Polycarbonate for the housings of Simatic S7-1500

To highlight the fruits of that collaboration with customers in Europe, Sabic has introduced a pioneering and award-winning campaign, Stories of Possible. Hosted at sabic.com/storiesofpossible, this campaign is to capture, in a series of six personal stories, a customer's ambition and how Sabic helps to “make their vision possible” in order to serve the industries and communities they operate in and create value for the long term.

The first film gives the stage to a global leading brand in Industrial Automation, Siemens, who tells the story of the development of their Simatic S7-1500 Automation Controller. The story documents the vision of Siemens to develop a product, which supports their position as a global leader in programmable control systems while driving the competitive advantage of users through production and energy efficiency. Matthew Thornton, Siemens’ automation consultant, describes the fruits of three years of collaboration between Siemens and Sabic to develop electrical housings for the Simatic S7-1500 controller. Sabic’s solution enables new design features and allows the controller to thrive under harsh factory conditions for the longer term. The new Siemens product has been helping customers meet the twin challenges of resource scarcity and environmental protection by reducing energy and operating costs by up to 20%.

“We believe that it is important to be working with a supplier that is in it for the long haul. Just like Sabic working with us to produce the materials that are required for this industrial product to work and run as efficiently as they did on day one, as they will do in 15 years from now”, Matthew Thornton says.

The Industrial Design of the Simatic S7-1500 has been honoured with the prestigious iF-Design Award. The Simatic S7-1500 represents a new generation of controllers for the automation of small-standardized machines and complex systems with high demands on speed. The modular build system makes the functionality user-scalable. When used in an integrated engineering production system, the Simatic S7-1500 enables Siemens’ customers to tap into higher production efficiency, faster time to market and improved sustainability through lower energy consumption and a lower error rate of production.

Siemens chose Sabic from an initial ten contenders to help them materialize the new Simatic S7-1500 controller. Sabic was the supplier of choice due to the company’s extensive global network, global application technology capabilities and the material solution with Lexan EXL copolymer.

“We are committed to help realizing the vision of our customers. Working in close collaboration with Siemens, we support innovation and growth. And together we create lasting value for the whole value chain”, Eric Hogenboom, vice president sales Europe for Sabic’s Innovative Plastics’ Strategic Business Unit, comments.