What Is the Truth About the Separation of Safety and Process Automation?
In a session at this week’s ABB Automation and Power World in Orlando, Luis Duran, ABB’s development manager for safety instrumented systems for the Americas, led a panel of experts in trying to answer the perennial question, “What is the truth about the separation of safety and process automation?” The panelists included Duran, exida principal partner Bill Goble and two functional safety experts from ABB UK, Neil Wright and Stuart Nunns.
Although the panelists had much to say, the real action didn’t start until the audience, which was composed of several senior controls engineers, most with SIS experience, started interacting with the panel.
The definition of an integrated system and that of an interfaced system was established early on. An interfaced system is one in which the operation of the separate SIS shall not be dangerously affected by failure, maintenance or other events within the basic process control system (BPCS). Conversely, an integrated system is one in which the SIS controller(s) sit on the same network as the BPCS. According to ARC, integration of plant control and safety systems provide lower training costs, lower engineering costs, improved asset management and maintenance, and easier synchronization between redundant systems, especially at fail-over.
But do they really?
From: ControlGlobal.com