Sometimes along the road of innovation, the origins of where the road began becomes lost to time.

Sometimes along the road of innovation, the origins of where the road began becomes lost to time. For instance, in the prologue of the classic Lord of the Rings trilogy, the narrator explains that the one ring to rule them all slowly became a legend, the legend became myth, and over thousands of years all knowledge of the ring was lost.

What this has to do with Triconex safety and critical control? Well, we in the automation industry can fall into the same trap as the characters in the Lord of the Rings. In a never-ending effort to compete and differentiate, vendors tend to overly focus on the latest and greatest features recently released.

But it’s important that we don’t forget the foundation upon which these systems are built, and for Triconex that foundation is the triple modular redundant architecture, or TMR for short. New features will always be important as we continue to add value, but these are fruits that are growing from the core of a very fertile tree which is TMR.

TMR is not a technology, it’s an architecture. Technology is ever evolving. Electronics for example get smaller, faster, and more powerful. We take advantage of these innovations every day. Architecture, on the other hand, is the way in which a system is fundamentally designed and how it behaves.

TMR is a 2oo3 (Two-out-of-three) architecture which provides a perfect balance between being fail safe and fault tolerant. Redundancy is provided inherently, and the two out of three voting algorithm and diagnostics means that there are no single points of failure. This provides error-free, uninterrupted operation even in the presence of fault conditions.

Humans have always had a fascination with the number 3. It’s long symbolized perfection in scientific, mathematical, and even religious contexts. Simply put, it is the lowest odd number of which a majority vote can be assured.

Many safety systems implement a 1oo2 (one-out-of-two) architecture to lower costs, but with only 2 channels to compare a majority can’t be assured. Therefore, when a fault occurs, the system must go to the fail-safe state and operations halted.

Mathematically speaking, an average safety system using a 1oo2 architecture is highly probable to incur spurious trips resulting in lost value to the owner operator. To avoid this business disruption, fault tolerance is often a stated requirement. In order to fulfil this, 1oo2 systems deploy an additional IO module in a 'pair and spare scheme', which is also referred to as 2oo4 (two-out-of-four).

This creates 4 channels as opposed to 3, which actually means there are more things that can fail, yet there is still no assurance of a majority vote.

Contrast that with a TMR Triconex system. One customer recently was discussing with us that they have over 70 Triconex systems installed in their plant, some for as long as 30 years, and they’ve never had a nuisance trip which can be attributed to Triconex. For a company that measures their revenue in millions of dollars per hour, Triconex has delivered value which directly impacts their line one performance.

That example would apply to any of the over 27,000 Triconex installations in more than 80 countries around the world.

Unlike a control systems / DCS / PLCs, users don’t interact with a safety system on a daily basis. They expect to install it and trust that it’s going to operate in a reliable trouble-free manner, trust being the key word.

One comment that I have heard numerous times is that “Triconex is overkill, you don’t need it. Our safety system is good enough.” That approach might work when you’re shopping for a television, but when it comes to protecting your people, assets, business, and the environment, good enough isn’t good enough. You wouldn’t take that approach when picking your child’s car seat, and neither should you when selecting a safety system.

Returning to the movie industry, the 1997 film Contact explored the concept that if we were ever able to reach intelligent life away from Earth, the one thing we’d have in common would be math. Why? Because the laws of math are universal and constant. The number 3 will always be the optimal number for voting. TMR is still the optimal architecture for both safety and reliability, and Triconex is still the trusted brand for safety and critical control.

What made us best nearly 40 years ago is what still makes us best today, and it’s as relevant now as it ever was.