Siemens Industry has released Simatic STEP 7 Safety Advanced V11 option as part of its TIA (totally integrated automation) Portal, providing end users with all configuration and programming tools required for generating a fail-safe program within Siemens TIA Portal. Siemens TIA Portal, introduced last year, integrates product and production engineering via one interface, linking all of Siemens automation software packages and platforms. "The introduction of our Safety Advanced program within TIA Portal strengthens Siemens ability to support our end users with safety functions that can easily be integrated into standard automation processes, as well as offering a value-added service as part of our Safety Integrated portfolio of Simatic products," says John D'Silva, marketing manager - safety, Siemens Industry, Inc.

TIA Portal framework enables all Siemens Programmable Controllers, HMI operator panels and drives to be configured in the same development environment. For example, the user simply drags and drops a tag from the programmable controller, such as the signal of an I/O (input/output) module, to the screen of an HMI device. The tag is instantly assigned within the HMI, and a controller-HMI connection is created automatically in the background with no manual configuration required.

As with the entire TIA Portal platform, this new Safety Advanced feature allows for intuitive operation and quick entry into the generation of fail-safe programs, and due to the integrated library with TUV-certified function blocks, safety functions can easily be implemented. Also, the library concept supports in-house standardization and simplifies the validation of safety-oriented applications. The Safety Advanced feature has the same configuration of the fail-safe systems as for the standard automation system, and with the "Ready-to-Start" function, the fail-safe runtime group is set-up automatically on insertion of the fail-safe controller.

Siemens increased the ease-of-use for the Safety Advanced function by creating the program in the FBD (Function Block Diagram) or LAD (Ladder) programming languages. However, fail-safe programs can still be generated using STEP 7 and Distributed Safety, migrating these into the TIA Portal at any time. The program's Safety Administration Editor provides central support for the administration, display and modification of safety-related parameters, while the identification of safety-related resources are standardized for simplicity. With the Safety Advanced feature, error detection functions and safety checks when generating the safety program are also supported, as is the comparison of safety program. A standard program can also be run on the same CPU.

The One Engineering Environment and One Software functionality behind TIA Portal allows end users to develop and commission automation systems quickly and intuitively, which eliminates the traditional time consuming and costly integration of separate software packages.