Secured delivery by CODESYS control system

Over the past five years, many companies have had to check their own crisis resilience more frequently than they would have liked. Starting with coronavirus and the resulting damage to supply chains, through the gas shortage and the resulting sharp increase in energy costs in 2022, right through to the emerging customs conflicts. But how can crisis resilience be built up if no one knows what the nature of the next crisis will be? If you can derive advice from the multiple crises, it is that you must never rely on the status quo and the current solution.

STS Brandschutzsysteme GmbH, based in Friolzheim, Germany, also had to recognize this when its supplier of HMI controllers virtually discontinued its deliveries for months. STS Brandschutzsysteme specializes in the planning, delivery, installation and maintenance of customized fire protection systems for industrial machinery and equipment. The solutions offered include fire-fighting systems for filter and suction systems, machines, and wet paint and powder coating systems.

Standards separate machine and building fire protection

As in many other industrial and economic sectors, standards and regulations structure the business. For example, the market for building fire protection systems may logically be in direct proximity to the fire protection systems of STS. However, different standards apply in the area of building fire protection than in the area of machine and plant construction – and STS therefore does not offer any systems for building fire protection. STS Brandschutzsysteme focuses on its market and its customers. With many of them, the company has a long-standing partnership and a relationship of trust that has grown accordingly on many levels. They understand and rely on each other – especially in crises.

Setup of STS Brandschutzsysteme

STS fire protection systems typically consist of the core components: sensors, or more precisely UV or IR detectors for fire detection, and in some cases also temperature and smoke detectors. A control system evaluates the signals from the sensors and initiates a deletion or shutdown in the event of an emergency. With STS, extinguishing is typically carried out by injecting CO₂ or by setting a flame barrier using CO₂ or a mechanical barrier. Communication between the sensors, actuators and control system occurs exclusively via hardware contacts – without protocols.

At the time, STS used only compact HMIs with integrated PLCs from a well-known manufacturer as the central control system for fire protection systems. The controllers control the fire protection systems, visualize the most important information and serve as an operator panel for retrieving diagnostic data, acknowledging faults or activating maintenance mode.

Component scarcity puts STS Brandschutz under pressure

When electronic components were difficult to supply in 2021, the company STS was unable to use its control systems with the usual delivery performance. Managing partner Reinhard Deseife and his team had to come up with something. The company purchases control systems and other electronic equipment from electrical and automation technology wholesaler Emil Löffelhardt. The first call from Reinhard Deseife was Uwe Binder, head of automation technology at Löffelhardt, in search of an alternative control system solution. "We had to find a solution quickly because we are a central supplier for many OEMs. Some of our customers have been working with us for over 30 years and count on us. The fire protection system is a must-have in many plants. The production line basically stops if we can't deliver," says managing director Deseife, reminiscing about the pressure to act at the time.

Interim solution quickly exhausted

It's like a supermarket checkout: if a new checkout opens and too many customers move to that line, it can quickly happen that you wait longer at the new checkout. This was also the case for STS Brandschutz and Emil Löffelhardt. The first alternative solution with the compact control system from another manufacturer, which Löffelhardt suggested, did not last long. Although STS had delivered several hundred systems with the alternative control system, as many other manufacturers behaved similarly, the stocks of the alternative control system were also quickly running low.

A crisis-proof alternative solution was sought

Now, an alternative was to be developed that offered greater crisis resilience through fallback options. "We wanted to build up redundancy for the future so that we would not get back into a situation like that," explains Reinhard Deseife. Uwe Binder and his colleagues therefore recommended the compact controls from TURCK to STS. These can be used very flexibly, and with a CODESYS control system, STS would be set up independently of the manufacturer.

Two control system solutions with CODESYS

TURCK has put together two alternative solutions for STS: one with HMI and I/O system BL20 with integrated control system and, alternatively, a solution in which the control system is integrated in the HMI and a BL20 with pure I/O function is connected. The beauty of these solutions is that if a component is not supplied, you can still choose the alternative combination of HMI and I/O system. And if things get very tight, STS could run its CODESYS program on control systems from other manufacturers.

Turck Mechatec ports control program under time pressure  

Markus Gutsch, Head of Internal Technical Service, remembers that there was still a hurdle in the way of getting to this setup. "The programming code of our product used to date was very different from the one in CODESYS and the human-machine interfaces (HMIs). Of course, we would have managed to do that at some point, but not in that period – we needed a solution quickly." TURCK was also able to offer a solution for this challenge: with the support of TURCK's engineering service provider Mechatec, TURCK and in this case wholesaler Emil Löffelhardt were able to offer the porting of the control program from the old system to the CODESYS control environment. This was possible because Turck Mechatec has decades of experience with CODESYS and has experienced programmers in the team who have already seen a number of PLC systems.  

The Mechatec specialists coordinated closely with Markus Gutsch and his colleagues and were able to present a solution very quickly. The implementation of the graphical user interface was also smooth. The customer probably does not notice any difference between the fire protection systems with the old control system and those with TURCK-HMI. STS Brandschutzsysteme today has both control systems in use and of course, the company tries to supply customers with sorted products.  

"We are very satisfied with the solution. The quick implementation of the programming from the original system to CODESYS in particular was very important for us. We are an OEM supplier. “Our customers rely on our ability to deliver and can't easily switch to another supplier."  

Customer | www.sts-brandschutz.de