exida explains Blog

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…

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The Safety Integrety Level (SIL) of a product is determined by three things:

1. The Systematic Capability Rating
2. The  Architectural Constraints for the element
3. The PFDavg Calculation for the product

The Systematic Capability Rating

Systematic Capability is established by having your quality management system audited per IEC 61508.…

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Plane crash?

Earthquake?

Ebola outbreak?

Shark attack?

There are probably lots more things to add to that list.  What could we do to prevent them?  Not too much for some… a little more for others.  But would those mitigations be practical?  What tolerable risk can we accept for these…

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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…

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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:

1. Regarding the end user perspective, we exist to provide an independent third-party…

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I was recently approached with a question regarding why it would be necessary to certify mechanical devices, such as valves, per IEC 61508 when it is not clearly stated in the standard that the standard is applicable to such devices.  After looking through IEC 61511 and Read More...