Siemens Simatic AX Adds XLad Ladder Logic and Git CI/CD

Operational Technology Siemens expands accessibility to Software-Defined Automation with Simatic AX

2026-06-20 Source: Siemens 2 min Reading Time

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Technology company Siemens makes Software-Defined Automation now accessible to more users, including OT-focused service and maintenance teams. A new ladder programming within Simatic AX combined with modern IT workflows improves efficiency and collaboration across engineering teams.

Simatic AX Logic Control Engineering offers state-of-the-art IT tools for programming and maintaining Simatic PLCs.(Source: Siemens) — Simatic AX Logic Control Engineering offers state-of-the-art IT tools for programming and maintaining Simatic PLCs.
(Source: Siemens)

Siemens is making Software-Defined Automation accessible to a broader range of industrial users with new enhancements to its IT-like engineering tool Simatic AX Logic Control Engineering (LCE). These include the introduction of ladder programming called XLad, the first graphical programming language in Simatic AX LCE, as well as support for the Simatic S7-1200 G2 controller generation. These updates combine Operational Technology (OT)-friendly programming with IT-style workflows, helping engineering teams work more efficiently while opening new application areas for basic automation projects where cost-efficiency is paramount.

Making IT-like engineering accessible for OT users

Until now, Simatic AX Logic Control Engineering has been designed as a fully Structured Text (ST)-based engineering environment, tailored primarily to software automation engineers. With the addition of ladder programming within Simatic AX, Siemens enables service and maintenance technicians, as well as engineers with a preference for graphical logic representation, to work more intuitively with control programs. This reduces onboarding time, simplifies troubleshooting, and improves collaboration as more users in the industrial ecosystem, both from OT and IT, can participate and collaborate across automation workflows.

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Siemens has introduced ladder programming called XLad as the first graphical programming language in Simatic AX Logic Control Engineering.(Source: Siemens)

“By introducing ladder programming to Simatic AX Logic Control Engineering, we’re making Software-Defined Automation more accessible to a broader user base from the world of operational technology – bringing the digital and the real worlds closer together”, said Rainer Brehm, COO for automation and CTO at Siemens Digital Industries. “This creates new opportunities for efficient engineering, maintenance and collaboration.”

Bringing modern software workflows to industrial automation

Bringing modern software workflows to industrial automationXLad is the first text-based ladder programming tool to be integrated into Simatic AX Logic Control Engineering. It brings software development practices such as version control, automated testing, and continuous integration into the world of ladder logic. With integrated support for Git and CI/CD workflows (Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery/Deployment), users can manage changes to ladder logic more transparently, collaborate more effectively across teams and increase software quality in engineering.

The seamless interaction of XLad with Structured Text (ST) enables users to reuse libraries created in ST by integrating them into ladder logic applications. The object-oriented programming and intuitive readability of ladder diagrams make it easier to implement complex control logic with unprecedented clarity and efficiency.

Siemens and Humanoid are bringing physical AI to the factory floor by deploying humanoid robots in industrial operations with NVIDIA. (Source: Siemens)

Bidirectional programming plus AI-ready and human-readable code

In addition, XLad supports bidirectional programming: users can switch between a graphical view and a text-based editor depending on their workflow preferences. Its textual representation is both human-readable and AI-ready, laying the groundwork for future AI-supported engineering use cases such as AI-assisted development of control logic. Furthermore, text-based representation is the basis for easy version management using Git.

New applications with expanded hardware support

At the same time, Siemens is extending the hardware scope of Simatic AX Logic Control Engineering by adding support for its controller Simatic S7-1200 G2. This opens a new spectrum of projects to be solved with Simatic AX LCE. Previously, Simatic AX focused on supporting Simatic S7-1500 controllers. Now, users can also apply Simatic AX LCE to the engineering of basic automation controllers.

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