In AutomationWorld magazine Editor-in-Chief Gary Mintchell’s recent blog post, Safety Integrated System training, he describes an SIS training course recommended by a former colleague.
I caught up with Pat Garland in Emerson’s Educational Services organization to see what training we were offering to help automation professionals learn the ins and outs of the safety including the global safety standard IEC 61511 (ISA S84 in the U.S.)
Along with a lot of efforts in other parts of Emerson Process Management developing safety instrumented system (SIS) products, SIS project services, and ongoing SIS lifecyle services, the Educational Services team has developed courses around safety from basic understanding of terminology and global standards to more specific product training.
Pat specifically pointed me to some on-line eLearning courses which include a Safety Engineering Overview and a more in depth Safety Engineering course. You can see sample courseware here (requires Flash player.)
These are paid for classes but include access to the course for three months and email access to Emerson safety experts for this three month duration. Based upon the feedback of automation professionals who have participated in the various forms of education services, many more eLearning modules are in development.
Pat has posted his email on the eLearning page, so fire away if you have questions or post comments here.
Finally, speaking of commitment to education, it was great to read Control magazine Editor-in-Chief Walt Boye’s blog post today, More on “Being the Solution…”
Emerson Process Management is the undisputed king of giving to colleges, universities and technical trade schools, as near as I can tell. They have donated millions of dollars worth of field instruments and DeltaV systems, or sold them to academic institutions at cost, depending on the need of the particular institution. In particular, they’ve donated to the three North American Fieldbus education centers a whole lot.
What Emerson does is the template for the first way to expend education resources: support actual engineering education. This must be done. Thank you for being part of the solution. Please don’t stop.
