IEC Common Data Dictionary for Functional Safety in the Process Industries

A key aspect of Industry 4.0 is machine-to-machine data sharing, facilitated by emerging technologies like the asset administration shell (AAS) and OPC UA. However, the exchange of domain-specific data can be impeded if a standardized semantic for the domain is not established. For this reason, standardized data repositories for multiple industrial domains have been under development, and the most common examples are IEC Common Data Dictionary (CDD) and ECLASS. IEC CDD is designed to provide standardized data in a machine-readable format for the IEC and ISO standards. However, the current version of IEC CDD, as of 2024, has not fully integrated domain-specific terms related to functional safety in the process industries, including only a very short list of such terms. This represents a significant limitation for information exchange in this sector. As a response to this, the ongoing research project called Automated Process for Follow-up of Safety Instrumented Systems (APOS) has taken the initiative to integrate the functional safety domain into IEC CDD, focusing on key concepts in functional safety for the process industries. This paper reports the groundwork needed to incorporate two key standards in functional safety for process industries, IEC 61508 and 61511.

Keywords: IEC common data dictionary, Machine-readable, Functional safety, IEC 61511, IEC 61508, Industry 4.0, Interoperability.