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Alarm Management and the Great American Solar Eclipse
Aug 18, 2017[:en][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Throughout history, total solar eclipses have been a significant event. In primitive societies, eclipses were viewed with fear or as important omens. In the US, the upcoming “Great American Solar Eclipse” is creating much excitement. From buying “official” eclipse-viewing glasses, to paying $1500 or more for a hotel room in the path of the eclipse, the anticipation […]
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IEC 61508 Functional Safety Certificates – To Accept or not to Accept?
Aug 10, 2017[:en][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I get an email that includes a “certificate” of some sort most every week. The sender asks “Can I accept this certificate?” Or the sender might ask “Are these failure rates valid for the process industries?”. At exida, we have some specific criteria we use when performing third party independent SIF verification. exida will accept IEC 61508 […]
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Outer Banks: How Could This Massive Power Outage Happen?
Aug 03, 2017[:en][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I, like many others, was stunned to hear that there was a major power outage covering the Outer Banks. Being an engineer, my instincts were to immediately investigate what happened and what steps occurred to lead to that point. Even before I did research, my mind was already asking “Why wasn’t there a back-up system […]
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Making The Most Of Customer Feedback
Jul 13, 2017[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Your organization gets information, feedback, and requests from customers all the time. It’s up to you to do some preliminary analysis and determine what the customer really wants. Do they want to buy something? Do they want to complain about something? Do they have a need for which no one has a solution? All these […]
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exida Cyber Blog Series 04 – Cybersecurity Metrics, Diagnostics, and Alarms: What’s What?
Jul 06, 2017[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Co-written by Todd Stauffer, Director of Alarm Management Services at exida A wise man once said, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” Let’s apply this to the world of cybersecurity to discuss the importance of cybersecurity metrics and how they are different from a cyber diagnostic and a cyber alarm. Cybersecurity Metrics are usually […]
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Why Run-to-Fail Is Not A Good Maintenance Strategy For SIS
Jun 22, 2017[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]One of the fundamentals of the Probability of Failure on Demand (PFDavg)calculations in SIL verification analysis, is the concept of a constant failure-rate during useful life of the equipment. Probabilistic calculations assume that the failure rate of the devices used in a Safety Instrumented System (SIS) remains constant during the “flat” portion of the “bathtub” curve, shown below. […]