ZF – A WinGuard Success Story

The Challenge – PSIM in the Automotive Supply Industry

ZF Friedrichshafen AG is a global leader in driveline and chassis technology as well as active and passive safety technology. The company has a global workforce of 146,000 with approximately 230 locations in some 40 countries. With its products, the company is striving for a world without accidents and emissions. With its broad portfolio, ZF is advancing mobility and services for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and industrial technology applications. ZF is one of the largest automotive suppliers worldwide.

Security is particularly essential for the numerous and highly complex manufacturing processes that the company performs every day. Protection of employees against hazards that might arise e.g. due to gas leakage or in case of a fire is most important for ZF. Until now the numerous fire alarm and gas warning systems from different manufacturers that are installed at the company’s headquarters in Friedrichshafen and at Passau were operated individually. This was not only complicated and time-consuming but also required that system operators possess comprehensive knowledge about the systems that they were in charge of.

The PSIM platform WinGuard by Advancis has enabled all subsystems, brands and the complete technical infrastructure at both location sites to be integrated and managed. Security operators now see real-time alerts for all connected systems with dynamic instructions in case of each event to resolve incidents efficiently and speedily.

The System Concept – WinGuard is the all-in-one solution for the automotive industry

Industrial work processes are often associated with special risks. In addition to System advantages possible cases of fire the greatest risk for employees are leaks of harmful and flammable gases. It is therefore indispensable to monitor the environment using gas sensors and fire alarm systems. WinGuard workstations enable operators to monitor and manage all integrated systems (fire alarm/gas leakage systems, building technology, etc.) with unified graphic user interfaces which allows to see events in real-time and to take immediate actions where necessary. In each event WinGuard informs the local control centre as well as the on site control personnel using SMS, e-mail or telephone.

To facilitate system maintenance of the numerous fire alarm systems installed at ZF, the graphic input as well as the data supply are automated. Floor plans were povided by ZF and overlaid with AutoCAD block attributes with the locations of the fire detectors. Furthermore, all datapoints, the related work instructions and automatic printout function were integrated in WinGuard using a simple import interface. This significantly reduces the maintenance work for the fire protection department. All system events and operations, including the audit trail of user actions are recorded by the system for forensics and analysis. This provides a significant gain in time to train operators since management and handling of procedures are simplified and standardised. WinGuard also allows for the management of multiple sites at different locations. Backup and interface servers provide high redundancy.