Industrial automation is facing a decisive change in the age of IoT. "In order to keep up with the high pace of innovation, we need solid strategic partnerships," emphasize the two Managing Directors Michael Plankensteiner from logi.cals and Axel Helmerth from ISH in unison. The two companies entered into such a partnership at the beginning of 2019 and have pooled their expertise accordingly - initially with a focus on functional safety.

The new concept includes all target system-related components such as evaluation and test boards, certified libraries for code comparison, memory testing or a mathematical library, which are supplied by ISH as part of the cooperation. ISH also supports customers in the start-up phase and accompanies them during the development and certification process. The certified hardware and software kit from ISH (compliant item) is supplemented by the browser-based engineering solution logi.Safe from logi.cals. It can be used to program and parameterize safety applications in FBD in accordance with IEC 61131-3. Taken together, this results in a "safe, 'well-rounded' and easy-to-use platform that is not yet available on the market in this form, with all typical modules - from simple IO to safety motion, safe floating point processing and safe parameterization." An initial version of the joint solution can be seen at the trade fair stand in Hall 6.

The collaboration between logi.cals and ISH takes place under the umbrella of Neuron, a group of independent and synergetic technology providers. "This brings together different areas of expertise that all group members can use, and current and future activities are discussed in order to exploit synergies and new technologies and ensure the efficient development of shared components," says Michael Plankensteiner. Neuron was founded as a holding company in 2019 and holds 70% of logi.cals and 100% of ISH. Further partnerships and investments are in preparation. Even though ISH and logi.cals want to benefit greatly from each other's expertise in the future, they will continue to operate as independent and autonomous companies under joint ownership.

In addition to functional safety, Michael Plankensteiner and Axel Helmerth are convinced that the topic of cloud solutions will be a major focus for the automation industry in the coming years. "With Open Web Automation, we have a concept in our quiver that gives users a head start over the competition," says Plankensteiner, looking to the near future. Based on an open, modular architecture with defined interfaces, OWA is intended to offer control system manufacturers a technological basis for making their engineering platform cloud-compatible. In addition to a comprehensive engineering environment for PLC programs in IEC 61131-3 languages, C, C++ or Pyton in the desktop version, logi.CAD 3 and the browser-based solution logi.Cloud (from the end of 2020), the two partner companies will then also offer an integrated test framework that will enable the quality assurance of third-party solutions in cloud-based marketplaces. The combination of AutomationML and OPC UA will also enable the integrated modeling of engineering domains and the semantic enrichment of runtime data for effective evaluation in data analyses and machine learning applications.