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, ...

 Have you had a chance to catch Bill Goble’s Hydrocarbon Processing (October 2007 issue) editorial titled “Still not using a safety PLC?” 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 ...

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.  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, ...

Earlier this week, I was invited to present at one of the technical sessions for the upcoming ISA expo 2007. This particular session's focus, was on "NEW SIS hardware technology". Initially, I was asked to represent Siemens and to describe their state-of-the-art technology employeed on its safety design ...