IEC 61508 Functional Safety

A Matter of Safety

“As Serck has worked with Sira over a number of years concerning accreditation of our own products, and given the reputation of Sira in such services, we decided that it would be prudent for us to engage Sira to undertake our CASS assessment. “CASS accreditation has certainly been a bonus to the way we operate as a business as not only has this opened up possibilities for us in the safety markets but has served to improve the way we operate in other non-safety related areas”.

Adrian Carrington, Project Engineering Manager, Serck UK

Functional Safety is concerned with products or systems whose failure to operate reliably could harm people or the environment.

IEC 61508 is the accepted international standard that deals with the functional safety of electrical or electronic (including software-based) safety-related systems. The reliability of such systems is determined by the Safety Integrity Level (SIL) of the safety function they perform.

Increasingly, certification to IEC 61508, 61511 and other related standards is being encouraged by regulatory authorities and sought by end users as a way of minimising risk and demonstrating best practice.

In contracts involving safety-related systems, certification to IEC 61508 is often a pre-requisite, marking the leaders out from the competition.

Sira is accredited by UKAS to undertake its certification activities in accordance with the CASS Scheme, and is committed to helping its customers promote their products and services in the international market, with the highest level of credibility with regard to functional safety. 

Please click on the links on the left for information relating to Sira's functional safety services. 

To find out how Functional Safety can benefit your organisation, and get an understanding of your requirements and responsibilities, download our Functional Safety datasheets by clicking here

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For more information regarding Sira Functional Safety Services please contact functionalsafety@siracertification.com or tel +44 (0)1244 670 900