Oct 21, 2010-The Stuxnet story is going from bad to worse. What seemed to be a fringe incident of a worm (that infects only Siemens make PLC, SCADA and DCS systems) is slowly getting to be, well, mainstream. The infection which was thought to be restricted to less than a hundred systems now seems to … Read more
Oct 18, 2010– Now with the advent of the Stuxnet, the world’s first known computer system worm, meant only to target industrial control systems, plant safety managers should sit up and take notice. Upto now you had to bother about fires, explosions, worker safety violations, legal permits and these kind of issues. Very soon you … Read more
It is now almost three years since the Buncefield oil storage depot explosion took place and finally the authorities have declared, that they will be pressing criminal charges against five companies, ostensibly who have been found guilty of acts of omission. For those of you who do not remember the case, here is a short … Read more
Lately, there have been many launches of new “integrated” control systems, that have both DCS and SIS systems in the same package. For those of you are not familiar with these terms, an SIS is short for “Safety Instrumented System“, which is a special kind of control system that is used for the safety critical … Read more
There is now yet another generation of instruments on the market-wireless! The developments in instruments are faster than what a traditional chemicals manufacturing plant was used to. First we had pneumatic/hydraulic & mechanical instruments, then analog instruments, then digital “smart” instruments, fieldbuses and now wireless. However, in this case these may prove to be very … Read more
