Read this notice before designing, installing, distributing, or operating any system that uses ACE.
ACE is a general-purpose automation engine. It is not a safety PLC, a medical-device safety controller, a nuclear safety system, or an emergency shutdown system. Never use ACE as the sole means of protecting people, property, or the environment.
ACE provides a general-purpose software engine for automation. It executes logic and configuration created by the user, integrator, or distributor. ACE does not determine whether that logic is suitable, complete, fail-safe, or compliant for a particular machine, process, or regulated use.
The user or integrator selects, supplies, connects, and configures the hardware and creates the application logic. That party must perform the application-specific risk assessment, validate the completed system, control access and changes, maintain it, and comply with all laws, standards, instructions, and certification requirements that apply to the intended use.
Where a malfunction could cause injury, death, property damage, or environmental harm, use independent and appropriately certified protective systems. Required safety functions—including interlocks, guards, limits, alarms, emergency stops, and safe-state transitions—must not depend solely on ACE, the computer running it, its network, or user-created ACE logic.
Design for loss of power, communications, sensors, actuators, storage, and computing resources; invalid or stale data; incorrect logic or configuration; unauthorized changes; and ACE becoming unavailable or behaving unexpectedly. A fault in ACE or any connected component must not defeat the independent protective measures.
Authentication, encryption, access controls, offline operation, monitoring, or other security measures do not make ACE a certified safety system. Assess cybersecurity and functional safety separately, including how a security incident could create or increase a physical hazard.
Test the complete installation before operation and after any change to ACE, user logic, configuration, hardware, operating systems, networks, or dependencies. Keep documented acceptance criteria, change control, backups, recovery procedures, maintenance plans, and trained personnel appropriate to the risk.
Determine and document the safe state of every connected output for startup, shutdown, restart, crash, power loss, network loss, stale input, update, license interruption, and recovery. Do not assume that an output will de-energize or retain its last state. Use independently engineered hardware and circuitry to reach and maintain the required safe state.
Use correctly rated, isolated, fused, enclosed, grounded, and protected equipment. Mains wiring and other hazardous-energy work must be designed, installed, inspected, and maintained by appropriately qualified persons under the rules that apply at the installation location. Never rely on software permissions as electrical isolation.
Provide accessible emergency stops, manual isolation or override, restart prevention, and recovery procedures appropriate to the hazard. Operators must be able to place the system in a safe condition without ACE, a network connection, a cloud service, or a functioning computer.
Integrators and distributors must communicate these limitations accurately and must not describe or market ACE as certified safety equipment, as providing a safety function, or as an adequate substitute for independent certified protection. They must pass this notice to the system owner and relevant operators.
Responsibility for application design, user-created logic, hardware selection and wiring, integration, commissioning, validation, operation, and maintenance rests with the person or entity performing or controlling that work. Veltace remains responsible for defects in ACE itself to the extent required by applicable law. Nothing in this notice excludes, restricts, or transfers any liability or legal right that cannot lawfully be excluded, restricted, or transferred.
ACE can be integrated into demanding commercial, industrial, and regulated environments. A reference to an industry describes technical possibilities; it does not itself represent certification, third-party approval, accreditation, or legal clearance for a particular completed system.
The deploying party must identify, document, and satisfy requirements applicable to the software, completed system, data, destination, end user, and end use. Depending on the deployment, these may include product-safety and sector-specific rules, procurement and contractual security requirements, data-protection and cybersecurity obligations, sanctions, export controls, data-classification rules, and required licenses or authorizations.
Do not commission the system until hazards, reasonably foreseeable misuse, safety requirements, protective measures, output behavior, acceptance tests, operating limits, maintenance, and emergency procedures have been documented and accepted by the responsible competent person. Warnings reduce neither the manufacturer's mandatory responsibility for ACE defects nor the integrator's responsibility for the completed system.
When in doubt, stop the deployment and obtain advice from a qualified functional-safety professional and, where appropriate, legal or regulatory counsel for the relevant jurisdiction and industry.
This notice states essential product-use boundaries; it is not a risk assessment, certification, or substitute for professional advice. Contractual terms and mandatory applicable law also apply.
