Stuttgart, May 23rd, 2006: ARC Advisory Group reports in a White Paper „PROFIsafe: Net-worked Safety for Process and Factory Automation“ in detail about trends in safety technology. Safety has evolved from being a cost burden and „necessary evil“ to a strategy for improving productivity and reducing downtime. According to ARC, running separate busses for safety and non-safety data is simply no longer commensurate with modern automation philosophy. The document describes in detail also safety in standard drives and motion control and the operational benefits of drive-integrated safety on the basis of modern communication systems.

An important part of the white paper is dedicated to the realisation of PROFIsafe on PROFIBUS and PROFINET by PROFIBUS International (PI). A chapter „Networked Safety in Practice“ describes two case studies at endusers in USA and Sweden, who have realized benefits from us-ing PROFINET and PROFIsafe. One of the case studies includes also a wireless-application.

The complete White Paper can be downloaded free of charge from the PI homepage at www.profibus.com/pb/profibus/safety .