Search
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.
Blog Entry: Best Practices in Achieving Functional Safety in Turbine Applications - Part 3
The adoption of the functional safety standards continues to gain momentum in turbine applications. Both industrial and power turbine sites are now requiring compliance to IEC 61511. This blog will review both technical requirements and market trends related to functional safety system design. Market trends will cover which standards are…
News Item: First Chinese CFSE/CFSP Course and Examination in China, Qingdao
exida Asia Pacific is proud to announce that they conducted the first IEC 61511: Functional Safety Analysis, Design, and Operation (FSE 100) course in Qingdao, China on 9-12 November 2015. Dr. Felix Wang, Senior Safety Consultant, conducted the Chinese course to 15 participants from Qingdao Moses, PetroChina, Sinopec, China Chemical…
News Item: exida Presenting at RAMS 2016
David Johnson, exida senior safety engineer will be presenting at RAMS 2016 , which will take place January 25-28, 2016 in Tucson, AZ. The paper is titled “Software Functional Safety: Possibilities & Limitations of IEC61508-7 Annex D.” This paper explains the possibilities and limitations of using IEC61508-7 Annex D in…
Emerson Topworx - Topworx D-ESD 3rd Party Solenoid
IEC 61508 in the Safety Automation Equipment List
Blog Entry: SILSafe Data Website
exida has launched the web site www.silsafedata.com . SILSafe Data is a web site listing a number of product categories used in process control and the expected range of failure rates for process industry applications. The use of realistic and application appropriate failure rate data has a significant impact on…
News Item: exida Academy: 2016 US Training Schedule Now Available
IEC 61511: Functional Safety Analysis, Design, and Operation *This course was previously titled Functional Safety Engineering I & II* This course provides an overview of process industry safety engineering from the point of view of the Risk Analyst, Process Safety Coordinator, and Control Systems Design Engineer. It delivers a complete…