Unfortunately, nation states appear to be launching cybersecurity attacks on other nation states.
I like a routine each morning where I get up early and work on long-term projects—important tasks that lack the urgency of a short deadline, like reading that new safety critical systems book, wr..
In many professional engineer (PE) programs, continuing education is required. In some US states, this education includes specific requirements for engineering ethics training. The author recently att..
Many reliability engineers trained before IEC 61508 know the acronym MTTR as “mean time to repair.” I certainly learned that definition. Naturally, I think of the time it takes to repair som..
I remember working in a test department, where a particular technician, known as Mike, seemed to destroy a significant percentage of the equipment he worked on. Since he reported to me, I tried extra ..
Focus on the big safety improvements and the real problems. This fundamental concept applies to many tasks in addition to functional safety.
I set a wet glass on the old wooden kitchen table at our home. It sat there all night. The next morning, when I went to grab the glass, it stuck to the table. Yes, this event has happened before. But,..
Under recent economic conditions, it is understandable that a control-system cyber-security audit is not the top priority for many plant operators. Less staff due to layoffs and deferred maintenance c..
During a functional safety assessment of a packaged equipment manufacturer, the issue of instrumentation equipment qualification came up on the audit checklist. The IEC 61511 standard requires that al..
Have you ever questioned some legal decision? I have certainly wondered about the logic behind certain legal cases. When I read the “warning labels” on certain products, for example, I reall..