Maximilian Walter | Siemens Inventors of the Year | Lifetime Achievement
Max Walter is Inventor of the Year 2024. His invention makes large machines and facilities safer.
Max Walter, at Siemens Digital Industries, is an expert in functional safety. Together with the unique Siemens Safety Community as well as customers and partners, he shares one common goal: zero occupational accidents. He’s been developing safety solutions for many years, this has now earned him a Lifetime Achievement award as a 2024 Inventor of the Year.
According to Max: “Siemens is very strong in matters of safety – so strong that it sets our entire product portfolio apart from the competition. Essentially, the difference is thanks to our ‘safety-integrated philosophy.’ It means we build safety into our products as a main feature right from the start – not as an add-on that’s tacked onto the finished system later. The benefit for customers is that they get safety more easily and economically. Obviously, our job poses technical challenges all the time. A lot of our features - that are now industry standards - were considered impossible by others– like executing safety functions on a single standard microprocessor. Or, transmitting safety data via a normal network cable or even wirelessly. Or, to run safety functions in the Cloud – and more. I’m proud to be part of the Siemens Safety Community, whose inventions literally prevent serious accidents (and minor ones, too) every day.”
Integrating safety into development means understanding right from the start where the potential risks lie. For instance, a briefly distracted employee might get a finger crushed in a press, batteries might overheat and catch fire, or an autonomous robot might run over people in a factory. “What the best solution is depends on the specific case. We can eliminate the risk of crushed fingers at a metal press, for instance, if the press will only close when both the operator’s hands are pressing a certain pair of buttons, so neither hand can possibly be in the press. A robot that only moves slowly when it detects people nearby doesn’t pose a threat anymore.”
At Siemens, safety is part of the concept from the very beginning.
His inventions can prevent accidents at work.
“Accident prevention is our top priority,” Max insists. “If a dangerous situation actually arises, the safety system absolutely must recognize it and respond. There’s no room for error here! Our systems are designed to take the safer alternative every time, even in the case of internal hardware failures and software bugs – in other words, for instance, to shut the system down rather than put anyone in danger.”
Why, then, do accidents still happen at factories today? Statistics show that safety functions are often either bypassed or simply haven’t been installed in the first place. There are reasons for that – in many cases, safety functions can get in the way of speedy commissioning or repairs. “We have to get better there,” says Max. “We need smarter systems that are easy to install and that only intervene when a real danger actually arises. That’s why we’re about to teach AI-based safety systems to distinguish between people and other movable objects, and also to locate people precisely. That means human beings can pass through a production cell in something like a safety bubble. If they come too close to a machine, the machine slows down or stops. So, there’s no need to shut everything down as soon as anyone enters the cell. And other moving objects like robots, conveyor belts, or machines won’t trigger the safety stops.”
Digitalization means we can expect a lot more developments in production in the years to come. Max and the globally unique Siemens Safety Community will make sure those developments won’t come at the expense of human safety.
