May 2019

Agile methods are required to implement flexibility, variant management or even batch size 1 in the Smart Factory. According to Steve Farrow, managing director of Pilz UK, this brings major challenges with it in practice, for example in terms of safety. After all, a process must be followed for every machine based on the Machinery Directive (MD) from risk analysis through to CE marking, with the respective necessary measures and documentation. This procedure is designed as a “pre- process”; this means that the machine can only properly and legally begin operation after this is successfully completed. In Working Group 1 “Smart infrastructure” of the research platform SmartFactory KL, experts from Pilz and other companies and organisations are delving into the topic of “Safety in modular Industrie 4.0 production plants”. The objective is a plant structure that enables flexibility and changeability through modularisation, among other things. Inherently safe modules are equipped with conventional functional safety. There are still dependencies between the modules, however. In addition, a new safety architecture is necessary in modular systems that also supports unknown modules. In a white paper, the working group described a concept for automatic certification of Industrie 4.0 production modules. According to this, machines and machine modules can be introduced into production or removed from it at runtime without impacting the rest of a plant. The required safety- related parameters are negotiated, configured and approved virtually automatically based on the introduced safety profiles. Changes to the combined machines are accepted as safe in accordance with the MD if the individual components have the expected safety profile for the overall protective function. The safety functions are described in this safety profile. At the same time, all safety profiles from all combined machines must be implemented. If machines are combined that have not yet implemented the required profiles or if these profiles are outdated, a manual re-evaluation must be performed. This is stored in the administration shell as an interface between the digital world and the real shop floor and is available to the machine group in future. The white paper is available online: https://smartfactory.de/en/downloads- whitepaper/ | 0 8 | May 2019 www.smartmachinesandfactories.com | NEWS | The future of safety in the Smart Factory Modular certification is the prerequisite for a quick and efficient system modification in the sense of Plug & Produce, demonstrated on the SmartFactoryKL Industrie 4.0 production plant. application performance, taking initial measures of 5G speeds and latency. The technology offers more than just enhanced speed by providing the low latency, responsiveness and reach needed to transform the world we live and work in and in ways that its predecessors, including 4G, simply couldn’t. Mark Stansfeld, chair of the Worcestershire 5G Testbed & Trials, commented: “Going live with the UK’s first 5G factory trials marks a monumental step in delivering the vision of the Worcestershire 5G Testbed to bring a productivity increase to the manufacturing sector and the UK economy. We are proud of the collaboration between all consortium members in making this happen and will be working closely to deliver the expected results from the live 5G trials.” Carl Arntzen, CEO at Worcester Bosch, added: “We are delighted to have switched 5G on in our factory and look forward to measuring the productivity gains that will follow. It’s important to our business to have the real time element 5G brings so that we can react in real time in the factory environment to mitigate any losses in output and protect and grow our business bottom line.” Margot James, Minister of State for DCMS, explained: “Our 5G testbeds are being rolled out across the country and it’s great to see that the Worcestershire trial is now underway. This project proves that 5G technology can be applied to support industry and underlines our ambitions to be a world leader in this area.” Source photo: SmartFactory-KL/A. Sell