Blow it up and they will come</h1> <article> <h1>Blow it up and they will come</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:25:00 GMT</p> <div class="O"><div><span style="font-size:20pt;"></span></div><div><p>Last week the Associated Press reported that an executive at the Imperial Sugar Co. testified at a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions subcommittee on workplace safety that he had found such "shocking" and "disgraceful" conditions at the Georgia plant last year that he warned his superiors that a fatal disaster was likely. A month later, an explosion ripped through the plant in Port Wentworth, GA, killing 13 workers and injuring dozens more. </p><p>The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have proposed nearly $9 million in fines against the sugar company for what is said were willful and egregious safety violations. Criminal charges are also being considered. </p><p>This unfortunate situation that happened at a sugar refinery should help to illustrate the potential impact incidents like this have and hopefully, help drive awareness around process safety and how seriously our federal government considers it.</p><p>This is for all of you naysayers out there who have thought to themselves…"I’ve been working here over 5 years, and not once have I seen an OSHA inspector". Consider yourself lucky (and now warned).</p></div></div> </article> <article> <h1>Process Safety BLOG goes Mainstream</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:01:00 GMT</p> <p>Last week I was notified that my blog was getting picked up by a new website dedicated to Safety. Stay tuned, as <a href="http://www.safetybase.com/">www.Safetybase.com</a> will be going live soon. It’s exciting to be a part of this new educational-based safety website dedicated to serve the safety needs of the general automation industry. </p><p>I’m honored to join this elite group of experts coming together to provide up-to-date ideas and information on for the changing landscape of process safety.<br /> <br />The website’s idea is simple, provide a single access point for obtaining critical safety information for both the process and machine industry. </p><p>Its design is community based, so information will be provided and shared by consultants, end-users and vendors to help you stay current on the latest advancements in safety. Get the safety information you need and enter into discussions with your peers – to leverage your knowledge base and maximize your productivity. If it’s about automation and machine safety – you’ll find it at SafetyBase.com.<br /> <br />Coming to the cyber world soon, check it out – <a href="http://www.safetybase.com/">www.SafetyBase.com</a> and let me know what you think.</p> </article> <article> <h1>Update on the ISA84 Main Committee and Working Group meeting</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:15:00 GMT</p> <p>Last week, about 40 process safety enthusiasts attended the spring 2008 S84 meeting in West Palm Beach, Florida.</p><p>The main committee meeting generally consists on brief updates on the individual working groups and the maintenance of the current ANSI/ISA S84.00.01 (IEC 61511 modified).</p><p>A couple topics that I thought were pretty interesting were the discussion on ongoing hardware fault tolerance requirements. I’ve blogged on this before and there’s some obvious concern over products that are reaching the market today claiming to have SIL 3 capabilities with no redundancy. I still think there is much confusion on this as one well respected end-user noted there dissatisfaction while trying a “new” transmitter claiming to provide high SIL levels, but caused them lot’s of problems with nuisance trips. <br />I still get aggravated with the misconception of safety and spurious trip rate. They are separate and have to be treated as such.</p><p>I’ll be the first person to say “yes, my company develops SIL 3 certified, non-redundant products, that will most likely have a higher spurious trip rate than a non-redundant, non-SIL certified device.” The ONLY way to combat the spurious trips is to add redundancy.</p><p>The other topic that puzzled me was the inaccurate statement made regarding the status of safety fieldbus. Again, it was erroneously stated that there was no safety fieldbus today for the process industries. Luckily, there were a few “informed” safety experts in the room that noted the existence of PROFISAFE and ASI-safe. I guess some people are still confused since FF-safety, has yet to be approved or released for safety communications.</p><p>I spent the rest of the meetings involved in Fire & Gas working group going over comments on the last draft we issued.</p> </article> <article> <h1>E-Stop - a safety device or not?</h1> <p>JB Titus — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:44:00 GMT</p> <font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">How many hands can I see for “safety device”? Now, how many of you say – <strong><u>no</u></strong>, an e-stopping device is not a safety device? I see! So the room is practically divided into two camps. One of the camps has several individuals that sit on safety standards committees and others who are suppliers of e-stopping devices. You guys have voted that it’s not a safety device. The other camp, ahhh, has voted yes and, most of you guys are end users, OEM’s and systems designers. Why have you guys voted yes?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">“Well, we’re in the business of developing the SRECS (safety related electrical control system) for machines and the related functional safety system. As such, e-stopping devices are part of that effort which provides for the safe stopping categories of 0 or 1 as required by the safety standards. Therefore, we consider e-stopping devices to be safety devices.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">As a reader of this message – where do you sit and why? Is an e-stopping device always actuated to achieve a safety related function / result? Let’s hear from you on this one! <span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;"> </span></p></font> </article> <article> <h1>Machine Safety - Tolerable Risk vs Acceptable Risk</h1> <p>JB Titus — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:19:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><strong><em><span style="font-size:10pt;">Tolerable risk</span></em></strong><span style="font-size:10pt;"> is the term used for the past several years referring to a level of residual risk for a given hazard after applying risk reduction measures. ANSI B11.TR3; 2000 further defines tolerable risk as: Risk that is accepted for a given task and hazard combination [hazardous situation]. However, as more focus continues to be directed at integrating the safety mindset into all phases from womb to tomb of a machine life cycle, a more current term has come to life replacing tolerable risk.