Increasing levels of automation in industrial processes has required additional levels of safety and reliability to be introduced, which has led to the adoption of the European Union’s new Machinery Directive ISO 13849 and a number of new standards such as IEC 62061. Within both of these pieces of legislation are details of increased safety functions, known as Safety Integrity Levels (SIL) or Performance Levels (PL) that categorise control components and structures with regard to fault detection, redundancy and reliability.
Plant manufacturers and operators are required to carry out an assessment of the safety of their equipment and if necessary make improvements to bring it within compliance. In many cases the new standards can be achieved without massive alterations to the existing control infrastructure – a simple retro-fit can improve the safety levels and achieve compliance.
Plant managers can upgrade existing control structures to PLc or SIL1 with a compact solution and minimal changes to the circuit.
Bürkert offers a wide range of smart process valves and safety control valves, which will help companies to improve safety levels and comply with safety directives easily.
