Process industry

The functional safety market continues to gain more acceptance and utilization in the design of safety process control systems. More and more end-users are implementing functional safety concepts in their plants, achieving compliance to IEC 61508 or industry specific derivative standards like IEC 61511 / ISA 84.00.01-2004 for the process industry, IEC 62061 for the machinery industry, IEC 61513 for the nuclear industry.

Whenever new hardware devices are developed by an OEM manufacturer, the IEC 61508 should be followed. If the hardware is Proven-In-Use (PIU) or if the hardware was developed and validated per IEC 61508, the end-user can simply follow the IEC 61511 standards when designing a Safety Instrumented System, or any other critical control systems that has financial, environmental or other major impact to the plant or process. exida has been working with OEM’s to provide Verifiable Functional Safety to provide them with complete, more than just a number, product certification and documentation to enable process end users implementing IEC6 1511 Safety Life Cycle design support for over 6-7 years. Please refer to our Consultants experience to confirm our broad OEM and Safety Industry background to help with your decision to utilize exida with your product certification support.

Safety Process Measurement Instrumentation (SPMI) represents one of the most dynamic and fastest growing segments in the automation market. With sales forecasted at $148 million USD in 2007 and growing to $431 million USD by 2012 it is clear that End-users are increasing their focus on instrumentation for safety applications. Consequentially it offers significant opportunities for manufacturers who can successfully address the technical and marketing requirements. Demand for SPMI is expected to grow significantly; driven by increased focus on plant safety, the need for increased integrity of protective loops, and increased capital investments in market segments that have a high percentage of safety loops. The SPMI market has seen rapid growth with a dramatic increase in market size as well as an increase in the number and variation of products being certified to IEC 61508. Evaluation of End-user requirements indicate that we are just beginning to enter a phase of rapid market growth and that this growth will be sustained beyond a five year planning window.