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><strong><em><span style="font-size:10pt;">Acceptable risk</span></em></strong><em><span style="font-size:10pt;"> </span></em><span style="font-size:10pt;">is the new term that is currently appearing in updated standards and which more clearly represents the implied intent of both evaluation and mitigation. The assumption is that risk can never truly be totally eliminated from a hazard but that every risk should be evaluated for risk reductions <u>and</u> mitigated to the smallest amount possible. Therefore, more current standards are defining acceptable risk as the level at which further risk reduction will not result in significant reduction in risk or that additional expenditure of resources will not result in significant advances towards increased safety. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;">So, where’s this discussion going? Does it really matter? Maybe a good analogy is in order. For example, is a zebra white with black stripes or is it black with white stripes? Isn’t the whole bottom line of the risk analysis process really about consciously establishing the importance of reducing the risk of occupational injuries, illnesses, and fatalities? Of course the answer is – YES ! So, let’s get off our laurels and get on with the program </span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Introducing a non-redundant, redundant SIL 3 solution?</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:44:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Verdana;">Last month, Siemens Energy and Automation released a new safety I/O card that claims to be the first Hart, Analog input, SIL 3<br /><a href="http://www2.sea.siemens.com/News/Industrial/First-SIL-3-Certified-Hart-Analog-Input-Module.htm">http://www2.sea.siemens.com/News/Industrial/First-SIL-3-Certified-Hart-Analog-Input-Module.htm</a></span></p><span style="color:black;font-family:Verdana;"><font size="3"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><br /><font size="2">While some may find this as a break thru, it’s what I view as a direction of the industry. Siemens and other automation suppliers (Emerson, Yokogawa) have introduced and have been offering for several years now, “updated” safety systems, that don’t require redundancy to achieve high levels of safety. In the past, safety systems required dual, triple or even quadruple redundancy just to achieve high levels of safety. So what happened?</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><font size="2">For starters, you need to have a clear understanding on what this means. These systems are designing safety into their core design. They no longer “need” additional hardware to internally compare with in order to achieve high safety levels. They utilized special designs with dedicated internal circuitry that can provided diagnostic coverage levels that had previously been not conceivable.</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><font size="2">These advanced safety designs provide user benefits by increasing safety while allowing redundant architectures to perform the way they were intended to, prevention against nuisance trips. An additional benefit is that these systems are immune to system degradation where a conventional “voting” system, needed its redundant partner(s) to help provide high safety.</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><font size="2">Another common misunderstanding is how these systems address field redundancy (sensors and final control elements). While I can’t speak for the Emerson or Yokogawa system, I do know for a fact that the new Siemens HART analog input module handles redundant field devices just like any dual, triple or quadruple redundant system would.</font></p></font></span> </article> <article> <h1>Treat your SIS better than Certified pre-owned</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:39:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Last month we decided it was time to upgrade the old family car. <span> </span>After searching for several weeks, we decided on a very nice, 3 year-old, certified pre-owned. <span> </span><span> </span>While I haven’t purchased a used vehicle in several years, I felt comfortable in this decision as the price was attractive, the warranty was extended, plus I had the assurance that this car had passed the manufactures’ grueling inspection. </font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">After the first week of owning our new (used) car, I called the dealership to have them install one of those MP 3, auxiliary connections (a result of my purchase negotiations). <span> </span>While dropping off the car, I happened to mention the brakes were squeaking when lightly applying the brakes.<span> </span>I figured this was surely the result of new pads wearing in……. <span> </span>I mean they couldn’t “certify” a car with bad brakes?<span> </span>I had put less than 200 miles on the car, so it had to be something else, something minor, right?<span> </span></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">The follow up call I got from the service manager answered that question. <span> </span>“Mr. Fialkowski, we replaced both front and rear brakes for you”.<span> </span>“No charge, it’s under warranty”.<span> </span>Boy was I glad to hear that…..</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">This experience had me wonder how end users in the process industry tackle their own certified Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) tests.<span> </span>As most know, when we design an SIS we have to account that they system periodically, MUST BE TESTED. <span> </span>So how rigorous are we with carrying out these tests, would we allow something as critical as brakes slip under the cracks?<span> </span>Surely, we have developed exhaustive “punch-lists” that have been reviewed, validated and audited to minimize potential problems?<span> </span></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">I once heard an end user state that when their technician tests their safety valve, it would not be uncommon to bang it with a wrench to “help it along”.<span> </span>If after this “adjustment” it moves to its “safe” position, he’ll note it as “test-passed”.</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Makes me wonder just how my car could have passed this seemingly critical test, or am I just being too sensitive?<span> </span>I mean it was under warranty….I’m just thankful it wasn’t under critical circumstances. <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></font><span style="color:black;"></span></span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Belts and Suspenders?