Safety certification service

The initial phase of the service includes a gap analysis process to ascertain if the safety component will achieve the required SIL or performance level, or if other measures must be taken before certification. This will minimise the certification process phase, saving safety-related control manufacturers costs and reducing time to market for newly designed products. 

Paul Laidler, business director for Machinery Safety at TÜV SÜD Product Service, said: "If a safety related control function does not have the required integrity, it may fail unexpectedly and the machine will lose function, or worse, injure an operator. Any claim of functional safety for a component, subsystem or system should therefore be independently certified to one of the recognised functional safety standards. Our new certification service will help manufacturers to assure customers that their safety control system will reduce the risk to the required level once installed.”

International standard IEC 61508 (Functional Safety of Electrical/Electronic/Programmable Electronic Safety-related Systems) is the basic functional safety standard applicable to all industries. A SIL Safety integrity level is determined primarily from the assessment of three factors, with the highest levels requiring greater compliance with each: 1) improved reliability 2) failure to safety 3) management, systematic techniques, verification and validation.  Drives & Controls D261