Quantum leap for safety

The safety sys­tems in those days could be dis­abled, including the pro­tec­tive func­tion, if a fault occurred. Then people thought: how to secure those type of sep­a­ra­tion func­tions? And people researched: an ini­tial result was spe­cial relay cir­cuits such as the 3 con­tactor com­bi­na­tion.

“Double safety” takes over the market

Then came the break­through: 35 years ago, Pilz had the rev­o­lu­tionary idea for a redun­dant safety cir­cuit inte­grated in a housing, which then cap­tured the market: smaller than the con­ven­tional cir­cuit with con­tac­tors, easier to operate, but above all safer thanks to a cer­ti­fied type exam­i­na­tion. The birth of the first PNOZ! The patented pro­to­type PNOZ (P = Pilz, NO = Not-Aus [E‑Stop], Z = zwangs­ge­führt [pos­i­tive-guided]) from 1987 was fol­lowed by con­tin­uous new ver­sions as well as a new product cat­e­gory: that of the “safety relays”. The inno­v­a­tive devices were readily accepted – safety relays very quickly advanced to the world market leader. Even today, PNOZ remains syn­ony­mous with safety relays and is used by the mil­lions every day.

“Complete menu” from Pilz

The devel­op­ment of the PNOZ range also serves as a doc­u­men­ta­tion of the tech­nical stan­dards of its time. And of its require­ments – increasing automa­tion, effi­cient safety solu­tions, no restric­tion of pro­duc­tivity. The cur­rent PNOZ port­folio includes simple safety relays (e.g. PNOZsigma) as well as the hard­ware-con­fig­ured, mod­ular safety relays myPNOZ and soft­ware-con­fig­ured safe small con­trollers ­PNOZ­multi 2.The common thread: mon­i­toring of safety func­tions and pro­tec­tive devices such as E‑STOP, safety gates, light cur­tains, two-hand con­trols, pres­sure sen­si­tive mats, speed and stand­still, among others. A suc­cess story that is still being written.