</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 22:40:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><strong><u><span style="color:black;font-family:Verdana;"><font size="3"></font></span></u></strong> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">For so many years we have been trained (brainwashed) to believe more redundancy = more safety.<span> </span>While for some situations it’s true.<span> </span>Increase your level of redundancy your system will get better safety performance.<span> </span>However, if you do it WRONG, it’s a proven fact (not just me spouting off) your safety performance will degrade. </font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"><span> </span></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">This week I ran into a very smart person, who just happened to say the dumbest thing all day. <span> </span>“We needed safety, so we made the thing redundant”.<span> </span><span> </span></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;line-height:12pt;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">My dad used to say to me “It’s like polishing the brass when the ships sinking”. <span> </span>If your going to do something, make sure its really worthwhile, otherwise you just wasting your time.</font></span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Does past experience equal Prior Use?</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:02:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">So you’re faced with the question of whether that trusty old transmitter you’ve been using as part of your safety shutdown system can meet the “prior use” requirements described in Section 11.5.3 of ANSI/ISA-84.00.01-2004 (IEC 61511-1 Mod).<span> </span></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Prior use, or Proven-in-use, is defined as a documented assessment showing there is appropriate evidence, based on the previous use of the component, that the component is suitable for use in a safety instrumented system. <br /><br /></font></span><span style="color:black;font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Let’s focus on the question “how much operating experience is required to make sure a product has enough safety integrity?”<br /><br /></font></span><span style="color:black;font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Lucky for us, IEC 61508 provides specific details on this.<br /><br /></font></span><span style="color:black;font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">For a given component’s version level IEC 61508 suggests 100,000 unit hours for components targeted for SIL 1 applications and 10 million unit hours for components targeted for SIL 3 applications. <span> </span>Along with the operating hours, one must also provide documented proof test results for all detected dangerous failures.<br /><br /></font></span><span style="color:black;font-family:Arial;"><font size="3">Of course there’s a lot more discussion on ISA’s web site in an article written by Bill Goble. <span> </span></font><a href="http://www.isa.org/"><font size="3">www.isa.org</font></a></span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Not Worth A SFF</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:12:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">In attending last week’s 63rd Annual Texas A&M Instrumentation symposium, I was shocked to hear from a well respected safety expert that SFF (Safe failure fraction) was a failed metric. No explanation, just that SFF was pretty much useless, followed by a cackle. I really hate when people make profound statements like this, with no reasoning or justification behind it. I felt as if the audience was just bullied into this person’s position, and all were just too intimidated to challenge it. So what’s wrong with SFF?<br /></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">SFF is defined in <span>ANSI/ISA-84.00.01-2004 Part 1 (IEC 61511-1 Mod)</span>, as the fraction of the overall random hardware failure rate of a device that results in either a safe failure or a detected dangerous failure.<span> </span>It’s sole purpose was to help prevent over optimistic SIL claims by equipment manufactures, and helped to determine the required fault tolerance of your SIS (safety instrumented system).<span> </span></font></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">While I didn’t get a chance to follow up directly with the individual, I’m pretty sure the argument has something to do with how your system actually responds to a detected dangerous fault.<span> </span>If your system detects a dangerous fault within itself, does it automatically shutdown your process, or just alarm the operator?<span> </span>If it’s the latter, than the SFF’s pretty much a failed metric.<span> </span><span> </span></font></font></p><p> </p> </article> <article> <h1>Which Has Machine Safety Priority - ANSI B11.000X or NFPA 79?</h1> <p>JB Titus — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:56:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3">I often hear discussions about NFPA 79 (Electrical Standard for Industrial Machinery) having more importance than the ANSI B11 series of machine tool standards. Conversely, there’s an equal if not larger camp of user’s that profess the ANSI B11 series as “the rule of the land” inferring that NFPA 79 takes a back seat to ANSI. </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3">In practice, we occasionally see customer specifications calling out requirements for these standards as well as some municipalities that have declared these standards as normative requirements. OSHA’s web site has a direct reference to the ANSI B11 series but only an indirect reference to NFPA 79.</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3">Can anyone provide information clarifying this question?</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"> </font></p> </article> <article> <h1>Chose the Right SIL</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:58:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">Did you know that fatal automobile accidents in the USA would drop considerably if drivers (and passengers) wore approved protective headgear and flack jackets?<span> </span>While that might seem pretty obvious, it’s just not practical.<span> </span>For years automation suppliers have developed SIL 3 logic solvers, but rarely do they get implemented as such.<span> </span>I’ve personally witnessed users argue the need to have a triple modular redundant (TMR) SIL 3 safety logic solver only to be configured with a non-redundant, non-certified transmitter and valve.<span> </span>That’s like putting bicycle tires on your sports car.<span> </span></font></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">So what SIL level should you chose?