As safety-related control systems become increasingly complex, it gets harder to be certain that the functional safety aspects have been both designed correctly and built correctly. To help customers with this, Pilz offers a safety validation service - or safety sign-off service.
Drawing on decades of experience in validating safety equipment on a broad variety of machinery, Pilz has developed a structured method for inspecting the safety-critical elements of plant and machinery to enable the suitability of the safety measures to be validated.
The validation process includes the following steps covering the documentation, software and hardware: evaluation of the components selected; assessment of the existing design versus safety requirements; performance of a function test and fault simulation; testing of safety-related software and hardware function; checking of sensor and actuator installation and wiring configuration; and finally, production of a test report detailing the validation results.
If safety light curtains are installed on the machine, an ESPE inspection is likely to be included. Safety validation services are equally applicable to machinery that is new, modified, upgraded, retrofitted or newly integrated with other machinery. Pilz has engineers and consultants available to provide safety validation services, and a formal competence management scheme ensures that all of the personnel working on a safety validation project possess the necessary competences.