Blind spots in PLC programming: A wake-up call for the industry

Few like to address it, but the numbers speak for themselves: According to the 2022 Senseye study, unplanned downtime and production stoppages are among the most expensive challenges in industry. A major cause is blind spots in PLC programming. Traditional control systems often have weaknesses that can disrupt production. Undefined machine states go undetected, leading to errors, unexpected stoppages, and quality deviations. In today’s advanced production environments, it’s clear that software—spanning machine planning, engineering, and process monitoring—must be central to eliminating these risks from the start.

Invisible weaknesses in every machine

In control engineering, the state space includes all possible operating modes a machine can theoretically run through. Conventional PLC programming is powerful, but even experienced teams hit limitations here. With traditional methods, this space of potential states cannot be fully captured: each new input, such as additional sensors, exponentially increases the number of possible machine states, creating room for undefined operations. These often go undetected until they lead to failures or quality issues, requiring costly interventions. This poses a significant safety risk, especially in critical production processes.

Focusing on the process

Selmo revolutionizes traditional machine programming: with a software-centered and behavior-oriented approach, every machine state is fully defined, and the resulting process model is automatically translated into PLC code and HMI—without any manual programming.

These are the benefits for production:

• Eliminating blind spots: Selmo creates a deterministic system in which every machine state is defined and controllable, significantly reducing the risk of unplanned downtimes.
• Real-time monitoring and intervention: Deviations from the target state can be immediately detected and corrected before they impact production.
• Standardized programming: Selmo replaces a multitude of programming languages with a central framework based on process modeling, creating a common foundation that brings the entire team up to the same knowledge level—a valuable support given the skilled labor shortage and upcoming retirement waves.
• Industry 4.0 ready: A detailed digital process model finally makes machine data usable, laying the foundation for intelligent, data-driven technologies in production.

The state of the art for industrial manufacturing

The challenges of the industry demand robust and process-safe control systems. Selmo’s approach secures production with precise machine control and seamless monitoring, ensuring consistent quality. Unexpected states and hard-to-predict risks are proactively eliminated through exact modeling and real-time monitoring.

With Selmo, you eliminate blind spots in production and establish a reliable foundation in OT—for maximum reliability, efficiency, and future-proofing. Want to learn more? Get in touch with us today—our experts are ready to assist you.