<span> </span>That’s a question NOBODY can just answer, even if they are “claimed” experts on your particular application.<span> </span>Instead, you will need to treat each application uniquely, evaluating all possible protection layers that exist for that particular unit.<span> </span>While this may seem tedious, it’s one of the best ways to answer that question.<span> </span>Even the most hazardous applications, might seem SIL 3 worthy, however a thorough analysis might deem a SIL 2 solution, saving you money on both equipment and maintenance.<span> </span>A number of study’s I’m familiar with have shown that more often we tend to over design than under design.<span> </span>Sure it seems safer, but really, who wants to drive around in their fancy sports car wearing their kids skateboard protective gear?<span> </span></font></font></p> </article> <article> <h1>Wait for the BUS or go Old School</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:53:00 GMT</p> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;">Here it is Friday, December 21, 2007 about 2:30pm, while most process safety specialists and marketing managers are enjoying the tidings; I just had to get something off my chest before I begin my holiday break.<span> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;">I was hoping to make my 2008 Process Safety predictions but I find myself still pontificating on what next year will bring.<span> </span>So we’ll table that discussion (for now), and I’ll share with you another interesting discussion I just had.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;">A gentleman from the ISA safety list was inquiring about the speed of response for analog devices over Profibus/profisafe.<span> </span>At first he was concerned if the response time was sufficient for his high speed requirements.<span> </span>I’m not sure he liked my answer, because he kept responding that it wasn’t good enough.<span> </span>So what was good enough I inquired?<span> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;">It’s been understood for years that pure electrical signals (i.e. 4-20ma) travel near the speed of light while a digital protocol is tracked at a specific baud rate (no where near the speed of light).<span> </span>No one would argue that, however I just wanted to make certain we also considered the device itself.<span> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;">I went on to explain that a discrete device takes about 10ms to get the signal “on the wire” where an analog device is closer to 200ms.<span> </span>Now if you want to consider using digital communication, you will need to add the lag time for that as well.<span> </span>Profibus PA has about a 10ms overhead with an additional 10ms per device on the segment.<span> </span>So for example, if you wire 10 devices on a PROFIBUS drop, you can estimate that it will take 110ms response time on the wire.<span> </span>Now you add the device time (200ms) and the bus time (110ms) and it takes a little over 300ms for the signal to reach your control system.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;">Of course that’s just the half of it, because now your control system has to process the signal and drive their outputs (and that could take SECONDS).</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;">So the choice should be easy, if the BUS isn’t fast enough, go Old School.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;">Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;">Charlie</p></span> </article> <article> <h1>Attention all safety product listings</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:50:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family:TimesNewRoman;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">I received an e-mail inquiring about a product being “listed” or not, which made me stop and think about how far we have come in the past 10 years regarding safety systems and their “type” of certification.<span> </span></font></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family:TimesNewRoman;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family:TimesNewRoman;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">The term “listed” means equipment or materials included in a list published by an organization engaged in product evaluation, that maintains periodic inspection of production of listed equipment or materials, and whose listing states either that the equipment or material meets appropriate standards or has been tested and found suitable for use in a specified manner.</font></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family:TimesNewRoman;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family:TimesNewRoman;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">While “listed” might sound appropriate for some, many safety experts would argue that today, it’s not enough.<span> </span>Since the release of the International Electrotechnical commission (IEC) 61508 – Functional Safety – Safety Related Systems in 2000, safety performance criteria is now better defined in the terms of SIL (safety integrity levels).<span> </span></font></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family:TimesNewRoman;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family:TimesNewRoman;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">Hopefully you can appreciate that today’s safety products need to meet two key requirements (i.e. functional and performance).<span> </span>Functional requirements will describe what the product is supposed to do, while performance requirements define just how well it’s supposed to do it.</font></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font></p><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';">Take for example one of your NFPA 85 standards.<span> </span>Along with the functional requirements, this standard also describes about 10 types of system failures (Failure effects).<span> </span>Worse yet, it states that the system logic designer (i.e. your system integrator) needs to ensure that these failures are covered.<span> </span>While I agree it was a good attempt, it by no means describes how “good” the detection of these failures has to be.<span> </span>That’s pretty much what “listed” gets you these days.<span> </span></span> </article> <article> <h1>What the SIL are you talking about?</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 19:14:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Have you had a chance to catch Bill Goble’s Hydrocarbon Processing (October 2007 issue) editorial titled “Still not using a safety PLC?”</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">Essentially Bill addresses the question of whether you can use conventional equipment (PLC or DCS) in compliance to ISA 84.00.01-2004 (IEC 61511 Mod.)