"Now I'd like to show you the laboratory...."
When development engineer Dietmar Döttling opens the huge doors, the visitor enters a secret, alien new world: The room has no windows. Large black dots reflect on to the floor. Some weird object hangs on the wall; it looks something like a traffic sign with three spyholes.
"That's the SafetyEYE sensing device. There are three lenses, three anti-glare cameras. They capture the images from the monitored zone and send them to the analysis unit. There they undergo 3D evaluation."
"SafetyEYE" is the latest development of Pilz GmbH and Co. KG in Ostfildern - a company that has specialised in safety technology for decades. "SafetyEYE" is intended to be used for visual monitoring of industrial robots - and to contribute to considerable cost savings in the process. Conventional camera monitoring systems switch industrial robots off when a person or object approaches the safety zone. Such shutdown processes are expensive because the whole production flow is held up. "SafetyEYE", by contrast, monitors a zone in 3D. This allows a "softer reaction", according to developer Dietmar Döttling.
"When the zone is approached, initially there is only a visual or audible warning. For example, take any object that comes close to the danger zone. Only when it takes the next step, when the object intrudes further into the zone, is the robot's operating speed reduced. And not until it almost comes to a collision is the machine finally shut down, immediately."
That's how subtle modern safety technology is - a field in which Pilz has specialised with some success. Founded in 1948 as a glass-blowing business, the company began to get involved with electronic switching systems at the start of the 60s. The specialisation in safety technology followed a little later - a strategic decision that has since paid off: Today Pilz has 1200 staff. It's yearly turnover in 2006 was 135 million Euro, around 11 per cent above the previous year's figure. There is hardly a device type for which Pilz has not developed a safety system. According to Product Manager Klaus Stark:
"It starts with the smallest ice-cream machine and extends up to a process engineering plant, where liquid-type goods are also produced. We also have a presence in nuclear power stations, oil platforms and the like. We're not yet involved in space rockets, but we'll work on it.
For all these plants Pilz develops sensors, circuits and software, which automatically launch countermeasures in the case of danger - including shutdown. The new "SafetyEYE" development shows that creativity and "entrepreneurial Swabian spirit" are required. The company cultivates both in its own way: Look into the bright laboratories and offices and you see numerous older colleagues alongside the host of young developers. And that's not by accident, says Renate Pilz, Managing Partner:
"The experience that an older staff member can bring is extremely valuable to a company. If a company is growing healthily and young staff come on board, and if it turns out that the older, experienced staff members work with their young colleagues, who've come from the universities or colleges, to develop a fair and open exchange, then that is the best asset a company can possess."
The 24 foreign subsidiaries that Pilz has established around the world are another asset. Here it's not simply a case of selling the technologies that the engineers in Ostfildern have subtely developed. Each country has its own safety directives, each company has its own safety philosophy - so developments must first of all be adapted to the needs of the local country. Klaus Stark, Product Manager:
"These subsidiaries have a high proportion of application engineers. A car plant in Australia needs to have confidence that, if something happens, he can have a reaction within an hour, or within five minutes even. And this can only be guaranteed if the local subsidiary has the competence, and is not just a stockist with some products and a few English or French catalogues."
The office of Renate Pilz, the Managing Partner, is right in the middle of the building. Her father-in-law founded the company after the war. Several times a day Renate Pilz strolls through the building's light corridors, glancing into the offices or laboratories with a friendly word for the staff. She likes to build on the fact that Pilz is a family business. Besides: sometimes that makes business easier.
"A family business is subject to different rules to those of a public company. We are delighted that we have this freedom to make decisions, that we can decide independently. I would say this: decisions can be made much more quickly. We bear the risk together. The profits stay in the company. That's the way we've done it ever since the company existed. And that's the way we'll do it in the future too."
As capital stock for new developments such as "SafetyEYE", which should guarantee Pilz a leading position in the safety technology sector well into the future.
