It really is amazing how fast things have changed in the automation and control industry over the past decade. In that short space of time we’ve gone from a dismissal of Ethernet as a viable plant floor network to its near ubiquitous presence in all new networkable devices. We’ve also seen the demand that control and safety networks be kept separate increasingly overridden. Now, in the realm of services being supplied by vendors to OEMs, we’re seeing functional safety products now being offered to companies looking to outsource this aspect of their production operations.
Though it’s not surprising to see capable suppliers offering this type of product, it is interesting to learn that market demand is high enough for companies to begin offering this capability as a regular deliverable rather than as a one-off service offered on a case-by-case basis.
This apparent trend was brought to my attention with the news of a partnership between Mesco and Hilscher to deliver functional safety solutions to companies wanting to outsource their safety developments. According to the companies, the agreement combines Mesco's TÜV-approved design processes with Hilscher's netX products and manufacturing capability. According to Hilscher and Mesco, this combination of processes and products delivers a “unique support service to automation companies wanting to integrate functional safety. The partnership bridges the gap between safety and data communications, enabling customers to bring failsafe systems and devices faster and more efficiently to market, including the final product acceptance by legal bodies.”
OpenSafety, ProfiSafe, CIPsafe and FSoE (FailSafe over EtherCAT) are all reportedly being supported by this partnership and projects are already underway in Europe and North America.
Explaining the origins of the Hislcher/Mesco agreement, Armin Puehringer, Hilscher area sales manager, says that this partnership, which appears to be an industry first, got its start through a growth in customer demand for help with products based on application profiles of networking protocols.
Citing one example, Puehringer noted a case involving Profinet’s ProfiDrive profile for motion control. “We saw a particular need for functional safety connectivity here because highly-specialized and certified safety engineering expertise is needed to support this. The expertise needed for functional safety is very specialized, and to best serve our customers we felt a partnership with someone who specializes in that area was the better option.”
In answer to why companies are looking to do this kind of outsourcing, Puehringer says, “Most companies wanting to deploy safety are faced with a make-or-buy decision. Many small companies simply don't have the resources while medium-sized companies—even those with safety departments—can be overloaded, or they find it uneconomical to invest in the necessary TÜV approvals. Even bigger organizations with global presence and vast in-house resources find themselves needing help at times, though, in the main, I'd say it is medium-sized companies who are the majority of our customers.”
Puehringer says that, so far, most of the interest in this service has come vendors and OEMs. “Remote I/O products are a typical case, but we are seeing interest from makers of more sophisticated products too, such as light beams and encoders,” he says. “Drive manufacturers are showing a very strong trend towards incorporating functional safety into their products at the moment and we have received inquiries from that sector too. A key driver is the realization that building safety into products can eliminate the need for expensive hard-wired solutions and networked safety is a simple way to avoid that.”