? I think he did a nice job summing it up as follows:<span> </span></font></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;text-indent:36pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">SIL 3, must be certified to IEC 61508</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">SIL 2, maybe, if it’s accompanied with a formal assessment (not very practical) SIL 1, okay with justifying documentation</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Bottom line, a safety PLC is required for all but SIL 1, and even with that comes baggage, makes one wonder why anyone would elect to go outside the slew of certified offerings.</font></p> </article> <article> <h1>Running to Destruction</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:01:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Was not the response I was expecting to hear from an audience member during my presentation on new SIS (safety instrumented system) hardware development at this week’s ISA Expo.<span> </span>He obviously was concerned over my suggestion that with new SIS technology there’s no degradation of safety when you have a partial shutdown and, well in his words “run to destruction”.<span> </span>I wasn’t sure how to respond, as my objective during this 30 minute talk, was to address how some new SIS technologies are available that actually increase safety.<span> </span>As with any new concept, there’s bound to be objections, but this particular phrase just caught me off guard….hmm….so let me try to explain….</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">In the past, redundant systems were necessary to achieve both safety and availability.<span> </span>Marketing hype took over, and confused the industry with just how much redundancy (dual, triple or even quadruple) was really necessary, and what were the actual benefits.<span> </span></font></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">Understanding the history, I wanted to tell a story.<span> </span>So I started by going back to the 1980’s where TMR (Triple Modular Redundancy) was born, then in the 1990’s with the advances of the microprocessor, it was now possible to get diagnostics allowing you to (arguably) get the same level of safety and availability, with less redundancy, while saving money.<span> </span></font></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Regardless of what level of redundancy you bought into, the fact still remained - if your system degraded from triple, to dual, (or dual to single) your level of safety would be negatively impacted.<span> </span>While it might be well known, there was concern that this mode degraded operation was often overlooked and needed to be addressed within a reasonable amount of time. </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">Today there are a couple of new SIS’s touting that they offer the highest level of safety (SIL 3) without the need for redundancy.<span> </span>To avoid a nuisance trip, redundancy could be added to enable the system to become fault tolerant.<span> </span>So what happens if your system experiences a component failure?<span> </span>You would hope that it would maintain its safety rating, and expect that somehow, something “else” is degraded, right?<span> </span></font></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">While I was not suggesting anyone “run to destruction”, I was suggesting that it might be a better scenario to maintain safety at the expense of availability particularly during those short stints when you are running degraded.<span> </span> </font></p> </article> <article> <h1>So you went to engineering school to copy others</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:56:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">Ever ask yourself why you went to engineering school?<span> </span>For some of you it might have been the illusion of a great paying job, for others maybe it was your curiosity of figuring out how things worked, for me it was both.<span> </span>Today I have the pleasure of explaining the new and unknown to those curious enough to care and make a decent wage from it.<span> </span></font></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">Next week is the ISA EXPO 2007 at the Reliant Center, Houston TX.<span> </span>Other than attending the ISA SP 84 meetings thru most of the week, I’m actually more excited about participating in a couple of safety related exchanges going on.<span> </span>Tuesday, October 2<sup>nd</sup> at 3:45pm,<span> </span>I will present my co-authored white paper with Mr. Dave Deibert titled:<span> </span><em>Implementation of a 1oo2 CPU Architecture on a single chip platform</em>.<span> </span>Wednesday, October 3<sup>rd</sup> at 10:00am I will be a panelist along side many well respected safety professions titled:<span> </span><em>User-Vendor Coordination for safety instrumented systems.</em></font></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">I’m excited about the opportunity to provide non-commercial, controversial topics exploring new ideas based on proven concepts.<span> </span>There will be some in the audience who enjoy thinking outside the box, and others that scoff at the mere idea of it.<span> </span>My goal throughout will be to inspire the engineer inside yourself to think, “Maybe there is a better way”.</font></p> </article> <article> <h1>Categories of Risk – Alive or Dead?</h1> <p>JB Titus — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:06:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3">Yes it’s true, Europe has started a two year phase out of the risk categories; B, 1, 2, 3, & 4 as established by EN 954:1996 and hence referenced in numerous US based standards such as NFPA 79, ANSI B11, S2, ANSI B155.1, etc. to name a few. A<span> </span>European standard, EN ISO 13849-1:2006, has recently been approved announcing a new system called Performance Level (PL<sub>a, b, c, d,</sub> & <sub>e</sub>) for determining risk levels on a machine replacing the Category system by 2009. So far, it doesn’t seem that any US based standards groups are mustering the troops to update recently modified standards that acknowledged the EN 954 Category system of 1996. The ink has barely dried for gosh sakes! Categories are a product of the task based objective risk assessment process currently still being introduced across the nation for discrete industries. </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3">The PL system, on the other hand, is a quantitative based approach that (if adopted in the US) will require industries across the land to learn or acquire new skills in order to be compliant. One new requirement is calculating MTTF<sub>d</sub> (mean time to fail dangerous) and another is PFH<sub>d</sub> (probability of dangerous failure per hour). These values will need to be determined for components such as interlock switches and sensors. Does anyone believe that industry is ready for this tidal wave? </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3">Or, will Categories live on………….? </font></p> </article> <article> <h1>Certify This</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 20:12:00 GMT</p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">You would think that the simple word “safety” would be so well understood by now that, …………well……..even a caveman could get it.