Welcome to the Kenexis Functional Safety Podcast! I'm Ed Marszal, President and CEO of Kenexis, a leading technical safety consultancy for the chemical process industry. With decades of experience in safety instrumented systems, I bring a unique perspective to this podcast, having actively contributed to the ISA 84 committee since 1994.
In this inaugural season, we'll delve into the IEC 61511 standard, examining each word's significance. I'll provide detailed insights into the standard's interpretation and application, complemented by personal stories from my career and committee discussions.
During the Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT), you're going to find issues. You can’t fix them on the spot— you need to trace each one back to wherever it originated in the safety lifecycle and correct everything downstream from that point.
25 Aug 2026
S1E55 Clause 13
Factory Acceptance Testing is where Ed Marszal picks up in Clause 13, starting with an admission: the clause title may be wrong, since 13.2 is called Recommendations when every other point-two clause in the standard states requirements.
Scope matters here FAT applies to the SIS logic solver, the engineered, customized subsystem, not off-the-shelf field devices like a pressure transmitter. Ed works through the objective's three notes, then the twelve-bullet planning list in 13.2.2: black box functionality, performance, environmental, and power-failure testing, plus test cases, dependencies on other systems, personnel competency, hazard assessment, and documenting results, with a nod to using Kenexis® Open-PHA® checklists or Kenexis® Open-Audit™ to run it.
The episode ends at 13.2.3's one-sentence requirement to test a defined version, with 13.2.4 through 13.2.7 held for next week.
11 Aug 2026
S1E54 12.5 and 12.6
Clause 12.5 closes out the software section with the meat of application program testing: verification planning tied back to Clause 7, an independent competent-person review, and nine bullet points covering conformance testing, exercising all parts of the program, representative data ranges, negative testing, timing and sequence checks, communication overload stress tests, and integration with the actual logic solver hardware.
Ed Marszal walks through each one, then covers I/O data mapping verification, impact analysis for mid-testing fixes, and the seven-item documentation requirement that insists on recording passing tests, not just failures. Clause 12.6 closes with methodology and tools: complying with vendor safety manuals, and five purposes your methods, techniques, and tools must serve. Throughout, Ed threads a running argument for automating this testing with tools like ProLyTx, tied to the newly rebranded Kenexis SIS software.
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