Search
News Item: exida Becomes a Resource in the Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork Program
A Connected Enterprise taps the Internet of Things (IoT) and new technology to optimize production and maximize automation technology investments. Manufacturers can modernize to a connected production infrastructure with greater ease and security when they have access to proven technologies and support. To meet this need, the Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork…
Recorded Webinars: Understanding the Value of IEC 61508 Product Certification
IEC 61508 is a standard for what is known as “functional safety.” This standard is becoming a higher priority with many safety system designers in the industrial controls market since many owner-operators require all devices used in a safety protection system to be IEC 61508 certified. Some however do not understand the steps in the certification process and the benefits of these steps for safety and reliability.
This webinar will describe the certification process and share real world examples of actual safety system failures that would have eliminated if the devices had been certified by exida.
Recorded Webinars: Master the Basics of Alarm Management: A Review of the Best Practices in ISA-TR18.2.3-2015
This webinar will review the best practices documented in TR3 – Basic Alarm Design, one of the series of technical reports created to supplement the ISA-18.2 standard on alarm management. Application of basic alarm design techniques, such as alarm deadband and on/off delay have been shown to significantly reduce alarm load on the operator (by 45 – 90% in one study). The webinar will discuss the best practices around the use of deadband, on / off delay, and PV filtering. Other areas of discussion include the use of alarm states in control logic, re-alarming, alarm latching, and considerations for selecting the appropriate alarm type.
Recorded Webinars: Functional Safety Assessment of Valve Assemblies
More and more devices that are used in safety critical systems are available with IEC 61508 certificates. This helps integrators and process owners move towards compliance with IEC 61511 and other functional safety standards. When looking at a valve assembly using certified devices is a good start but by itself doesn’t cover all requirements, there can still be unaddressed issues with engineering, design, and components. Engineering and design issues include the proper matching of actuators and valves, designing proper interfaces. Component issues include selecting appropriate brackets, couplings, and feedback switches. This webinar will investigate the steps required to ensure valve assemblies meet the requirements of IEC 61511 and IEC 61508 and provide a methodology to evaluate current and future designs.
Woodward Industrial Controls - GSOV25 – Gas Shutoff Valve
IEC 61508 in the Safety Automation Equipment List
News Item: exida Asia Pacific Training Dates Announced
exida’s Asia Pacific office is proud to announce training dates for the first half of the year. Dates and locations are announced for the Asia Pacific region for popular courses like: IEC 61511: Functional Safety Analysis, Design, and Operation (FSE 100), IEC 61508: E/E/PE Safety-Related Systems Hardware Development, IEC 61508:…
Blog Entry: A Year in Review: Functional Safety and Cybersecurity in 2015
Good things happened in the fields of functional safety and control system cybersecurity in 2015. I am not going to include the exciting new Star Wars movie as an event in the list as it does not really fit into the topic. But keeping focused, my highlights is 2015 were:…
News Item: exida Exhibiting at 71st Annual Instrumentation and Automation Symposium for the Process Industries
exida will be exhibiting at the 71st Annual Instrumentation and Automation Symposium for the Process Industries , which will be held January 26-28, 2016 in College Station, TX. Please be sure to stop by Booth #27 if you will be in attendance.
White Paper: Determining Software Safety: Understanding the Possibilities and Limitations of International Safety
This document is intended for readers who are familiar with the international safety standard IEC 61508 [Ref. 1] in general and with that document’s Part 7: Annex D [Ref. 2] in particular. As currently written, Annex D provides “initial guidelines on the use of a probabilistic approach to determining safety…
White Paper: Effects of Non‐Uniform Software Input Sampling on Confidence Levels Achieved per IEC 61508‐7 Annex D
International safety standard IEC 61508‐7 Annex D prescribes sampling sizes of safety critical software (SW) inputs needed to be consecutively processed correctly in order to ascertain that the SW meets a certain safety integrity level (SIL) with a certain statistical confidence level. The sample sizes in Annex D Table D.1…
Blog Entry: Safety Requirements Specifications (SRS): The Good and the Bad
The IEC 61511 Standard requires the user to create a Safety Requirements Specification (SRS) for a Safety Instrumented System 〈SIS〉 that incorporates all the analysis done during the Risk Assessment, HAZOP/PHA and LOPA reviews. The SRS falls into two types: an initial conceptual SRS, often referred to as the Process…
Recorded Webinars: What Architectural Constraints Does My Device Meet, and What Does it Mean?
This webinar will discuss what an architectural constraint is, how it is determined, what architectural constraint is met, and what other factors go into a SIL requirement and the certification. Minimum architecture requirements were defined in IEC 61508 in 2000. The 2010 edition of IEC 61508 has retained the existing requirements, now called Route 1H, and added a new alternative set of requirements for elements with “90% confidence” in failure data and failure modes. This web seminar will review the alternative architecture constraint requirements including the new Route 2H and show one method that exida is using to claim 90% confidence in the failure rate and failure mode data.
News Item: exida’s Todd Stauffer Receives ISA Standards and Practices Department Award
Todd Stauffer, exida Director of Alarm Management Services is the recipient of the ISA Standards and Practices Department Award. This award is in recognition of outstanding contributions as working group chair in the development of ISA-TR 18.2.3, Basic Alarm Design, and for pioneering work in development of the technical reports…
News Item: exida Announces Business Partnership with Phoenix Contact
exida, a global supplier of functional safety products, services and certifications is pleased to announce a business partnership with Phoenix Contact. “Through this partnership, exida provides Phoenix Contact with an extensive assessment offering that can help our customers improve their business,” said Spencer Bolgard, vice president and general manager of…
News Item: exida worked with Ashland to Implement a More Useful Alarm Management Program
Ashland ISP Lima, located next to a large Husky Refinery in Lima, OH, was experiencing alarm management issues such as alarm floods and nuisance alarms. The BDO plant, which had been in operation since 2000, utilizes a DeltaV distributed control system. Rather than following a “DIY” approach, Ashland brought in…
Cowan Dynamics Inc. - Series A2A Booster
IEC 61508 in the Safety Automation Equipment List
Cowan Dynamics Inc. - Series ML / Series MS
IEC 61508 in the Safety Automation Equipment List
Cowan Dynamics Inc. - Series A, AT, and AS Pneumatic Actuators
IEC 61508 in the Safety Automation Equipment List
Blog Entry: WHY are Failures Occurring at a Different Rate from Our Other Site?
Site audits have shown many differences in how things are done from site to site. This impacts many variables in a safety instrumented system! A key metric for process industry designs is called average Probability of Failure on Demand (PFDavg). After several studies of many field failure and proof test…
Recorded Webinars: Failure Rate Classification-Safe or Dangerous: How to Use Fail Low and Fail High Failures
Analog transmitter failure modes are typically dangerous undetected, low, high, and detected. Normally there is no safe (either detected or undetected) failure mode. The low, high, and detected failure modes are to be classified by the end-user based on the actual application that the transmitter is used. This webinar will review the expected failure modes, and then using the exSILentia® SILver™ tool show how failure modes are classified into safe and dangerous, detected and undetected based on the actual application.