<span> </span>Unfortunately, I find we are still struggling to come to a consensus.<span> </span>If you don’t believe me, attend a trade show, stop by a few booths, and simply ask the person “Is this thing safety rated”?<span> </span><span> </span>I’m sure their immediate response will be “of course”.<span> </span>Follow that up, by asking by whom and to what.<span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">The problem is that safety spans many industries and many applications.<span> </span>It may be defined as the </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">condition of being protected against physical, social, spiritual, financial, political, emotional, occupational, psychological, educational or other types or consequences of failure, damage, error, accidents, harm or any other event which could be considered non-desirable </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">depending on what industry or application your working in or around.<span> </span>Huh?</span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">In the world of process safety, we are typically interested in combining several components/products into a system, and ensuring that this system has the ability to perform a specific operation (i.e shut a valve) during the presence of a pre-defined condition.<span> </span>We call this functional safety.<span> </span>In 1999 the IEC 61508;<strong> </strong><em><span>Functional safety of electrical/electronic/programmable electronic safety-related systems</span></em><strong> </strong><span>was released.<span> </span>This standard had a significant impact on our market as we could now all agree on the “what” while discussing safety certification.<span> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">What continues to cause confusion however is the by who?<span> </span>As many might just claim, “My system is <strong><span style="color:black;">TÜV</span></strong> certified”.<span> </span>Well, heck, there’s a good chance if you took a look at the label on your kids stuffed Teddy Bear, it too might just be <strong><span style="color:black;">TÜV </span></strong><span style="color:black;">certified.<span> </span>So let’s be clear</span>.<span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">TUV is a well known, globally recognized certification agency.<span> </span>Today, there are three (3) competing TUV agencies, TUV Nord, TUV Sud, and TUV Rhineland, that can be hired to offer product or system certification.<span> </span>Arguably they all perform the same level of excellence, yet you find some product manufacture claiming their <strong><span style="color:black;">TÜV</span></strong> is better.<span> </span>I chuckle, as that would be similar to me stating my PA driver’s license was better than my buddy’s from NJ license.<span> </span>I know a lot of NJ folks that would argue that!<span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">While TUV has maintained a stronghold on this certification market, they are not alone and most likely will be facing some stiff competition from Exida (Excellence in dependable automation).<span> </span>Exida is not new to the certification process, and claims to have issued the most IEC 61508 certificates (individual components) in our industry, and will soon be offering full system certification. <span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">I’m excited as this bit of information can officially count as my first industry scoop!<span> </span>Overall this should be good for our industry, From now on, the proper response should be “My system is certified to IEC 61508” then you can ask the question by whom.</span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Plantile Dysfunction</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:56:00 GMT</p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">I received a copy of a recent marketing message (from a reputable safety system company) stating embedded safety and control solutions might cause plantile dysfunction?<span> </span>That’s right, and it was supposedly clinically proven?<span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">This obvious attempt to spread FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) on the process safety world was left on my desk upon my return from vacation.<span> </span>At first, I brushed this off as an internal prank, creatively generated by a fellow colleague just to ruffle my feathers.<span> </span>However, I soon discovered that this was no inside hoax, but a real marketing piece.<span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">Quite ingenious I thought with their obvious play on the whole VIOX fiasco, depicting an elderly gentleman concerned with potential health issues over choosing safety system.<span> </span><span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">But what really started to catch my attention, was all the fuss over the statement “May cause plantile dysfunction”.<span> </span>Everyone I shared this with, giggled embarrassingly, so it had me wondering?<span> </span>“What was this ailment?”</span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">I searched some medical web sites, and found nothing.<span> </span>Persistent, I googled the word “plantile", and found it to be a fictitious Pokemon character (a children’s fantasy card game).<span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">I wrote this off as just another un-substantiated claim by a safety system vendor.<span> </span>However, I’m sure many of us would really like to hear some actual claims by a real end user…</span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Sparky Drops the F-Bomb</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 20:35:00 GMT</p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">Sorry for my absence (for those actually missed me). I promise, after I get back from my family vacation July 25<sup>th</sup>, I promise to be more consistent with weekly blog entries after my vacation.<span> </span>I’ve been saving up some very good material, and I’m sure you’ll find these thought provoking.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">I've been debating for weeks now, how I could convey what happened at the recent SP 84 meetings held late June in Scottsdale, AZ.<span> </span>How exciting could a standards group actually get?