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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.
Recorded Webinars: New to SIL Certification?
See what’s involved and what to expect when getting SIL Certified
- How to get started
- Product certification process
- Key documentation
- Benefits of certification
- Frequently asked questions
Blog Entry: Knowing Scope of Work (SOW)
There was a joke I heard many years ago that went like this… 3 workers were hired to run telephone lines. The first part of their job was to install the poles on which the wires would run. Each day, the foreman would ask the workers how many poles they…
Recorded Webinars: Functional Safety Assessment of Final Elements
IEC 61511 requires that Functional Safety Assessments be conducted at various points in the safety lifecycle. A thorough and well documented evaluation of final elements is not only a standards requirement but it is also one of the most important activities to ensure safety reliability and process availability. This webinar will present a straightforward process to achieve effective final element assessments.
Training Course: Layer of Protection Analysis for the Practitioner
This course is designed for practitioners and those who are either participants in facilitated layer of protection analysis (LOPA) or simply want a better understanding. It covers all facets of performing LOPA. It lays the foundation with basic probability math and event tree analysis, as well as topics on human…
Recorded Webinars: Nuisance Alarms – A menace to the Operator
Nuisance alarms are alarms that don’t meet the definition or purpose of an alarm according to the ISA-18.2 / IEC 62682 alarm management standards. Defined as alarms that annunciate excessively, unnecessarily, or do not return to normal after the correct response is taken, nuisance alarms can be the operator’s worst nightmare. They can clutter the alarm summary display, increase operator stress, desensitize the operator, and cause them to lose situation awareness. Nuisance alarms can create a culture where it becomes necessary and acceptable for operators to ignore alarms.
This presentation will discuss the dangers of nuisance alarms from a human factors point of view and will discuss techniques for eliminating them (rationalization), as well as handling them when they occur (alarm shelving). It will talk about how nuisance alarms affect operator decision making and how to change a culture where the ignoring of alarms has become standard practice.