Constant innovation pays!

Two Pilz developments were awarded a prize at SPS 2023 - the leading exhibition for smart and digital automation.

Our innovative Key-in-pocket maintenance safeguarding system, which guarantees protection against unintended machine restarts, won third place in the Automations Best Award 2023, in the “Best Solutions” category. Readers of the media concepts "messtec drives" and "inspect" voted in our favour.

These were the convincing factors for the Pilz maintenance safeguarding solution:

• In comparison with conventional lockout-tagout (LOTO) systems, maintenance safeguarding with the Key-in-pocket solution is implemented via RFID keys with corresponding permissions and a safe list in the Pilz controllers.
• The purely electronic restart protection requires neither mechanical interlocking devices nor warning tags.
• It is designed for machines with danger zones, which are safeguarded by a protection zone, and which employees need to access, e.g. robot cells.
• This solution ensures that a machine cannot resume operation while people are still in the danger zone.

• Learn more about Key-in-pocket maintenance safeguarding

Also, our new “Safety Distance Calculator” browser tool was awarded second place in the Automation App Award. The decisive factor that led to this development was as follows: “We want to support our customers with competence and the best possible environment” - Tobias Ulmer, Product Manager responsible for safety light curtains.
The tool enables the safety distance for safety light curtains to be calculated simply as well as safely. Users save a significant amount of time and can immediately identify the right safety light curtain for their plant.

• Learn more about the Safety Distance Calculator