<span> </span>Well, let’s just say, while temperature outside was hot (112 F), the passion that flowed during the work group (WG1, Safety fieldbus) that I participated in got even hotter.<span> </span> </span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">It all started as the committee reviewed submitted comments on the latest revision (#6). For the most part of the meeting, it was all about crossing the T's and dotting the I's, which as you can imagine gets down right boring at times.<span> </span>One particular gentleman (who I'll call Sparky) about blew a gasket when it was suggested that the group would “highly recommend” keeping the safety bus separate and independent from the safety bus.<span> </span>While in practice he recongnized this is good, however he did mention that there are systems, busses, etc. that are certified today that can coexist, and why should this committee force users down “yesterday’s” approach…</span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">The arguments of cyber security were thrown back at him, which he condemned that if that were the case, than NO SIS should ever “touch” a process control system for the fear of a hostile attack.<span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;">I gotta run for now, but I think this will beckon much more on the topic of safety fieldbus, separation and independence…Just gotta settle o’l Sparky down…</span></p><p> </p> </article> <article> <h1>Siemens Automation Summit (SAS)</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:05:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">Sorry for my absence last week, I was attending the 2007 Siemens Automation Summit, or as I tried to call it SAS.<span> </span>Okay, I admit, that was a poor attempt to jump on the TLA (three letter acronym) bandwagon as Honeywell did with their annual user group (or HUG) which happened to be held the same week.<span> </span>While I had envisioned BLOGGING daily, it just didn’t happen as I was completely tied up overlooking all of our Process Safety related topics.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">The week of June 11<sup>th</sup>, in Orlando, FL will be remembered as the week when a small mass of Siemens management, sales and automation experts huddled together in group of over 800 customers, system integrators and industry consultants talking shop and peaking at both present and future automation technology.<span> </span><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">I have never personally been a big fan of the general sessions, as most industry related key note speakers lack the evangelical ability to effectively communicate to such a large audience.<span> </span>Instead what I find most beneficial for the attendees are the 2 ½ days of solution showcase, breakout sessions and of course evening networking events.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">Process Safety was well covered at many of the stops in the solution showcase, including the Siemens competence center for both Chemical and Oil and Gas, and in the solution partner pavilion.<span> </span>There was also a dedicated area for just Process Safety which highlighted integrated control and safety, safety lifecycle tools, certified Fire and GAS solutions, and featuring the World’s first fault-tolerant safety fieldbus demo.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">With regards to the individual breakout sessions, this year we had ten (10) process safety specific sessions.<span> </span>Minus the awe-inspiring ones as presented by myself, other non-Siemens folks kind enough to share their insight and experience with the group were:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">DuPont’s, Mr. Guy Burnaman, discussed how DuPont and Siemens worked together to build an integrated high speed safety and data acquisition system while initially it had looked as if Siemens had bit off more than they could chew.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">AE solutions’, Mr. Mike Scott offered his professional viewpoint on how grandfathering installed systems could be achieved to meet today’s requirements.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">Linde BOC’s, Mr. Glen Kindall described his experience with a real world integrated control and safety system.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">Exida’s, Mr. Bill Goble discussed industry trends and talked about new tools for following the safety lifecycle</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">Canadian Light Source’s Mr. Rob Tanner, gave a very insightful look at the importance of safety interlock systems particularly when dealing with an electron beam powerful enough to zap the living daylights out of you (literally)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">Air Products’ Mr. Dave Deibert, updated the audience on the recently released CCPs (Center for Chemical Process Safety) Safe and Reliable Instrumented Protective Systems that he helped co-author.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">Conoco Philips’, Mr. Bruce Houston, described the benefits of using an integrated F&G system as compared to those old antiquated systems.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">Over all it was a good week, with lots of networking and technology sharing and I am already looking forward to next years event…stay tuned…</span></p> </article> <article> <h1>Where's OSHA ??</h1> <p>JB Titus — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:28:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3">We’ll – from where I stand it’s been since 1999 that the voluntary consensus standards began their migration march of updating approaches for machine safe guarding. That first standard was RIA 15.06 for industrial robots. One of many changes of this updated standard was the requirement to conduct a risk analysis on <strong><u>all</u></strong> robots within two years. The next major standard to update and provide new approaches to machine guarding was NFPA 79’s release in 2002. The major enhancements with this change include the opportunity to apply safety PLC’s, the ability to install e-stops on a safety certified bus, and the elimination of the mandate to hard wire all safety circuits. All of these changes are to some point driven by the desire for harmonization with European standards.</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><font size="3">Since this beginning of the migration march for new opportunities in machine safe guarding, many more of our standards are falling in line and adopting these new concepts. Several that come to mind include:</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt 39.3pt;text-indent:-18pt;tab-stops:list 39.3pt;"><span><span><font size="3">1.