Connectivity, cost, and data sharing head the roster of issues confronting the automation sector today. Notes Dick Slansky, senior analyst/discrete industries at ARC Advisory Service: "One of the major concerns facing factory automation today, both from the perspective of the manufacturing user and the automation suppliers, is how to connect the factory floor operations . . . to the upper tier manufacturing enterprise systems." Automation suppliers continue to strive to develop integration frameworks. (For more, click here.)
"In most manufacturing facilities, the amount of raw plant floor data is astounding," according to Charley Rastle, industry strategic marketing manager at Rockwell Automation. "Similarly, from the top down, many manufacturers have invested in ERP and supply chain . . . Until recently, however, there has been little useful information flow between the two systems." New technologies now allow companies to "build an information-sharing architecture." (For more, click here.)
Adds Dr. Helge Hornis, intelligent systems manager at Pepperl+Fuchs: "System cost is a big issue. Unfortunately, many machine builders equate this to hardware cost only . . . The more successful companies realize that labor is a very important part and that better installation technology allows them to run leaner." (SafetyNodes from Pepperl+Fuchs, pictured, are ideal for lighted push-button applications.) (For more, click here.)
Dwindling internal engineering capabilities, shrinking design cycles, and global market needs also pose challenges. To jump these hurdles, OEMs partner with vendors "early in the design process to help avoid common design errors, and to develop automation solutions that specifically meet the application requirements," says Jeff Nestel-Patt, director of marketing at Danaher Motion. (For more, click here.)
SolidWorks vp marketing Ilya Mirman discusses the reduced time-to-market faced by capital equipment providers. "What used to take a year now needs to be delivered in nine, even six months . . . Since a great deal of the time-to-market for production equipment is impacted by its design, this pressure can be addressed by leveraging (i.e., reusing) existing designs better, and with tools that reduce the number of design iterations, prototypes, [and] errors," says Mirman. (For more, click here.)
"Uncertainty in manufacturing environments is a major concern facing automation," observes Dr. Jeff Trinkle, professor and chairman of RPI's Dept. of Computer Science. "To design and optimize the performance of a manufacturing environment, one needs a model of how the manufacturing process evolves over time. . . . The same uncertainty makes it difficult to automate and incorporate 'intelligent' robots, since robots need to use the same models to predict whether their actions will be effective in performing their assigned manufacturing tasks," Dr. Trinkle notes. (For more, click here.)
"Major investments are being made in robotic intelligence," according to FANUC Robotics America Inc vp/product development Gary S. Zywiol. 3D vision and force sensing grow more prevalent in robotics, "reducing fixturing and solving difficult assembly tasks, which require advanced manual dexterity," Zywiol tells IEN. (Shown here, vision guided robot from FANUC Robotics America Inc.) (For more, click here.) Acromag Inc marketing/sales director Don Lupo expects "to see more browser configurable or auto-configurable devices (at the field level). These products will offer more sophistication with onboard diagnostics and should begin to solve the issues noted earlier (i.e. software, addressing, switching, security, and redundancy) to help build a more reliable, easier to use, plug and play automation network." (For more, click here.)
Increased intelligence "is being integrated into the servo amplifier," adds Sue Dorscheid, supervisor/customer support at G & L Motion Control LLC, resulting in" enhanced diagnostic capabilities and the ability to obtain real time information from the drive." (For more, click here.) Orbitform's David Parham predicts "machine control software will continue to evolve into more intelligent, adaptable process controllers. Machine controls will have to not only control the process, but also adapt to changes in raw materials to continue creating quality end products." (For more, click here.) Mirman cites the "availability of intelligent 3D online content for standard parts and subsystems," along with engineering and configuring to order, as major innovations.
Keeping Pace with Innovation
Indeed, automation users find it difficult to keep pace with the torrent of innovations. "Take a simple example, quality data from manufacturing," explains Duane Lowenstein, Americas business development manager for Agilent's Knowledge Services Organizations. "I would suspect there are over 100 commercially available and thousands of propriety software programs that can collect and report quality data. If you are a contract manufacturer with 10 customers, that could mean you need 10 software programs to manage . . . what a nightmare." Lowenstein believes the "innovations that will be the winners are those that simplify the process and can be implemented over a large variety of products, processes, and customers without customization." (For more, click here.)
