Functional safety not only guides how engineers can make safer machines, it’s a philosophy centered around a robust validation framework to make certain a machine has been proven safe before it begins operation.
Did you know that according to information published by IAAPA your chances are estimated at:
1: 750,000 – for being struck by lightning
1: 17,000,000 – for being seriously injured on a fixed-site amusement ride (i.e. roller coaster)
This amazing track record is made possible by an industry dedicated to safety and the practice of functional safety.
We’ve noticed the interest level in machine safety is growing more than ever as machines controlled by large software programs, sensors, and their associated systems are becoming more and more complex every day. One of the impacts of this increasing machine complexity is it’s making it much more difficult to assess and manage the potential risks that could result in dangerous, or even fatal failures. This is a key reason why functional safety has become more important than ever.
As you may have noticed from our opening example, functional safety doesn’t just apply to large industrial industries like automated factories and oil refineries. We regularly encounter functionally safe machines in our daily lives in the form of autonomous cars and amusement rides to name a couple.
Going one step further, functional safety is more than just designing a “safe” system. It’s a cradle to grave philosophy for the life of a machine covering:
- Assessment and reduction of risk
- Design
- Build
- Commissioning
- Maintenance
- Training
- Decommissioning
A key element of the process is that a competent team must be engaged to plan and deliver the work at each stage. A competent team consists of people who were specifically trained and have become are skilled at:
- Risk assessment
- Risk reduction
- Failure mode analysis
- Safe system testing & validation
One of the ways we ensure our team members are competent is to have them prepare for and become certified as functional safety engineers, or FS ENG, by an industry-leading 3rd party safety agency such as the German organization TÜV Rheinland. To achieve their FS Eng designation the engineer must be very familiar with the relevant standards, attend facilitated training and finally pass a rigorous certification exam. Having a certification like the FS Eng (TÜV Rheinland) certification validates the engineer is capable of performing functional safety engineering at the highest benchmark level in the industry.
As with all critical engineering practices, the Functional Safety engineering industry is driven by industry-developed standards of practice. Some of the common functional safety standards include:
- IEC 61508/11 (Functional Safety)
- ISO13849 (Safety of Machines)
- ISO 26262 (Road Vehicle Functional Safety)
These standards provide a basis for functional safety engineers to assess and reduce risks, ensure that safety systems identify failures, and validate these systems so that dangerous failures don’t occur once they are deployed.
A final point of confusion is whether functional safety engineers can certify designs. The answer is no. The FS Eng. certification only validates the competence of the engineer, where formal certification of a design to prescribed functional safety standards is a whole other process, for a whole other post.