System integrator Prodomax Automation Inc. needed to move beyond   its relay-based safety control system. The hard-wired controls were slowing the company’s implementation of the manufacturing systems that it provides to Tier One auto suppliers. The Barrie, Ontario,
Canada, company turned to new safety technology to reduce labor costs and implementation time.

The automotive industry has long been a first-adopter of factory automation, so it isn’t surprising that Prodomax used emerging technology to solve its time-to-market problem. Ordinarily, Prodomax takes 40 weeks to configure a new automation system. The company turned to an Ethernet-connected safety solution from Rockwell Automation Inc., in
Milwaukee

The decision immediately reduced the wiring required by the old relay-based system, and it also offered needed flexibility. In the past, a safety trip would shut down all 33 robots. The new system stops only the robots in the immediate vicinity of the interruption, allowing the unaffected robots to continue operating.

Prodomax had high hopes the new technology would produce significant productivity gains. “The final result matched the intended result,” says Dave Thompson, manager of the Design Controls Engineering Group at the company’s
Rochester Hills , Mich.

The productivity gains from the new technology came in a number of areas. Prodomax cut five weeks off its 40-week implementation schedule. There was a 30 percent reduction in wiring, a 25-percent reduction in design and wiring time, a 20 percent reduction in overall labor costs and a 40 percent reduction in panel build time. That’s just the implementation savings. That doesn’t count the productivity gains its Tier One customer will experience.

New safety technology has gone global after years of development in
Europe. In 2002,
U.S. regulators opened up a flood of new safety technology. “In the past, safety had to be hard-wired. Safety wasn’t part of control,” says J.B. Titus, business development and safety standards manager at Siemens Energy and Automation Inc., in
Alpharetta, Ga. “That changed in June of 2002. And that started the United States using technology that was already mature in
Europe.”

Prior to 2002, most
U.S. plants operated on relay-based hard-wired safety tools. Since that date,
U.S. plants have the green light to use Ethernet-based safety networks and safety programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that can be incorporated into the plant automation system. Add to that new developments in safe motion technology, and you’ve got the makings of an ongoing revolution here in automated safety.

The problem is, adoption in the United States has been slow, mainly due to the conservative nature of plants and U.S. regulators’ lagging adoption of
Europe’s safety standards. Part of the reason for the slow
U.S. adoption is that new safety technology comes with a greater upfront cost. “It’s hard to convince people that spending a few hundred dollars more is the right way to go,” says Russ Wood, an application engineering manager at Omron Scientific Inc., a safety solutions company in Fremont, Calif. “I think the use of new safety technology is going to come, but we’re not there yet.”

Productivity gains

As plants install smart safety technology, productivity gains are not a by-product. Productivity is the reason for adoption. Plants are implementing new safety technology to nab efficiencies. “Productivity is definitely the goal,” says Steve Freeman,director, Safety Systems Division, at Minneapolis-based vendor Sick Inc. “If you design the overall system to be safe and productive, you get a competitive advantage out of safety.”

Emerging factory safety technology was first developed in
Europe, where the technology allowed regulators to change their notion of what operators can do in a plant situation. This gave operators more flexibility to deliver tangible productivity gains. “Productivity is one of the areas where Europeans have been ahead of the United States ,” says John Wenzler,
corporate account executive at vendor Bosch Rexroth Corp., in
Hoffman Estates , Ill. “If I have to move a jam in a machine, I have to shut down the line. In
Europe, you can go into the safe area and move the machine in several different manners, either in safe speed, safe torque or safe direction.” With changed rules to accommodate safety technology, U.S. plants can now take
Europe’s efficiencies.

One area of immediate savings companies ...