On the R & D side, "machine vision is poised for explosive growth," states Larry Ricci, Business Development, Applied Data Systems. "New chips are incorporating camera/CCD interfaces. Powerful processors are capable of image recognition algorithms. Extensive government funding of homeland security and defense applications is improving the technology. All these forces will converge in the next 3-5 years." (Applied Data Systems' Model VGX single-board computer, pictured, incorporates powerful video processors, enabling many machine vision applications.) (For more, click here.) Lupo points to "communications protocols in regard to further definitions and safety systems," as well as work in "wireless, fiber optics, and Ethernet switching technologies." Safety networks are another hotspot, says Hornis. And Mirman foresees "better motion analysis tools, to simulate behavior of complex automation equipment."
Meanwhile, researchers are studying the "development of robots that can do useful work through contact with the environment," Dr. Trinkle says. "Currently robots in unstructured environments cannot do much more than sense, or passively observe, their surroundings. When they can perform manual labor and do useful work in an unstructured environment, we will see radical changes."
Wireless has its place, notes Rahul Kulkarni, product manager/industrial data acquisition & control at National Instruments. "When wireless first appeared, engineers tried to implement wireless using the same technology for every application. However, everyone soon realized that different applications have different requirements. For example, to communicate between a remote computer and an HMI/SCADA system in the factory hundreds of miles away, satellite or cellular form of wireless communication is ideal." (Industry standard PXI, shown, is a fast-growing programmable automation controller platform that combines the functionality of a PC with the reliability of a PLC.) (For more, click here.)
Data Sharing, Open Standards Advance
DVT applications engineer Eduardo Arcis sees advances in data sharing and open standards, pointing to "web browsers embedded in the camera as well as XML technology for data transfer, providing the ability to communicate with a wide range of devices besides traditional machines like PLCs or industrial PCs." (For more, click here.)
The experts debate whether 24/7 preventive and predictive monitoring can be assured in Ethernet-based systems. "Absolutely," says Phil Horner, president of Horner APG. "We are doing it over telephone, so Ethernet is easy if you have the money. Security is the biggest issue with the Internet . . . and the primary reason to go Ethernet." (For more, click here.) But Hornis answers, "Probably not. To have 24/7 monitoring, the network infrastructure has to be 100% solid. Also, networks are sometimes the responsibility of IT departments and they do not always have a good understanding of production issues."
Ethernet continues to "capture significant market share in the fieldbus segment" of automation, says Paul Ruland, PLC & I/O product manager at AutomationDirect. He continues: "The hardware is inexpensive, reliable, and easy to use. Its selection of protocols gives it the flexibility to service everything from fast I/O control, to configuration, data, and diagnostic applications requiring large file transfers. These products have the capabilities in many cases to replace traditional RS-485 and RS-422 communication highways and allow several control and information products to share a common Ethernet architecture." Ethernet brings users "easy installation and low-cost peripheral options," Ruland observes. Other pluses include faster data exchanges, along with "simultaneous peer-to-peer and master-slave communications, and common TCP/IP protocol stacks that provide direct connectivity to other Microsoft Windows-based systems in the enterprise, shedding the PLC stigma of a 'silent black box.'" (For more, click here.)
Doubts linger over the efficacy of wireless, but some of these concerns may no longer be valid. "To address concerns about noise and interference, 802.11b operates at around 2.4 GHz -- a frequency that drastically limits the types of interference that can affect a connection," explains Rockwell Automation product engineer Dave Kaley. "This makes it much easier for operators to predict and control noise. A properly installed distribution network of access points can virtually eliminate 'quiet zones,' or areas where a connection cannot be maintained, further improving the reliability of wireless technology." Spread-spectrum, encryption, and digital-packet switching technologies make wireless secure and efficient, according to Kaley. (For more, click here.)
Collaborative Manufacturing Takes Hold
Cognex Corp product marketing manager Mark Sippel sees collaborative manufacturing taking hold, with machine vision using "CAD data imports from the engineering department to define inspection reference models on the factory floor." And Optical Character Verification (OCV) applications such as serial numbers and lot codes "can be brought in to define the character strings" as necessary during the production process. (For more, click here.)
Production management is crucial. The most progress in this area "will be related to software and firmware upgrades to allow packaging systems to be fully integrated with a company-wide network," Automated Packaging Systems national marketing manager Doug Ellis tells IEN. "Remote monitoring and analysis will become standard operating procedures," Ellis believes. (For more, click here.)
"Our experience has shown that companies with the best continuous improvement programs constantly reinvent themselves to meet the challenges that come along," states Kevin Gingerich, Director of Marketing Services, Bosch Rexroth Corp/Linear Motion and Assembly Technologies. Turning to Lean, Six Sigma, 5S, "or a combination of all available techniques," in conjunction with robots, machine tools, fastening systems and conveyors, companies can "achieve tenfold improvements in throughput, quality, and manufacturing space," Gingerich notes. (For more, click here.)
