- by Steve Gandy, CFSP
- Tuesday, May 17, 2016
- Functional Safety
Are You Ready For What’s Coming?
If you’re like me then you’ve been waiting for the new draft of IEC 61511 to be officially issued since its release has been delayed for some time. However, a draft has been released and can help in preparing end users for what’s to come. The question…
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- by Dave Gunter
- Thursday, June 08, 2017
- Industrial Cybersecurity
exida Cyber Blog Series 03 - Process Safety and Cybersecurity, Related or Still Distant Cousins?
To be clear, the above title is meant to capture your attention. We all understand and know that it is unusual for a Process Safety engineer and the IT architect to possess detailed knowledge of both safety and security. In today’s world, the operators, engineers, design and support personnel of…
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- by Todd Stauffer
- Thursday, March 03, 2022
- Alarm Management
Four Ways to Pick a Winning Alarm Rationalization Team
“Who should participate in alarm rationalization?”
It finally happened. Alarm management problems at the plant led to an incident and now management wants action. You have “volunteered” to put together a staffing plan to execute alarm rationalization. You have heard it can be a resource-intensive process, so you want…
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- by Steve Gandy, CFSP
- Wednesday, July 02, 2014
- Certification
How Good Is Your Functional Safety Management?
Those operating in the process world should be familiar with the concept of Functional Safety Management (FSM) and the need to have well defined processes and procedures in place. Otherwise, how else will they be able to ensure that their Safety Instrumented System (SIS) and plant…
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- by Paul Chan, CFSP
- Tuesday, October 13, 2020
- Functional Safety
How the PHA and LOPA are going to affect your SIS
Both Process Safety Analysis (PHA) and Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) occur in the early stage of the Functional Safety Lifecycle, detailed in both IEC 61511 and IEC 61508. They both serve significant roles in the whole process safety management. Yet, as a facilitator…
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- by Iwan van Beurden, CFSE
- Thursday, April 30, 2015
- Software
LOPAx™: This is Awesome!
You will probably not hear me sing the LEGO® Movie’s “Everything is Awesome” song, I’ll keep that private (and you should be thankful to me for that). However as we just released the LOPAx™ module of the new exSILentia® v4 platform, I have come to…
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- by Patrick O'Brien
- Wednesday, January 12, 2022
- Functional Safety
Machinery Hazards and Risk Assessment Techniques
Machinery related hazards continue to result in hundreds of deaths and thousands of serious injuries each year. In 2019, 2,963 deaths occurred in the construction, transportation and warehousing, agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and manufacturing industries in the United States1. Additionally, serious injuries continue to pose a major challenge…
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- by Dave Johnson, CFSE
- Tuesday, June 16, 2015
- Industrial Cybersecurity
Performing a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment as a Component of the PHA
There are three main components of the safety lifecycle: analysis, realization, and operation. We will be taking a look at the analysis phase, particularly related to the cyber industry.
To start, the first thing to do in both safety and security is do a detailed process, hazard and…
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- by John Yozallinas, CFSE
- Thursday, February 16, 2017
- Functional Safety
So what does Interference-Free mean? And why do we care?
An Interference-Free component, either as an interface or a defined functional area, is a system component that is neither safety critical (C3) nor safety relevant (C2), but interfaces with such subsystems.
If a component has been shown to be interference free (C1), then it has been demonstrated that no…
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- by Iwan van Beurden, CFSE
- Thursday, February 26, 2015
- Software
Using the PHAx™ Libraries
Conducting a Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) can be quite laborious. In a HAZOP, you will systematically evaluate the applicable deviations for each node, within each unit, within each plant. The exSILentia® v4 PHAx™ module is setup to use…
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- by Steve Gandy, CFSP
- Tuesday, June 04, 2013
- Functional Safety
Why Do We Need You?
This was a question posed to me by an engineering contractor the other day. Although I found the question quite strange, it made me think “okay, why do they need us?” I suppose there are a few answers:
- Regarding the end user perspective, we exist to provide an independent third-party…
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