Responses to IEN's questions were provided by John A. Browett, Product Marketing Manager, Rack Based Controllers & Automation Networks; Kristian Davis, Product Marketing Manager, Human Machine Interfaces; and Stephen Harris, President, RIXAN Associates, Inc/Mitsubishi Robotics.
IEN: What issues are facing today's implementation of e-manufacturing?
Browett: What is "e-manufacturing"? In its broadest sense, it can be defined as the extension of e-business to the factory floor. Typically, this means improving the flow of information between the front office systems and the shop floor, while also improving the flow of information on the shop floor itself. The technology of choice is usually based on Ethernet and Internet technologies.
1. Technical:
- Integration of the existing shop floor infrastructure, which is often of a proprietary nature, to the company ERP and MES systems. For example, how can a company link their SAP system, which is taking orders and tracking shipments and inventory, to their shop floor PLC-based systems that are producing the inventory? Many companies now address these kinds of issues with various software and hardware products. Mitsubishi solutions in this area are based on our Q Series Automation Platform (pictured) that offers a wide range of Ethernet and web-based connectivity functions that allow the shop floor to link into existing communications infrastructure. We also offer software solutions such as MC-WORX that offer OPC-based software connectivity to allow information to be shared back and forth between different systems.
- While Ethernet is rapidly establishing itself as the network of choice, now the argument is over the protocols to use. We have seen that many users are ignorant over the compatibility issues between different protocols and believe that TCP/IP is a universal cure for this. We often spend time educating people that there is more to consider in this area.
2. Political:
- E-manufacturing is blurring the line between traditional office-based IT and the electricians on the shop floor. Typically, once the shop floor begins to use Ethernet to link systems to share information, political battles can begin over who "owns" the network infrastructure, and how the bandwidth should be used and administered. More enlightened companies realize that the IT function is not limited to PCs sitting on desks in offices, and extends to all parts of the enterprise, being a partner with corporate automation departments in the overall success of the company.
- A second political issue is willingness to use the tools. Mitsubishi has offered comprehensive systems that enable remote maintenance capabilities for several years. However, this requires that the customer implement the necessary infrastructure to support these tools, such as a centralized facility that is on the "other end" of the remote systems.
3. Security:
The increasing interest in hackers, denial of service attacks, viruses, worms, and similar threats in the mainstream media shows that non-IT people are becoming aware of the potential dangers in use of the Internet. Since e-manufacturing is heavily dependent on Internet technologies, this may dissuade some companies from entering this area due to fears of possible issues it might introduce to their business. Mitsubishi's systems address some of these threats by offering a range of security features in our Q Series Automation Platform.
IEN: What advances do you see in software? Computing and networking devices? What has been the focus of your company's R & D?
Browett: Our focus has been to address the opportunities afforded by bringing the Internet to the shop floor. The Q Series offers a variety of ways to do this, including 100base-T Ethernet, Internet capabilities, and PC options. Combine this with our Industrial Computer systems and software tools such as our MC-WORX SCADA to create a comprehensive solution to many different automation challenges. This is a fully scalable solution, offering a range of capabilities to customers of varying requirements. Our main focus on software is commitment to technologies such as OPC. Indeed, we describe MC-WORX as "OPC to the core." Since the basic premise of e-manufacturing is the need to share information back and forth between many different systems at many different levels, we believe our focus on OPC effectively addresses this.
In our opinion, use of PCs for controls has been something of a passing fad. Our dedicated controller business (Q Series and our general PLC line) remains as strong as ever. Customers value the robustness of a PLC-based solution, and our Q Series builds on this by expanding sequence control capabilities with motion, process, and PC capabilities for those who still need to integrate a PC with a more reliable control platform. However, there is no denying that PC-based SCADA is a major market, and we address this too with MC-WORX and our Industrial Computer systems. We see our controllers continuing to evolve while adding more "PC-like" capabilities, such as web server functions. At the same time the method of system development is evolving away from traditional ladder programming as we see increasing interest in alternative methods, such as SFC and structured text.
Networks are looking a lot more like Ethernet all the time. However, we still see cost challenges in bringing this technology to the device level. Mitsubishi addresses this with the high performance, capable CC-Link open device level networking standard.
IEN: How will the rising intelligence of robots, robotic systems, and e-enabled devices affect manufacturing and the plant floor?
