protection for abnormal event management can be modeled as slices of swiss cheese according to James Reason. An operator’s response to an alarm is…
Recorded Webinars: Maximizing the Reliability of Operator Response to Alarms
“Closing the Holes in the Swiss Cheese Model”
Layers of protection for abnormal event management can be modeled as slices of swiss cheese according to James Reason. An operator’s response to an alarm is one of the first layers of protection to prevent a hazard from escalating to an incident. This presentation discusses a two-part approach to maximizing the operator’s reliability when responding to abnormal situations (“closing the holes in the swiss cheese layer”).
The first part focuses on following the best practices in the alarm management standards ANSI/ISA-18.2-2016 and IEC 62682. Examples include alarm rationalization to ensure all alarms are meaningful and to capture “tribal knowledge”, prioritization to help operators determine which alarms are most critical, alarm classification, monitoring of alarm system performance metrics, and creation of alarm response procedures. The second part addresses the impact of human factors on operator performance; including how nuisance alarms and alarm floods can lead to errant mental models, attention tunneling, misplaced salience and overall loss of situation awareness. We will also discuss how often “operator error” is really the underlying cause of alarm management incidents.
News Item: Complimentary exSILentia® Express Class in Mexico City
exida invites you to attend a complimentary overview training on the exSILentia® Safety Lifecycle tool in Mexico City on Friday, June 9, 2017. Attendees will learn how to perform Safety Integrity Level (SIL) Selection and Verification using exSILentia®. This will help users determine the required risk reduction for each hazard…
Recorded Webinars: Functional Safety Management Planning Part 1: Setting the Structure
This is the first in a series of three webinars on Functional Safety Management Planning. Part 1 will discuss some of the issues experienced when implementing a functional safety management project without proper planning, review the requirements for a plan, and suggest one approach for plan development. This session will focus on the contents of the policy level master plan document and identification of procedures, work instructions, forms and records that comprise the Functional Safety Management Plan.
Recorded Webinars: Conducting Effective Hazard and Risk Assessments for Machine Applications
Machine Safety Webinar Series (Part 1)
This webinar will review hazard analysis, risk assessment, and safety requirements specification activities. We will look at the guidance in both IEC 62061 and ISO 13849, as well as industry practice to gain a broad understanding of techniques that are currently in use. Qualitative, semi-quantitative, and quantitative techniques for evaluating risk will be explained and demonstrated through examples. The information needed for an effective safety requirements specification will also be reviewed and documented.
A-T Controls Inc. - TS2/TS3/TSW Trunnion Ball Valves
IEC 61508 in the Safety Automation Equipment List
Mars Valve Co., Ltd. - Series 30M
IEC 61508 in the Safety Automation Equipment List
Training Course: Process Hazards Analysis (PHA) Using HAZOP
This two day course provides sound and detailed instruction into how to carry out an effective HAZOP study and where PHA methods fit into the overall process safety management work process and the IEC 61511 safety lifecycle. As part of performing a HAZOP, the importance of process safety information, risk…
Training Course: Control Hazard and Operability Analysis (CHAZOP)
This course covers various CHAZOP methodologies as a function of the intended CHAZOP goals and indicates where a CHAZOP fits into the overall process safety management work process and the IEC 61511 safety lifecycle. Students are provided the opportunity to work through hands on exercises in detail for the key…
ASCO - Series 330 Booster Valves
IEC 61508 in the Safety Automation Equipment List
Recorded Webinars: Process and Design Safety Requirements Specifications Implementation in exSILentia
The Safety Requirements Specification (SRS) is a key document in the functional safety lifecycle that conveys requirements between phases of the lifecycle. The SRS requirements in the 2016 version of the IEC 61511 standard have been significantly improved over the original requirements in the 2003 edition of the standard. The exSILentia team has implemented the 2016 requirements in the exSILentia software. The initial SRS is typically referred to as the Process SRS as it documents the requirements from the Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) and Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) on the conceptual design of the SIS and SIFs. In addition to this initial or Process SRS, the exSILentia software also contains a Design SRS. The latter documents the requirements that result from the conceptual design and that apply to the detailed design.
This webinar will review the implementation of the SRS in exSILentia and identify key integration aspects of the software that will make compiling each unique SIFs requirements significantly more efficient. The webinar will also look at the Design SRS and specific aspects addressed by this document.
Blog Entry: Tales from the Certification Wars - Proven In Use versus Certification
There have been passionate debates in email and meetings about “ Proven In Use ” versus IEC 61508 certification . Most debates characterize these evaluation techniques as competing methods. In 2000 when IEC 61511 was being written there were few IEC 61508 certified products on the market. The alternative justification…
News Item: exida Presenting at NIWeek 2017, May 22–25 in Austin, TX
Dr. William Goble, co-founder of exida, will be presenting at NIWeek 2017 , May 22–25 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas. The title of the presentation is An Introduction to Functional Safety. NIWeek 2017 is a learning environment that gives you the tools and knowledge to increase your…
White Paper: Managing Alarms to Support Operational Discipline
Process alarms, coupled with operator action, are frequently cited as a safeguard in a Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) and an Independent Protection Layers (IPL) in a Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA), but does the alarm management system really support the safeguard/IPL? According to ISA-18.2 / IEC 62682 an alarm must…
White Paper: Maximizing the Reliability of Operator Response to Alarms
Layers of protection for abnormal event management can be modeled as slices of swiss cheese according to James Reason [1]. An operator’s response to an alarm is one of the first layers of protection to prevent a hazard from escalating to an incident. This paper will present best practices for…
Recorded Webinars: Optional Cost/SIF Design – Composite failure rates instead of generic failure rates
This webinar will discuss best practices in SIF verification when the question arises when to use a composite failure rate instead of a generic failure rate for a set of possible devices. We will look at examples using exSILentia to compare the probability of failure on demand and the mean time to fail safe for the SIF.