When integration is the hardest part
Most controls projects involve integrating systems from multiple vendors: a safety PLC from one manufacturer, a motion controller from another, robots with their own proprietary interfaces, vision systems, conveyors, and a SCADA sitting above all of it. Each individual system may be well-documented and well-understood. The complexity lives in the interfaces between them.
Integration failures rarely happen because any single system doesn't work. They happen because the assumptions baked into one vendor's system don't match the assumptions baked into another's. A safety interface that wasn't tested against the other vendor's reset sequence holds the line in a fault state nobody expected. A communication link that performed fine in the workshop starts dropping packets when the network is under full production load. The motion profile that was signed off in the supplier's test bay causes resonance issues when the actual load is attached.
This is the work I've spent most of my career doing: not just making individual systems work, but making them work together reliably, safely, and in a way that your maintenance team can understand and support when something goes wrong at 2am.
What I cover
Multi-vendor system integration
Coordinating PLCs, drives, robots, vision systems, and SCADA across machine cells. Network architecture, communication protocols (Profinet, EtherNet/IP, OPC UA), and deterministic data exchange between systems from different manufacturers.
Safety-critical applications
Safety PLC programming (Siemens F-CPU, Rockwell GuardLogix, Pilz), functional safety validation, and integration with machinery safety systems. Designing safety functions that coordinate correctly across equipment from different vendors.
Robotics integration
Integrating Stäubli and KUKA robots with process control systems. Coordinated handshaking for safe integration with other actuators, error recovery, and production mode management - including the less obvious work of designing the recovery sequences that operators actually need.
Coordinated motion control
Multi-axis coordinated motion, electronic gearing and camming, and servo system commissioning across Siemens, Beckhoff, and Rockwell platforms. From individual axis tuning through to full line synchronisation.
The commissioning gap
Commissioning is where design meets reality for the first time - all the systems running together under something approaching real conditions. By that point, there's usually schedule pressure, the customer is present, and the tolerance for debugging time is low.
Integration problems will always surface during commissioning - that's part of what commissioning is for. What reduces the pain is going in with a library of proven device interface blocks for the vendors you're working with. A block that's already been through commissioning on a previous project carries that experience with it, so you're not solving the same interfacing problems from scratch every time.
Every vendor's system works perfectly in isolation. The engineering is in what you design for before they share a network, a safety zone, and a production schedule.
Safety and functional safety
On every project, I work from a safety specification that's driven by the risk assessment. That means designing the safety zones - which guards are associated with which drives, what gets dumped and in what order. Some of it is zone-specific: a guard opens unexpectedly, and the drives in that area get an abort stop before STO is pulled. Some of it is machine-wide: an emergency stop drops everything. Robots typically abort immediately, and guards only release once feedback confirms the zone is safe. None of this is optional, and it needs to be right first time.
Safety verification is the first thing I do once I/O checking is complete - before any further commissioning starts. I write and execute the verification document against the safety specification, systematically proving that every safety function behaves as designed.
What independent involvement gives you
On projects with multiple vendors, nobody has a complete view of the whole system. Each vendor knows their own equipment well and is responsible for their own interfaces - but nobody is specifically responsible for the interaction between vendors. This is where things fall through the gaps.
Independent integration involvement means someone is specifically responsible for the interfaces: reviewing vendor documentation for consistency, identifying conflicts between interface specifications before build rather than during commissioning, and maintaining a system-level view throughout the project. On complex projects, this is often the difference between a commissioning period measured in days and one measured in months.