IEC 61508 functional safety certification began in the 1990s. As I recall, the only organizations doing this work in those days were TÜV Rheinland and TÜV Product Services (now TÜV Sud). These two companies remain competitors.
Functional safety certification started with logic solvers. Some engineers and regulators at the…
A few weeks ago, we were asked to help a fellow colleague who received a message regarding their FS Engineer (TÜV Rheinland) certificate :
We are aware, that the validity of your FS Expert (TÜV Rheinland) certificate is expiring this month. Kindly be informed that we have had a…
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…
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…
SILSafeData contains upper and lower bound ranges of dangerous undetected failure rates for many automation devices. It was created by exida using statistical analysis of FMEDA failure rate predictions. The component database used in the FMEDAx tool is based on…
When I start working with new customers for IEC 61508 certification projects, it’s easy to understand why they might not have a compliant development process for functional safety: they’ve never done it before! They understand their market and their products, but they need help to understand the…