Resilience in safety-critical infrastructures Maintain control when it matters

Europe is entering a phase of increasing uncertainty. Military tensions, hybrid threats, targeted cyberattacks, and disruptions to critical infrastructures all highlight how vulnerable even highly developed systems have become. In this environment, one thing is clear: resilience is no longer optional — it has become a fundamental requirement.

Tim Holzapfel

COO, Knürr GmbH

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As a manufacturer of consoles for control rooms, command centers, and monitoring facilities — and as a long-standing expert in safety-critical working environments — we at Knürr witness these developments every day.
Through our exchanges with security authorities, energy providers, transportation operators, and industrial control centers, we see very clearly how demanding the requirements for modern control-room technology and its resilience have become.

Resilience is often equated with redundant hardware or emergency power supply. But true resilience begins much earlier: with the planning, the design of the working environment, and the layout of the consoles in use. In a control room, it’s not only about ensuring that systems remain technically operational. What truly matters is that people can continue to act safely and effectively — even under stress, in exceptional situations, or when parts of the system fail.

Resilience means more than just having a backup.

Many people associate resilience with redundancy — meaning duplicate hardware or emergency power systems. But true resilience starts much earlier: in planning and design.

In modern control rooms, the goal is not just to ensure that systems “keep running.”
It’s about ensuring that people remain capable of acting — even under stress, in exceptional situations, or during partial system failures.

This includes, among other things:

Ergonomic, adaptive workstations that enable fast decision-making
KVM and visualization solutions that are simple and intuitive to operate
Automated monitoring and early-warning systems that detect issues before they become critical

Technology meets responsibility

Knürr designs working environments in which technology and people are perfectly aligned. For us, resilience is the result of the interplay between technology, organization, and the human factor:

Technological resilience: redundant systems, independent power supply, intelligent sensor technology
Organizational resilience: adaptable access concepts, flexible control possibilities
Human resilience: clear information presentation, reduced complexity, physical and mental ergonomics

Our experience shows: only when all three layers work together can a control room fulfill its mission in a crisis — efficiently, safely, and with confidence.

A call to planners, operators, and decision-makers

Resilience is a matter of responsibility.
All of us — manufacturers, operators, and decision-makers — share the responsibility to ensure that critical systems function even in exceptional situations. This requires collaboration, foresight, and a shared understanding of stability and security.

For decades, Knürr has stood for this commitment:
workplaces designed for people who carry responsibility — in every situation.

How do you view the topic of resilience in your industry?

What experiences have you had with safety-critical systems?
We look forward to professional exchange and constructive discussions.

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