Siemens expands Safety Integrated unit; PLC safety listed
Alpharetta, GA—Siemens Energy & Automation recently expanded its Safety Integrated USA group to include process industry expertise, and announced that its Simatic S7 Distributed Safety Integrated product, including the S7-315F failsafe safety PLC, has received Underwriters Laboratory’s (UL) 508, NRGF.E232916 listing for functional safety.
Siemens says its Simatic S7-315F PLC, with its distributed I/O system, is the only programmable safety controller on the market with the UL NRGF.E232916 Listing for Functional Safety.
Alpharetta, GA— Siemens Energy & Automation recently expanded its Safety Integrated USA group to include process industry expertise. Siemens says its organization now “brings together multi-dimensional safety teams, technology and products serving the process and discrete industries…to maximize cross-divisional Safety Integrated technology across all of its U.S. automation product lines, including PLCs, sensors, industrial control products, motion control and drives.” [Safety Integration USA was first announced in the
November 2003
issue of Control Engineering.]
In related news, the company announced that its Simatic S7 Distributed Safety Integrated product, including the S7-315F failsafe safety PLC, has received Underwriters Laboratory’s (UL) 508, NRGF.E232916 (ref. IEC 61508 and NFPA 79, 2002) Listing for Functional Safety.
Expansion of the Safety Integrated unit means that John Cusimano, based in Springhouse, PA, for Siemens’ process industries segment, joins J.B. Titus, based in Norcross, GA, for the firm’s discrete industries segment. Siemens hasn’t disclosed the amount invested in the organization, but says “considerable resources” have been devoted to Safety Integrated USA’s team, including application engineers, safety specialists, and a network of safety solution providers.
Titus tells Control Engineering that starting with safety components and networks makes designing a safe system easier from the start. “When components didn’t have safety built into them, making a system safe required additional engineering. Now it’s in the products, which is a lot cleaner, smaller, and less expense.” He suggested that Siemens leads competitors in the safety area, having been driven by European standards. For example, the company has offered safety I/O since 1999. In an example of cleaner and smaller, when redundancy is built into a safety I/O card, then only eight channels are needed instead of 16, because no cross wiring is required, Titus explains.
“Siemens offers the broadest range of safety certified products for both the discrete and process industries,” says Cusimano; “For process industries, we’ve put together an impressive offering of products and services for emergency shutdown, burner management and fire and gas detection systems.” Siemens’ long-term investments in safety technology are paying off with new innovations found in a variety of global applications and industries, Titus adds. “Siemens AG has an ongoing commitment to research and product development to stay on the leading edge of safety technology. Our products are used in discrete guarding, shut down and alarm systems. All safety products are fully certified to relevant global and local standards,” he says.
Siemens adds that its Simatic S7-315F PLC, and its distributed I/O system, was the only programmable safety controller with the NRGF.E232916 Listing when UL approved the listing in October 2003. UL’s listing certifies that the software and firmware based controller used to automate machine safety interlocks will produce safer machine operation stops. The UL 508 Listing category covers control equipment that incorporates software for use in safety-related functions. UL adds that it includes devices that detect unsafe conditions, alert operators, and/or take action based on out-of-specification parameters to place the equipment under control or system into a safe configuration. “Siemens’ Safety Integrated technology is incorporated into our commitment to Totally Integrated Automation,” Titus says. “All of our products are fully certified to relevant global and local standards, including Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratories (NRTL).”
Control Engineering Daily News DeskMark T. Hoske, editor-in-chiefMHoske@cfemedia.com
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