White Paper: Distributed Safety for Increased Production - from Siemens

  This paper discusses how one automotive manufacturer decentralized control and safety to improve operator safety, lower installed costs and speed troubleshooting of the equipment.

Automobile model changes necessitate the continuous modification of an automotive production line. To better cope with these modifications using systems that addressed required safety standards, the engineers at a major North American automotive manufacturer first looked to establish an industrial communication platform that would be flexible, simple for their electricians to
program and troubleshoot, and would integrate readily on a fieldbus network with third-party components such as robots and valve blocks. With these requirements in mind and having previously used a combination of hardwired, traditional safety relays for safety compliance, the engineers chose Simatic Failsafe PLC technology with Profisafe because it offered fast, easy adaptation, and a control reliable safety solution with minimum downtime. The graphic below
depicts the Profisafe design setup used by the manufacturer.