Installing IEC 61508 and Supporting Its Users - Nine Necessities

The international safety standard, IEC 61508, presents several challenges to its users who are often not familiar either with safety engineering and management or with introducing a new standard. This paper first explores the background to the difficulties that companies experience in using the standard. It then discusses the difficulties that the standard poses, in the context of how a company needs to respond to them. It defines nine principal requirements for installing the standard and supporting its users, and shows that the principal responsibilities for acquiring knowledge and understanding and taking action fall on senior management. It turns out that the nine necessities are not unique to this standard but are fundamental to the installation and support of any new tool.