Safely into the future

The year is 2035: all machines are net­worked; com­mu­ni­cate with each other. They exchange valu­able data in real-time, which becomes infor­ma­tion in the cloud, thereby ensuring opti­mised machine processes. The data itself, and access to it, is pro­tected. Plant and machinery can there­fore work reli­ably; the built-in safety tech­nology does its job. Human and machine are pro­tected. The trans­for­ma­tion of the automa­tion world is com­plete.

What are the success factors for the safe automation of the future?

Firstly, open com­mu­ni­ca­tion stan­dards. Pro­duc­tion will only be able to draw on the full resources if we stan­dardise on a common denom­i­nator: machines speak one lan­guage, use stan­dard­ised, open infor­ma­tion tech­nolo­gies – as a result, data moves from A to B as quickly and effi­ciently as pos­sible. OPC UA is the stan­dard for data exchange, facil­i­tating cross-vendor net­working of plants, including con­nec­tion to the cloud. And that’s not just at con­trol level. As a member of the OPC Foun­da­tion, Pilz employees are actively involved in both the steering com­mittee and tech­nical working groups in the Field Level Com­mu­ni­ca­tion (FLC) Group. Pilz’s focus lies in the working group that deals with safety (Safety over OPC UA).

At sensor level, the future is already reality today: IO-Link Safety is the open com­mu­ni­ca­tion system for data exchange between func­tion­ally safe devices, such as sen­sors for example. Pilz is launching its first IO-Link Safety solu­tion at the 2023 SPS exhi­bi­tion, thus enabling its cus­tomers to take an impor­tant step towards open­ness.

The use of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) is also another key driver for the future of automa­tion. Net­working and digi­ti­sa­tion result in increased data volume in pro­duc­tion halls. The chal­lenge: to con­dense the flood of data and gen­erate knowl­edge from it. In future, Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence can take over where human capa­bil­i­ties reach their limits. The time that’s saved can be used by employees for other activ­i­ties. But can you also entrust the field of func­tional safety to AI?

Cur­rently, Pilz experts are grap­pling deeply with the dif­ferent aspects of AI, to find out how Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence can be reli­ably utilised in the sen­si­tive area of machinery safety. They are also col­lab­o­rating in var­ious research projects on the future of safe automa­tion.

Production Employee

Humans are indis­pens­able in intel­li­gent pro­duc­tion. Unlike machines, they can inde­pen­dently assess sit­u­a­tions and make autonomous judge­ments; make deci­sions. Work sta­tions are adapted to the age and qual­i­fi­ca­tions of the work­force. In close coor­di­na­tion with the worker, for example, robots take on tasks that are phys­i­cally stren­uous or par­tic­u­larly monot­o­nous, while humans carry out higher-grade tasks.

AGV

Storage sys­tems of the future will be fully auto­mated, for example – that’s not only effi­cient, but also makes work easier for humans in terms of ergonomics.

Control Cabinet

Increasing minia­tur­i­sa­tion is having an impact, par­tic­u­larly in the con­trol cab­i­nets in the pro­duc­tion hall. These will be sig­nif­i­cantly smaller in the future, leaving valu­able space free for other uses.

Safety Light Curtain

Sensor tech­nology will become ever more impor­tant in the pro­duc­tion hall of the future. Because it will supply the data for pre­dic­tive main­te­nance, for example.

Control Room

Cen­tralised view of decen­tralised sys­tems: con­trol intel­li­gence migrates to the periphery. The con­trol room takes over the higher level con­trol, trans­parent to all machines – the new heart of the plant.

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Is the future of automation safe?

In the pro­duc­tion halls of the future, data is the new gold. Wher­ever there is data, there will also be poten­tial attackers wanting to tap it or pre­vent access to it. But that’s not all: Pro­duc­tion could be halted; in the worst case, safety func­tions on plant and machinery could be manip­u­lated, endan­gering employees.

Indus­trial Secu­rity pro­tects Safety. As far as the stan­dards are con­cerned, the EU Machinery Reg­u­la­tion has recog­nised the pro­tec­tion required for func­tional safety and has made Indus­trial Secu­rity mea­sures manda­tory by 2027. There is also the spe­cially devel­oped Cyber Resilience Act, which is cur­rently only avail­able in draft form, and the EU Direc­tive NIS2, which came into force in Jan­uary 2023. So, on the tech­no­log­ical side, tech­nical mea­sures such as net­work seg­men­ta­tion using indus­trial fire­walls must respond to the legal require­ments. Fire­walls sep­a­rate crit­ical net­work zones from each other, leading increas­ingly to pro­tec­tion against poten­tial external attackers. Then there are organ­i­sa­tional mea­sures, such as the reg­ular eval­u­a­tion of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and clo­sure of secu­rity loop­holes. Both pro­vide added secu­rity.

As market leader in the field of machinery safety, Pilz grasped this con­nec­tion between Safety and Indus­trial Secu­rity at an early stage, and has added the impor­tant aspect of secu­rity to its existing range of ser­vices. With its training course for CESA – Cer­ti­fied Expert for Secu­rity in Automa­tion, Pilz pro­vides cus­tomers with key expert knowl­edge of the stan­dard IEC 62443, detailing how com­pa­nies can apply it when intro­ducing cyber secu­rity mea­sures into their own pro­duc­tion. With the new Indus­trial Secu­rity Con­sulting Ser­vice, experts from Pilz come on site and sup­port cus­tomers, from the pro­tec­tion require­ments analysis and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of appro­priate coun­ter­mea­sures through to secu­rity ver­i­fi­ca­tion of plant and machinery. The number one objec­tive remains the pro­tec­tion of humans. This is the only way to bring the ideal vision of a pro­duc­tion hall from 2035 to life; a post-trans­for­ma­tion pro­duc­tion hall..