Practical Calculations for Safety Instrumented Systems
Mumbai, May 01, 2012- Abhisam Software have announced that a new, unique, training workshop “Practical Calculations for Safety Instrumented Systems” was conducted in Mumbai at the Aker Solutions training center in Mumbai on April 23rd and 24th 2012. It was attended by several engineering and safety professionals from engineering consulting companies such as Aker, Toyo and others, as well as by product development engineers from PLC hardware designers, embedded system developers, burner management systems and other individual engineers.
The workshop was led by Dr. Michel Houtermans, who is a leading global authority on Functional Safety and Safety Instrumented Systems. Dr. Houtermans started with relatively simple examples such as SIL verification calculations for redundant safety logic solvers with voting configurations of 1oo2 voting and then 2oo3 voting systems moving on to more complex calculations with instruments & transmitters, logic solvers and final control elements in different kinds of voting configurations. The workshop explained how to use the Markov method of solving these problems with a Markov software tool. The Markov method is considered difficult to understand by many, but Dr. Houtermans provided a software tool that simplified the calculations to a large extent.
PFD, PFDavg and PFH calculations for high demand (used predominantly in the machinery, automobile and railway industry) as well as low demand systems (that are predominantly used in the process industry) were covered within two days.
More such workshops are planned in the future. For more details please contact Abhisam directly.
TUV Certified Functional Safety Training in India
Mumbai, Feb 16, 2012- Abhisam Software informs us that the February batch of the TUV Certified Functional Safety Training Course was sold out, within weeks of being announced! This batch was held from 7th to 10th February 2012 at Aker Solutions training center (in the Aker Solutions office building), located at iThink Techno Campus, an iconic office complex coming up in the eastern suburb of Kanjurmarg, Mumbai. This batch was attended by several to notch engineers from companies such as Aker Solutions, ABB, iGate Patni, Petrofac and others. The training was led by Dr. Michel Houtermans of Risknowlogy, who have partnered with Abhisam to bring this globally recognized qualification to India.
“This training program is superb and is a must-do, for every professional who desires to master Functional Safety and work in areas such as Risk Assessment, Safety Integrity Level, Safety Instrumented Systems and such. Dr. Houtermans is not only an expert in the subject but also a very good speaker and trainer and I absolutely enjoyed being in the program when all my doubts were cleared in no time” was a spontaneous reactions from one of the participants. “The TUV test is tough but it is also necessary to pass it and get the title of FSEng, as our clients insist on qualified personnel working on their safety systems” was the reason given by another engineer who participated in the program.
The next batch starts from April 17th and registrations have already started according to an Abhisam spokesman who informed us. So we think it will be a great idea to participate in this, don’t you?
Fieldbus and Safety Instrumented Systems-implementing Safety Instrumented Functions in Fieldbus
Miami Dec 19, 2011- There has been a lot of buzz lately about Safety Instrumented Systems utilizing Fieldbus technology, or rather having Fieldbus systems also have Safety Instrumented System functionality. As those of you in the process industries probably know, Safety Instrumented Systems are special automation and control systems that ensure that plants having hazardous processes will be adequately protected and can be shut down safely in case of any process upsets or untoward incidents. Safety Instrumented Systems protect people, assets and the environment, in case of unwanted deviations, failures of the main process control system or equipment and other undesirable and unplanned events. Safety Instrumented Systems (known as SIS for short) are also called by other names such as Safety Shutdown Systems, Emergency Shutdown Systems (ESD) and similar terms.
Till recently, the SIS and the main plant automation systems (also known as BPCS-Basic Process Control Systems, which could be DCS or PLC based systems) used to be completely separate systems. The hardware, software and programming of both systems (BPCS and SIS) used to be totally different, like chalk and cheese. Later on, we began to see the introduction of integrated BPCS-SIS systems, where the BPCS and SIS were not totally different, but shared some of the hardware, user interface, communications network, etc. Though the programming was similar, the SIS programming was kept secure and separate with the aid of special functions in software.
Now we are seeing an even more integrated approach, in Fieldbus systems. For example FOUNDATION Fieldbus (which is one of the many Fieldbus protocols in use today) has introduced special Safety Instrumented Functions, that could be implemented in FOUNDATION Fieldbus based systems. They call this FF-SIF and this concept was presented in the FOUNDATION Fieldbus general assemby held sometime back. It is being done in a pilot project in Saudi Aramco at their Dhahran site. FOUNDATION Fieldbus recently announced that updated device development solutions for its Foundation Fieldbus for Safety Instrumented Functions (FF-SIF) technology are available. The new release includes the FF-SIF Technical Specification, Foundation for SIF Interoperability Test Kit (SIF ITK), and DD Library.