</font><span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><font size="3">ANSI B11.TR3- 2000, Risk Assessment and Risk Reduction</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt 39.3pt;text-indent:-18pt;tab-stops:list 39.3pt;"><span><span><font size="3">2.</font><span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><font size="3">ANSI B11.TR4-2004, Selection of Programmable Electronic Systems (PES/PLC) for Machine Tools</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt 39.3pt;text-indent:-18pt;tab-stops:list 39.3pt;"><span><span><font size="3">3.</font><span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><font size="3">ANSI Z244.1-2003, Control of Hazardous Energy</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt 39.3pt;text-indent:-18pt;tab-stops:list 39.3pt;"><span><span><font size="3">4.</font><span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><font size="3">ANSI/PMMI B155.1-2006, Safety Requirements for Packaging Machinery</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt 39.3pt;text-indent:-18pt;tab-stops:list 39.3pt;"><span><span><font size="3">5.</font><span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><font size="3">NFPA 79-2007, Electrical Standard for Industrial Machinery</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt 39.3pt;text-indent:-18pt;tab-stops:list 39.3pt;"><span><span><font size="3">6.</font><span style="font:7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><font size="3">SEMI S2, Safety Guidelines for Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment</font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt 3.3pt;"><font size="3"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt 3.3pt;"><font size="3">Several more consensus standards are in committee as we speak and will be publishing approved updates within months further confirming that a major paradigm shift has been underway for nearly eight years in the US. Throughout this time OSHA has done nothing I’m aware of to openly acknowledge any of these changes. </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt 3.3pt;"><font size="3"> </font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt 3.3pt;"><font size="3">So – is there anyone out there who can write a comment into this blog and give us any clue to what OSHA is doing to update their 29CFR 1910 series of regulations? <span> </span></font></p> </article> <article> <h1>What the FUD?</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 18:16:00 GMT</p> <font face="andale mono,times" size="3"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">Earlier this week I listened in as some world recognized experts blathered on about the dangers of embedded safety systems.<span> </span>These gentlemen represented one of the market leaders in process safety, and I was hoping to learn some new things about our industry.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">Their discussion covered topics such as layers of protection, benefits of TMR over dual redundancy, keeping your SIS separate and independent from your DCS, and cyber security and safety fieldbus.<span> </span>Their 30 minute (or so) presentation was followed up by a 15 minute Q&A session.<span> </span>I gave these guys my time and respect to listen in and hopes of learning something.<span> </span>Instead, I left hugely disappointed that it turned into a pure marketing FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) campaign.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">For those who were not able to listen, please allow me to sum up, what you missed….there are no benefits for embedded systems (just increased risk), safety field bus is confusing, intelligent field instruments are not that smart, pimple faced computer hackers and terrorist cells are looking to cripple your SIS, vinyl records are superior to CD’s, carburetion is more efficient than fuel injection, slide rules provide greater accuracy than calculators, and HDTV is pure hype….<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">About 17 years ago, as a young adventurous engineer, after MUCH investigation, I bought into the concept of analog transmitters over discrete switches.<span> </span>I found we could gain much by veering away from our company “proven” design for using 12 discrete switches (two out of three voting for Low, Low-Low, High, and High-High), with 3 “smart” analog transmitters.<span> </span>I believed this simple approach could achieve better functionality, higher availability and greater safety from our 20 year old corporate standard.<span> </span>The guys writing the standards were only a few years away from retirement and didn’t want to hear my nonsense. <span> </span>I took action, made the change, and while looking for praise, all I got was a nasty reprimand from my manager.<span> </span>Later this revelation would become company standard, and help propel me to move towards an automation company that was more in line with my forward thinking.<span> <br /><br /></span>That was just one year before I invented the internet </span><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Wingdings;"><span>J</span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p></span></font> </article> <article> <h1>What does two plus three equal?</h1> <p>Charles Fialkowski — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:27:00 GMT</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">It was my intent to publish this BLOG last Friday.<span> </span>Unfortunately, right in the middle of it I got a friendly reminder that my paper for the 2007 Petroleum and Chemical Industry Committee Technical Conference was DUE….The BLOGGing<span> </span>would have to wait…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">The week prior I was in Germany attending my company’s bi-annual process safety meeting in Heidelberg Germany.<span> </span>What an opportunity to coordinate my U.S. Process Safety issues with the rest of my global counterparts.<span> </span>The news of the week, was outside our company walls as the announcement of the acquisition of ICS Triplex to Rockwell hit the wire.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:black;font-family:Arial;">While a lot of speculation and opinions would soon follow by folks with very LARGE crystal balls, on the impact it would make safety market (particularly to the oil and gas industry).<span> I'm sorry, but </span>I have to admit, my immediate thoughts were on the pure safety technology and philosophy?<span> </span>What is Rockwell going to market NOW?<span> </span>You now have a have a dual redundant (DMR) safety technology, buying a company purely based on a triple modular redundant (TMR) design.<span> </span>We could go on all day on how this one’s going to play out, and I’m still suffering from jet lag to begin, plus my PC got one of them "trojan" virus from Europe?.<span> </span></span></p> </article> </main></body></html>