A new whitepaper on Foundation Safety Instrumented Functions (SIF) is now available from the Fieldbus Foundation’s website.
Written by the ARC Advisory Group, a research and advisory firm for manufacturing, energy, and supply chain solutions, the whitepaper describes the implications of Foundation SIF (FF-SIF) technology for the global plant safety system market and end-users.
The document, called Foundation Fieldbus Safety Instrumented Functions Forge the Future of Process Safety, says that successful beta testing of Foundation SIF means big changes in the way automation end-users will approach Safety Instrumented System (SIS) implementations in process industry plants.
In the whitepaper, ARC Advisory Group research director — process automation, Larry O’Brien, describes how Foundation SIF is a critical part of the Foundation fieldbus automation infrastructure.
Foundation fieldbus offers open communications protocol and is designed as a platform for advancing standards-based solutions for plant SIFs. Foundation SIF is designed to reduce the total cost of ownership for end-users by extending fieldbus benefits into plant safety systems.
“It is very clear that end users want this technology and are striving to include FF-SIF systems in their project specifications,” said O’Brien.
“Many major end users will probably be specifying FF-SIF systems for their new projects starting in 2011.”
To download the free Foundation SIF whitepaper, go to http://www.fieldbus.org