ALD

ALD Vacuum Technologies GmbH, a Hanau-based subsidiary of AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group N.V., manufactures vacuum process plants used in metallurgy and heat treatment for aerospace customers. These systems operate under stringent safety and compliance requirements, where process integrity directly affects the structural quality of aerospace components. As ALD expanded its customer base and system configurations, maintaining consistent safety, motion, and process control across diverse installations became increasingly complex. Siloed control architectures made it difficult to adapt equipment to specific customer requirements without extensive re-engineering, slowing delivery timelines and increasing integration risk.

ALD partnered with Rockwell Automation to replace fragmented control architectures with a unified, fully integrated platform. The implementation centered on Allen-Bradley ControlLogix PACs for process and motion control, paired with Allen-Bradley GuardLogix PACs for functional safety — both programmed via RSLogix5000. GuardLogix combines standard and safety control in a single controller, enabling ALD to consolidate what were previously separate safety and automation layers. The architecture was designed from the ground up to be modular, allowing individual control segments to be configured or extended independently. This approach aligned with ALD's need to deliver bespoke vacuum systems to aerospace OEMs while maintaining a consistent, certifiable safety baseline across all configurations.

The integrated Rockwell Automation architecture delivered measurable improvements in system flexibility and compliance posture. Key outcomes include:

• Modular unit design allows ALD to address specific aerospace customer requirements without redesigning the entire control system
• Independent additions can be incorporated into existing installations without disrupting validated safety functions
• Unified architecture consolidates safety, motion, process, and automation into a single platform, reducing integration complexity and certification overhead

The consolidation simplifies factory acceptance testing and supports compliance documentation — critical in aerospace supply chains where traceability of control system behavior is a regulatory requirement.

• Unified safety and process control reduces certification burden — combining GuardLogix safety with standard ControlLogix logic means fewer interfaces to validate under aerospace quality standards.
• Design for modularity early — ALD's ability to address customer-specific needs without full redesigns depends on modular architecture decisions made at the platform level.
• Single-vendor integration simplifies lifecycle support — standardizing on one control platform reduces spare parts complexity and training overhead across global installations.
• Scalability is a compliance asset — when additions can be made independently, safety re-validation scope is contained, accelerating time-to-deploy for system upgrades.