IEC 61511 Functional Safety Lifecycle
The whole lifecycle, from hazard through to decommissioning, and who owns each phase
Functional safety fails far more often through lifecycle and management gaps than through hardware reliability. This course walks the complete IEC 61511 lifecycle, establishes what each phase must produce, and makes clear where responsibility sits between operator, integrator and vendor.
This course sits alongside our Functional Safety Engineering consulting work, so what is taught is what we do.
Who should attend
Course content
Every module is taught with worked examples and exercises drawn from real plant, and adapted to your own process where the course runs in house.
Framework and concepts
- The relationship between IEC 61508 and IEC 61511
- Safety instrumented function, system and integrity level defined precisely
- Low demand, high demand and continuous mode, and how mode is decided
- Random hardware failure against systematic failure
Analysis phase
- Hazard and risk assessment feeding SIL allocation
- Risk reduction allocation across all protection layers
- Producing a safety requirements specification that an integrator can build from
Realisation phase
- Architectural constraints and hardware fault tolerance
- Device selection, prior use and systematic capability
- Application software, limited variability languages and configuration control
- Factory and site acceptance testing and validation
Operation phase
- Proof testing, coverage and the maintenance record that makes a SIL claim true
- Bypass and override management, time limits and alarming
- Demand and failure recording, and comparing reality against the design assumptions
- Management of change applied to safety systems
Management of functional safety
- Competency requirements and how they are demonstrated
- Functional safety assessment stages and who conducts them
- Verification against validation, kept separate
- The documentation set that has to exist
What you receive
- A lifecycle phase and responsibility matrix
- A safety requirements specification template
- A functional safety assessment checklist
- Assessment result and attendance record
What changes afterwards
- Responsibility for each lifecycle phase stops falling between parties
- Safety requirements specifications arrive complete enough to build from
- Operations understand that a SIL claim depends on what they do after handover
- Assessment findings are anticipated in design rather than discovered at the gate
Standards and references
We teach IEC 61511 Functional Safety Lifecycle against IEC 61511 parts 1 to 3 for the process sector and the codes listed with it, at the edition current when you run it.
Run IEC 61511 Functional Safety Lifecycle for your team
We will come back with dates, the pre-reading it needs and a cost per head. Tell us who is attending, what they already do day to day and whether you want it at your site or delivered online.
Ask about dates and cost