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Blog Entry: Which Edition of IEC 61508 is Relevant to Me?
Simply stated, the 2nd edition of IEC 61508 is the relevant standard for newly developed products and new certifications. This represents the current best practices on functional safety techniques and measures, and is what the marketplace expects for today’s products. Renewed certifications can use the 1st edition of IEC 61508…
Ashcroft - A-Series
IEC 61508 in the Safety Automation Equipment List
Blog Entry: Setting the Pace
Going back in time to the turn of the century (remember 2000?), the amount and quality of failure data threatened to doom the whole probabilistic analysis approach. I recall a letter in IEEE Spectrum magazine from Patrick D. O’Conner, a well known reliability engineering author, who expressed the opinion that…
Flowserve - AUTOMAX RG Series Actuator
IEC 61508 in the Safety Automation Equipment List
News Item: exida Welcomes Jim Jenkins and Mark Lusignea to the exida Team
Jim Jenkins joins exida as a Senior Safety Engineer. Mr. Jenkins brings with him 26 years of Instrumentation and Process Control experience as an end user. He has filled the role of Instrument Reliability Engineer for the last 7 years with responsibility for Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS), Burner Management Systems…
Blog Entry: How Do You Certify to IEC 61508?
As you may already know, when it comes to the certification of equipment according to IEC 61508, there are several 3rd party agencies from which to choose. It is obvious from reviewing different assessments on for example a solenoid, that the interpretation of IEC 61508 and thereby the assessment method,…
Blog Entry: Practice Makes Perfect…Almost
How often do Managers see training budgets being cut, or personnel becoming blasé about training in general? Isn’t it the norm that annual performance reviews involve reviewing training requirements? Realistically, how often do these training requirements get ignored and/or forgotten about during the year? The answer, I’m afraid, is all…
Blog Entry: PHA: A must or a MUST?
Our thoughts and prayers are with those whose lives were lost, and those injured, as well as their families in last week’s fertilizer plant explosion in West Texas. A few statements made in the press were a bit surprising and I wanted to share those with you. Before I begin,…
News Item: exida Co-Presenting Workshop at 2013 APTA Rail Conference in Philadelphia, PA
Leigh Weber, exida’s Senior Security Engineer will be co-presenting a workshop with Dave Teumim of Teumim Technical at the American Public Transportation Association’s 2013 Rail Conference , which will be held June 2-5, 2013 at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown in Philadelphia, PA. More information regarding the workshop can be found…
Blog Entry: Setting up for FAILURE
Last week I was part of a conversation that made me really question why people (companies) would set themselves up for failure. Is it lack of knowledge? Lack of communication? Or maybe they are simply NEW to the process and don’t know what to expect. But then I thought about…
News Item: exida Industry Experts to Instruct Select ISA Trainings in 2013
John Cusimano, exida’s Director of Security Services, and Leigh Weber, exida’s Senior Cybersecurity Engineer will be instructing various ISA trainings throughout 2013 on the topic of Control System Cybersecurity. More information regarding the topic, dates, and locations can be found below: Using the ANSI/ISA99 Standard to Secure Your Control System…
News Item: The exida Certification Process - FREE Webinar
exida is the world’s leading functional safety Certification Body for the process industries. The criteria used in the exida “scheme” goes beyond the requirements of IEC 61508 to include important results needed by owner-operators and system designers such as cybersecurity, practical proof testing, system design information, and practical false trip…
Blog Entry: The Human Element of Functional Safety (The Challenge)
The analysis of past safety accidents was conducted primarily regionally, and with companies having an “experienced” workforce. Today the global economy is undergoing major shifts in manufacturing which is making the issue of finding, developing, and retaining experienced people more challenging than in the past. In “Brownfield” (developed) areas, like…
News Item: One-Day Upstream Oil & Gas Training to be held in Houston
exida has announced a new one-day training titled “Safety Standards for Upstream Oil & Gas - Application of IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 in Upstream Oil & Gas” to be held Tuesday, May 21, 2013 in Houston, TX. The training will be held at Texas A&M Mays Business School at…
Blog Entry: A 100% Pass Rate!
I recently read a blog comment from an instructor in a well-known functional safety personnel certification program. The instructor bragged that for the last X courses, 100% of the students passed. In this program a course and an exam are developed by independent consultants who give the course, give the…
Blog Entry: Changing the PVST Interval. Hey, my Architectural Constraints changed!
Did you see my Changing the PVST Interval. Hey, my failure rates changed! post? There is more… In addition to impacting the way the Partial Valve Stroke Test (PVST) is addressed in the SIL verification calculation, the PVST frequency can also have a significant impact on the minimum Hardware Fault…
Blog Entry: Changing the PVST Interval. Hey, my failure rates changed!
I’ve been receiving several inquiries lately regarding the impact of the Partial Valve Stroke Test (PVST) interval on the failure rates of a final element. Specifically asking how does exSILentia® deal with this? exSILentia® allows users to specify if partial stroke testing is performed on their final element configuration. In…
Blog Entry: That is impossible! It has never happened before…
A week ago Sunday I was traveling to Baton Rouge, LA. I was flying out of Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) connecting in Houston (George Bush Intercontinental Airport - IAH) with my final destination as Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (BTR). Under normal circumstances I would probably have flown directly to…
Blog Entry: Define the Safety Function for a Better Certification
When a product is getting certified for functional safety, it is essential to have a clear understanding of the safety function. First, let’s be clear what is meant by the safety function. IEC 61508-4 describes a safety function as a “function to be implemented by a safety-related system or other…
Blog Entry: So What’s an Impact Analysis?
It doesn’t take much to remember a time you wish you had “looked before you leaped.” The time you bought furniture that would not fit through the doorway, or the small tree you planted whose roots are now cracking through the sidewalk. Don’t you wish you had given more thought…
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