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It stands to reason that Safety Systems for shut down, fire and gas etc. must be quite separate from the regular control systems. Integration of the two goes against every basic safety principle - so what do we mean by integration in this context? In summary, we mean effective communication.
Traditional safety systems architecture is totally different from regular control systems. The reliability of regular programmable electronic systems such as PLCs and DCS is vastly better than traditional relays, but the predictability is not so good, resulting in the paradox that, although far fewer failures occur, the number of "fail dangerous" conditions is actually higher than for relays. Specialist safety architectures for programmable …