Smart devices, actionable data, and Ethernet continue to take over the plant floor. Their complexity may be the biggest speed bump in the drive to the integrated enterprise.
Notes ODVA executive director Katherine Voss: "Integrating multiple networks and systems into a seamless operation has traditionally been difficult because the devices, programs, and processes used at the various layers of the seven-layer Open System Interconnect model have different options, capabilities and standards. . . . Common upper layers of a network protocol are the key to advanced communication and true network integration." (For more, click here.)
Glenn Schulz, Rockwell Software maintenance business manager, notes, "Over the past several years, the automation landscape has become much more complex with the advent of configurable intelligent devices, decentralized architectures, and the gradual melding of the automation and information layers. While this shift has brought simplified field wiring, rapid design and commissioning cycles, and real-time information, it also brings new opportunities and challenges to maintenance organizations. Proactively maintaining and diagnosing these diverse, intelligent architectures is much more difficult than troubleshooting simple hardware devices. To meet this challenge, maintenance organizations must equip themselves to minimize failures. When failures do occur, maintenance teams must correct the problems as quickly as possible." (For more, click here.)
Industry''s Special Needs
What works in the commercial space does not match industrial needs, adds Komal Mehta, senior products manager at Harting Inc North America''s Industrial Business Unit. "Different environmental requirements such as extreme temperatures, high dust, moisture, vibration and EMC limit the use of current products that are readily available in the market."
Proprietary solutions also hamper industry. "Lack of specification for connectivity and communications in an industrial environment has caused providers to develop products that are not based on open standards," Mehta explains. "The providers who are interested in developing proper interfaces are either forced to wait until a standard is created, or they have to be willing to make changes to the existing product interface as standards are defined." He acknowledges ODVA''s role in developing an open standard for industrial Ethernet. (For more, click here.)
"A key challenge for manufacturing companies is moving away from Islands of Automation to . . . [an] architecture where multiple and different machines or lines can be connected into a companywide network," comments Beckhoff Automation president Graham Harris. "Companies that are entrenched in PLC technology . . . are paying a much higher price to connect and often ending up with proprietary solutions that may dead-end them over time." (Pictured, EtherCAT, Beckhoff Automation''s Ethernet-based automation solution.) (For more, click here.)
Tom Goetzl, product manager at Agilent Technologies, tells IEN: "No matter how future plant intelligence looks, there will definitely be an increasing need for embedded computers to control the interacting processes." SYSPRO''s Stanley Goodrich believes "the ability to purchase a highly functional ERP system [and] leverage all the features of that software out of the box" is a major innovation firmly in place. (For more, click here.)
"ExperTune sees greatly expanded use of software that diagnoses problems in valves and transmitters," says president John Gerry. "This diagnosis will be done in real-time, from normal operating data . . . diagnostic capability can be far exceeded, and at a much lower cost, when run on a server connected to the DCS." (For more, click here.) According to Mehta, "Several companies have released Ethernet devices" that meet global requirements for "shocks, foreign bodies, humidity, dust, water, oils, etc." And Schultz expects maintenance software to track asset-specific repair and maintenance history and "verify and update firmware revisions."
Moving Toward Predictive Maintenance
According to Indus director of market development Bruce Kopkin, "The stars are aligning in terms of automation, control solutions, and condition-based maintenance systems coming together to offer previously unavailable predictive maintenance capabilities." With the merging of wireless and control, the "cost-per-point-measured for condition monitoring tools is decreasing." Coupled with the Internet and service-focused architectures, "users throughout the organization can make appropriate decisions based on real-time information." And a new era of collaboration is delivering "standards around computer languages enabling solutions from diverse vendors to communicate. The recent agreement between MIMOSA, the OPC Foundation, and the Instrumentation Systems and Automation (ISA) Society to develop the Open Operations and Maintenance (OpenO & M) standard is a perfect example." (For more, click here.)
What''s next for networking? "Mobility and flexibility within the network -- both of which move to the ultimate goal of being able to rapidly deploy a new network, connect new devices, or move an existing network," states Automation Control Products vp David Hancock. "Wireless networks offer ''drop-in'' compatibility among all devices." (ACP''s Office-3500, shown here, is a full-featured, 533 MHz Thin Client used to display the user interface that is running on a Windows server.) (For more, click here.)
Ken Jannotta Jr., PC software engineering manager at Horner APG, cautions, "For networking devices to be truly successful, the ease of use and robustness must be improved." He foresees better user interfaces and "methods for designing and configuring networks." (For more, click here.)
The limitations of wireless networks remain, although Peter Stein, vp at Sensicast, sees advances in robustness, security, and reliability, pointing to the "use of mesh network topologies that allow data packets to be transferred via redundant paths," while "frequency agility algorithms" reduce this risk of "nulls in the radio space." (For more, click here.) Mehta is convinced that the "benefits of [a] wireline network in an integrated (power and signal) system outweigh the advantages of [a] wireless network where there is high risk of interference."
The Data Dilemma
Ron Iannacone, president of Factory Intelligence Network, believes "most control systems touting data collection capabilities still have some inherent flaws -- the foremost being the fact that data is stored in multiple, disparate factory and enterprise systems. . . . Factory intelligence software monitors and tracks critical process information without discriminating the source," Iannacone says. (For more, click here.)
"While I hear a lot about open standards such as STEP," comments Tom McCollough, vp software development at Engineering Geometry Systems/FeatureCAM, "I think a more important development is the emergence of free toolkits developed by the vendors of CAD systems themselves . . . the customer simply says ''import abc.xyz.''" (For more, click here.)
Janie West, director/Business Development Services at Wonderware, predicts the next step in open standards will be "in the area of integration but integration of more complex applications." This will help further the cause of production management, collaborative manufacturing and plant intelligence. "There is still work to be done on the ''visibility'' side," West continues. "Microsoft Office, arguably a standard for information and productivity, is underutilized in terms of the value it can provide." (For more, click here.)
The current business climate is "creating a ''reality gap'' between planning and execution as a result of constant changes in supply, demand, capacity, and products," adds Randy Littleson, vp/marketing at Webplan. "Advances in Response Management are allowing manufacturers to ''manage at the moment.''" He continues: "Stakeholders and suppliers need to receive proactive alerts and updates to the existing plan and be able to schedule regular and contingency monitoring of supply and demand conditions. Notifications should be sent by email, web page, flat file, and other mediums and you should be able to exchange updates and information with internal and external databases, business intelligence software, and other systems through standards-based APIs including COM, SOAP, and XML. Facilities should exist to automate responses and use alerts to trigger additional contingency processes." (For more, click here.)