- by Dr. Eric Scharpf, CFSE
- Thursday, February 16, 2012
- Functional Safety
Babies, Bathwater, and Australian Safety Laws
The old saying goes, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” But it looks like a number of people in Australia may be in danger of doing just that with their response to the country’s newly harmonized health and safety laws.
Australia’s new Read More...
- by Dr. Eric Scharpf, CFSE
- Tuesday, October 25, 2011
- Functional Safety
Do you believe the numbers?
In a couple of recent projects and discussions, I have come across something extremely concerning. Engineers are very good at performing accurate calculations, and the PFDavg and PFH computations for SIL performance verification are improving in precision all the time. Unfortunately, there is often such a focus…
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- by Dr. Eric Scharpf, CFSE
- Tuesday, May 28, 2019
- Functional Safety
Duty of Care (Too Good to Be True Failure Rate Data)
I have received several calls lately to our Australia / New Zealand office about whether it is acceptable to use published failure rates that seem too good to be true.
The person calling is usually doing a SIL verification calculation for an operating plant or for an…
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- by Dr. Eric Scharpf, CFSE
- Monday, April 18, 2011
- Functional Safety
Lifecycle Analysis: It’s Worth the Effort
Performing a risk analysis as part of an IEC61508 / 61511 / ISA 84.01 safety lifecycle process can be quite challenging. How can you be sure you get what you need within budget and how can your team provide the best value for money?…
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- by Dr. Eric Scharpf, CFSE
- Thursday, April 26, 2012
- Functional Safety
The Safety Lifecycle as a Risk Control Loop
I have been doing a number of recent projects introducing the safety lifecycle to companies that are new to the field. As a result I have been playing with various ways to think about the overall safety lifecycle philosophy. As many of the more experienced readers are…
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