As many of you know, Fieldbus technology is rapidly gaining ground in the process industries and if the FF-SIF concept is accepted by user industries, it will lend a new meaning to the word “integrated” BPCS-SIS. In fact the distinction will get blurred. What FF-SIF proposes is to have Safety Instrumented Function blocks that will be resident in the smart devices in the field (like a humble pressure transmitter for instance) and thus can be used to implement Safety functions.This means that plants who decide to implement Fieldbus even on a smaller scale can have the power of a Safety Instrumented System, without paying a steep price for creating a separate system, programming, wiring, etc,etc. All they have to do is to utilize the SIF blocks that will presumably be available. Since the user industries main aim is to implement Safety functions in an effective manner, this seems to be a good deal for them.
If all this sounds like being too complicated, you need not worry. Simply download the Fieldbus training course from Abhisam Software that we hear is being released in Q1 of 2012 and you will be fine, fully updated and conversant with all this new technology.
Learn the basics of Functional Safety and Safety Integrity Level
Mumbai, Dec 12, 2011- Abhisam Software informs us that they have arranged a training workshop on Basics of Functional Safety and Safety Integrity Level, in Mumbai, India on 6th Feb 2012. The last such workshop that took place in Sep 2011 was very popular and hence this second workshop has been planned.
There is a lot of curiosity in India about Safety Integrity Level (SIL), Functional Safety and related topics but very little information is available for say, a design engineer who wishes to understand the concept of SIL or for an Instrument vendor who would like to certify his transmitter as “SIL 3″ compliant. There are also a lot of misconceptions and myths surrounding SIL which is tragic. There is confusion amongst some engineers for example between verification and validation, about what constitutes a Safety Function and whether it is the same thing as an interlock, whether redundancy and voting are the same thing, whether 2003 is better or worse than 1002 and so on….
Local manufacturers are not clear how to get their products certified to SIL and they hence lose out to products of a similar quality, but which have the SIL tag on them.
All these problems and questions will be answered in this information packed one day workshop. Educating participants and fielding various questions will be Dr. Michel Houtermans, the world’s leading authority on Functional Safety, Safety Instrumented Systems and SIL. Dr. Houtermans will be present in India to carry out a series of workshops and training programs in February and this a good opportunity to meet and understand the following:
- Introduction to Functional Safety and SIL
- History of functional safety
- Industries applying Functional Safety- Case Studies
- How does SIL affect me, my products and my company?
- How to determine the SIL level?
- How to design for SIL?
- What role does certification play?
- What is a “SIL study”?
- Is SIL 3 better than SIL 1? …… and much more.
Interested participants may contact Abhisam Software India office to get the details.
Learn about Functional Safety, Safety Integrity Level (SIL), SIL Certification and more!
Mumbai, Nov 28th, 2011- Abhisam Software informs us that they have arranged an introductory course in Functional Safety on 6th Feb 2012 in Mumbai, at Hotel Kohinoor Continental, Andheri near the airport. The last such program was held on 26th Sep 2011 in Mumbai, which was attended by several engineers, managers and professionals from several sectors such as Automation & Control, Oil & Gas, Engineering Consulting and others.
The course will cover everything related to Functional Safety at an introductory level. It will answer key questions that are asked by many engineers and safety professionals, in relation to Safety Integrity Level (SIL) and Functional Safety.
These are:
- What is Hazard and Risk?
- What is Functional Safety?
- What does SIL mean?
- What are the IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 standards?
- What SIL applies to my plant, instrument or location?
- How can I get my products “SIL compliant?
- What are Safety Instrumented Systems?
- What do you mean by a “SIL Study”?
- How do I get a SIL Certificate for my transmitter, valve or other device?
These and many other questions will be answered by Dr. Michel Houtermans, Managing Partner, Risknowlogy , who is considered to be the world’s leading expert on Functional Safety and SIL.
This training program is something that is useful to Instrumentation & Control System manufacturers, system integrators, engineering consultants, electrical and instrument contractors as well as users in the process industries such as Oil & Gas, Petroleum, Chemicals, Fertilizers, Power and similar industries that utilize complex safety and emergency shutdown systems to keep their plants, people and the environment safe. It will also be of interest to regulatory authorities who supervise these industries.
For more details please contact Abhisam Software . Seats are limited and will be allotted on a first come first serve basis.
