The safety of plants must be given the highest priority during planning and operation. Automation makes a major contribution in this respect, the key phrase here being “functional safety”. Reason enough for NAMUR to select this topic for this year’s Annual General Meeting, which will be held on the 11th and 12th of November 2010 in Bad Neuenahr and deals with subjects ranging from the inception of safety technology to the outlook for anticipated developments in the future. With more than 40 years experience in the area of safety and over 25,000 installed safety systems, HIMA is NAMUR partner for this year’s Annual General Meeting. Steffen Philipp, Managing Director and Partner, and Thomas Hinzmann, Director of the Process Automation Marketing & Sales and Service, will demonstrate in their opening presentation, “Functional safety free of compromises”, that much more than the use of certified components needs to be taken into consideration when it comes to functional safety. On the contrary, the entire safety life cycle, the human factor as the greatest source of error and an intelligent integration of the safety solution in the automation environment should be looked at in a no-holds-barred manner with regard to plant availability and efficiency.
