Emerson’s automation safety system wins 2013 exida® Safety Award

Emerson Process Management’s DeltaV safety instrumented system (SIS) has been granted the 2013 Safety Award by exida, the global leader in functional safety and cybersecurity certification for the process industries. exida recognised the DeltaV safety instrumented system with its safety award for the logic solvers category, citing the system’s Electronic Marshalling and CHARMs technologies.

“exida recognises the importance of excellence in functional safety,” said William Goble, exida Principal Partner. “Through extensive analysis of the nominated products, we believe DeltaV SIS with Electronic Marshalling has the ability to play a key role in the continuous journey of making the world a safer place.”

Founded in 1999 and with offices around the world, exida is a key player in testing and assessing automation safety products. The agency is a leading certification body and serves on the international committees that write safety standards.

Goble noted that exida is in a unique position to review safety products from many different manufacturers. The safety award gives the agency an opportunity to recognise products that stand out in meeting functional safety standards.

“The DeltaV SIS architecture is what I would call a hybrid,” said Goble. “It combines the best attributes of many different architectures into one. Also, its flexible design gives users all the different I/O types they need, and allows them to pick levels of redundancy and safety so they can make trade-offs between costs and the essential parameters of availability and safety.”

Goble said cyber security is a big consideration − noting it was not even a topic of discussion in safety systems just a few years ago. “It’s something a lot of people are now having trouble retrofitting,” Goble said. “The DeltaV SIS with Electronic Marshalling and CHARMs technology was built with security as an important part of the design.”

“It’s gratifying to receive this recognition from the experts,” said Emerson process systems and solutions President Jim Nyquist, who accepted the award. “It affirms that we accomplished our goal of reducing complexity while meeting or exceeding the stringent functional requirements of systems safety.”