Safety Critical Systems

Course director

Ron Bell, Functional Safety Consultant, Ron Bell Consulting Ltd

Ron is Chair of one of the International Standards Committee’s two teams responsible for the revision and development of IEC 61508.

Ron was head of the Electrical and Control Systems Group in the Health and Safety Executive and is currently one of the five UK members of the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority (CTSA). He chaired one of the two teams responsible for the development, and recently the subsequent revision, of IEC 61508. He is a Director of Engineering Safety Consultants Ltd (ESC), a technical consultancy specialising in functional safety.

Course tutors

Bill Black, Blacksafe Consulting Ltd

Bill Black worked for BP until 1999. During his time at BP he provided consultancy on process control and process protection systems for BP Chemicals, BP Oil and BP Exploration. In 1999 he started a new company called Blacksafe Consulting Ltd that provides training and consultancy on safety systems design and application. He has been actively involved for many years in the international standards committee work on functional safety including IEC 61508, IEC 61511 for the process sector and ISO 10418 for offshore.

Simon Burwood, Functional Safety Consultant

Having spent his early years as a graduate working in machinery safety, Simon moved into the oil and gas industry, as a Functional Safety Consultant, chairing and facilitating SIL determination and HAZAN (LOPA) studies in the UK, the Middle East and Africa. He is also an experienced Safety Engineer and has worked for major contractors in the offshore power industry, delivering Quantified Risk Assessment and SIL Verification studies for major projects. He is a certified Technis Reliability and Functional Safety Engineer and contributed to The Safety Critical Systems Handbook (2010 Edition – ISBN 978-0080967813).

Dai Davis, Percy Crow Davis & Co.

Dai Davis is a Technology Lawyer and has degrees in Physics and Computing Science. As well as being a solicitor, he is a qualified Chartered Engineer and member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Dai advises clients on intellectual property rights and licensing; computer and technology law matters. Dai also has considerable experience advising businesses on product liability, product recall and product safety issues.

Martin Goose, ChemEnvoy, Institution of Chemical Engineers

Martin Goose is a process safety specialist who took early retirement from the Health and Safety Executive after 30 years, dealing primarily with the major hazards sector. His last task within HSE was to be part of the Buncefield Investigation Team. He continues to be active in Safety and Loss Prevention as a committee member of the Institution of Chemical Engineers Subject Group on the topic, and in consultancy through WSAtkins and RPSrisk.

Richard Hawkins, Research Associate, Department of Computer Science, University of York

Richard’s main research interests are software assurance and safety case development and his research projects include: the MoD Software Systems Engineering Initiative (SSEI), the Industrial Avionics Working Group (IAWG) and the BAE Systems Dependable Computing Systems Centre (DCSC). Richard has previously worked as a software safety engineer for BAE Systems and as a safety adviser for BNFL.

Ned Hickling, Director, Synergy Consultants Ltd.

Ned has 30 years experience in a range of human factors, mostly in high integrity systems. This ranges from the design and assessment of user interfaces or procedures through to the measurement of consistency in performance by a regulatory body. His experience covers nuclear power & reprocessing, oil & gas, railways, pharmaceutical and military sectors. He has provided guidance on human factors in support of IEC 61508.

Ron Pierce, Principal Consultant (Safety), CSE International Ltd

Ron’s background is advanced software engineering. He has specialised in system and software safety for 17 years as a Principal Consultant for CSE International Ltd, where his main work has been in safety assessment for the air traffic management and railway control systems. He is secretary and UK expert on one of the two teams responsible for the revision of IEC 61508. He has published a number of papers in software engineering and safety topics.

Peter Wyman, Horizon Nuclear Power

Peter has worked for many years on power plant control systems for coal, oil, gas, wind and hydro power plants. Over the past 15 years he has developed an interest in safety related and safety critical systems, leading the adoption of the IEC 61508 Standard within his company and contributing to many power industry and national safety related system activities. He led the 61508 Association working group that produced guidelines on managing the safety related systems roles and responsibilities in major projects. Recently he has transferred to his company’s nuclear joint venture as the Lead I&C Engineer, where he is leading the approach to the nuclear control and protection systems.