Harris: Manufacturers in the U.S. have really only just begun to scratch the surface in utilizing robotics and automation to move their products to the marketplace quicker and with even more precision and quality.
The advancing rising intelligence of robots will offer a new era of intuitive robots capable of making their own decisions; robotics that totally integrate and interface with networks; systems that will make ongoing improvements to a process and verify the process simultaneously; and robots whose knowledge base will be additive. However, this increased intelligence will be even easier to control and adapt to new applications with PC interfaces, remote PC programming and even remote operation. (Pictured, RH-10AH robot.)
Obviously, these intuitive robots and robotic systems will dramatically affect manufacturing and the plant floor in the future. Productivity will be optimized . . . there will be a substantial reduction in labor costs . . . and products will move seamlessly through the manufacturing process to the end user with speed and accuracy.
Clearly, the robots of today are quickly giving way to the technologically superior next generation -- a new breed of robot that literally will have a mind of its own.
IEN: Has manufacturing really harnessed the power of wireless technology or has it only scratched the surface? What about the web?
Browett: Wireless technology is still in its infancy. There have been some vendors providing wireless versions of some open networks, but it seems that if the Ethernet trend continues, the various versions of Wi-Fi will become more important in wireless applications. Currently it seems that few applications have begun to exploit this technology, although we have seen some. Probably the main concern with this is the robustness of this technology in the electrically "dirty" environment of the shop floor. The prevalence of large metal objects in most factories may also cause signal propagation challenges. Finally, security could also become an issue, since any receiver within range of a transmitter could intercept the signal, although the relatively low power of these transmitters probably makes this less of a risk in a large plant.
Web technology is undoubtedly here to stay, and will continue to mature. However, it still seems that the market as a whole still has a long way to go before web technology can be considered ubiquitous. Wireless Ethernet will go hand in hand with this. Some roadblocks remain, such as bringing Ethernet and therefore web technology down to the device level, but we expect this to be resolved in the future.
IEN: How can e-manufacturing provide a more robust operation overall? Where and how do design and maintenance software fit in? To what degree?
Davis: Robustness can have many aspects. There's no doubt that e-manufacturing increases the robustness of a plant. When information can be shared between more and more systems and devices, the opportunities to avoid trouble multiply. For many years, Mitsubishi has offered a comprehensive "top to bottom" network architecture that allows all levels of the shop floor to communicate and share information. What this means for a plant is that maintenance can "see" a whole plant from a central location, and monitor conditions before they escalate and cause downtime. Our network systems such as MELSECNET/H typically outperform current implementations of Ethernet in terms of speed, reliability, and determinism.
Another aspect of robustness is to emphasize the need to utilize industrial grade solutions at the manufacturing level. Too often solutions and products from the office (commercial) are implemented into the factory floor, degrading the overall robustness of the entire manufacturing solution. This is predominant in the PC area. As an example, one would never implement an office style light switch to control an industrial motor drive. Yet, it is commonplace to see office grade computers integrated into complex manufacturing solutions. Mitsubishi recognizes the task to educate and redirect the solution providers to providing overall industrial solutions, such as our MC Series Industrial Computers, and our Industrial SCADA software package MC-WORX.
IEN: Have wireless and web-enabled systems been a hard sell to certain sectors? If so, why the reluctance?
Browett: As we discussed earlier, we see two main sources of reluctance in this area:
- Security concerns. While a web-enabled system allows vast possibilities for information transfer with your vendors, customers, and other partners, it also could make you vulnerable to those who you do not want in your system.
- Infrastructure to back up the promise of the tools we can offer. For example, while we can provide systems that can help you troubleshoot a customer's system on the other side of the world, how able is your company to market, sell, and support a solution like this? More enlightened companies embrace these kinds of tools as key differentiating factors, and will prosper in the future. Those that deny them will ultimately be put out of business or acquired.
IEN: Can e-manufacturing benefit smaller scale operations in the same way it would help large ones?
Browett: Absolutely. Consider a one-man CNC job shop. He can maintain all his jobs electronically, receive customer data for new jobs via his website, set up his machines over networks, and execute job changes in seconds. Customers could even see jobs in process over the web if he chose to let them. E-manufacturing works at all levels. In fact, it's arguable that the fewer resources a company has, the more productivity they stand to gain via astute implementations of e-manufacturing.
