Understanding operator decision-making is a good first step in improving operator effectiveness. Operator decision-making depends on the person (their level of expertise) and the situation (how familiar). A popular behavioral model from Rasmussen proposes that operator response can be broken into three levels; skill-based behavior, rule-based behavior, and knowledge-based behavior as shown in…
exida explains Blog
- by Steve Gandy, CFSP
- Tuesday, May 11, 2021
- Industrial Cybersecurity
Pipeline Safety and Security – Why are we still not prepared?
It’s interesting that I had been preparing a webinar on pipeline safety and security since there have already been numerous incidents reported regarding pipeline accidents and leakage. Now the latest incident concerning Colonial Pipeline and the ransomware attack by Darkside, a so-called extortion group,…
- by John Yozallinas, CFSE
- Tuesday, April 20, 2021
- Certification
Safety Application Shortcuts - Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?
No, you probably don’t want to hurt me. But if your product is used in a safety application, and my job depends on your product doing its job, will it hurt me if it fails?
With so many of us doing more things differently during the COVID pandemic, I wonder if…
- by Todd Stauffer
- Tuesday, April 13, 2021
- Functional Safety
Learning From History So We Don’t Repeat It – New Tools
According to numerous industry studies, significant improvement has been made over the last 20 -30 years in occupational safety, but not so much in operational safety (process safety). New process safety incidents continue to occur that bear a striking resemblance to previous incidents. This means we are not effectively learning…
- by Dr. William Goble, CFSE
- Thursday, April 08, 2021
- Certification
What is SIL (Safety Integrity Level)?
The term SIL is rapidly spreading to Request for Proposals (RFP) and purchase requirements in many industries. But in many of those industries, few have heard about SIL and fewer have a grasp of the fundamental concepts of SIL. SIL is a term that means Safety Integrity Level. It is used…
- by Steve Gandy, CFSP
- Tuesday, March 30, 2021
- Functional Safety
Why Sharing Components Between SIS & BPCS Is Not A Good Idea
This is a topic which comes up time and again, especially when reviewing legacy systems. Although IEC61511 doesn’t preclude the use of shared devices, it does however provide guidance under Clause 11 of what the constraints are. Even though the Safety Instrumented System (SIS) and Basic Process Control System (BPCS)…
- by Mark Kozub
- Thursday, March 04, 2021
- Functional Safety
Strong Safety Culture Translates to Lower Insurance Premiums
Insurance Companies are hedging their bets through premiums while the Manufacturing Industry is placing their wagers on luck.
The worlds of gambling and insurance are similar in many ways. Both are built upon elements of probability, modeling and quantification of risk. Professional gamblers are well informed on the odds…
- by Patrick O'Brien
- Thursday, February 18, 2021
- Industrial Cybersecurity
Attack on Florida Water System Highlights Weak Security Protections for Critical Infrastructure
The Oldsmar Water Treatment Facility in Pinellas County Florida was compromised by hackers on February 5th. Hackers took advantage of the TeamViewer application that was still installed on the water facilities network to gain remote access1. The TeamViewer was originally installed to allow for status checks and troubleshooting of…
- by Steve Gandy, CFSP
- Monday, February 08, 2021
- Industrial Cybersecurity
IEC 62443 - The Evolution of IACS Cybersecurity
When we were doing safety system designs in the 1980s, there was no Windows, there was no TCP/IP, there was no in Ethernet. We had to write our own protocols to transmit data to our I/O and our controllers.
Fault-finding was always a challenge . What we ended up…
- by Todd Stauffer
- Thursday, February 04, 2021
- Alarm Management
Alarm Rationalization: An Art or a Science? – Common Rationalization Mistakes
Successful alarm rationalization combines both art and science. From the scientific point of view, rationalization follows a systematic process that applies alarm management principles to determine whether an alarm is justified (needed) and to document its basis (cause, consequence, corrective action, time to respond) and settings (priority, setpoint) in…
- by Todd Stauffer
- Thursday, January 14, 2021
- Alarm Management
Rationalize Your Alarm Management Problems Away
The increasing global adoption of alarm management standards (ISA-18.2 and IEC 62682) is bringing the importance of alarm rationalization to the forefront. Rationalization is defined as the “process to review potential alarms using the principles of the alarm philosophy, to select alarms for design, and to document the rationale…
- by Dave Johnson, CFSE
- Thursday, January 07, 2021
- Industrial Cybersecurity
Block that attack! Getting IEC 62443 Cyber Certified (Part 2)
This is the next in a series of blogs and papers on the benefits of cyber certification. You can read part 1 here. Certification provides you with the opportunity to work with an experienced cyber team here at exida, and the vast knowledge of cyber experts worldwide codified in…
- by Todd Stauffer
- Tuesday, December 08, 2020
- Alarm Management
Alarm Management Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The March / April 2020 issue of Intech contains an excellent article by Nick Sands and Donald Dunn, the co-chairs for the ISA-18 committee.
The article reviews some of the most frequently asked questions on alarm management:
- What is alarm management?
- Which alarm management standard do…
- by Steve Gandy, CFSP
- Thursday, November 19, 2020
- Functional Safety
The Dos and Don’t of SIS Application Programming
It’s interesting that the majority of the time when people talk about functional safety, they are usually thinking about hardware: what sensors to use, which logic solver, what actuator, solenoid or valve to select; what voting architecture, etc. What often gets overlooked, initially, is the application program.
Essentially, when…
- by Casimir-Alvin Musa
- Thursday, November 05, 2020
- Alarm Management
Why should I use an Alarm Deadband?
As many of you will know, one of the most common form of nuisance to operators working industrial controls are repeating or chattering alarms. On a typical plant, repeating alarms may account for around 50% of the alarm annunciations. They are a problem because the operator will have to…