IEN: What are the major safety and health concerns facing industry? How can they be addressed?
Wacker: In today''s economy, where competition among vendors has never been more extreme, manufacturers must carefully reconcile the need to speed up their manufacturing processes to get products to market faster without sacrificing safety. In other words, manufacturers must concentrate on process improvement, rather than merely working faster, struggling to reach untenable deadlines, and sacrificing the quality of their products and safety of their workers.
IEN: Where are strides being made: In risk management? Safety design? Emergency response? Hazard controls? Elsewhere?
Wacker: With respect to risk management, by placing PLCs on an Ethernet network through technology such as Lantronix''s networking enabling solutions, machine operators can collect performance data that is gathered from production equipment, then monitor and control that equipment from a centralized management solution. Operators can be made aware of problems before a production-line breakdown, personal injury, or environment hazard occurs.
Regarding emergency response, network-enabled production equipment can notify operators and system administrators of a fault or emergency situation in real time via email or page, based on a predefined set of criteria that has been met. As a result, operators and systems administrators can respond and correct a problem before it occurs or is perceived by external audiences (e.g., customers, media, partners/suppliers, etc.). (Pictured, Lantronix''s XPort embedded device server within RJ45 package, embedded on an IC board and as a standalone package.)
IEN: What innovations are in store for users in protective products, ergonomic design, safety/security equipment and systems, environmental equipment, software, training, and other areas?
Wacker: The idea of placing production equipment, security equipment (e.g., cameras, access control, etc.), environmental systems, and other mission-critical applications on an Ethernet network to be controlled from anywhere in the world at any time has become a reality over the last few years. This network connectivity has enabled an unprecedented level of management and control of equipment of all kinds. In the next three to five years, there will be an exponential growth in networked equipment in production, security, and environmental systems along with the corresponding specialized software to manage it all.
IEN: Where are other R & D hot spots?
Wacker: 1.) Armed with network-enabled equipment gathering performance data on equipment and production processes, operators will be able to perform much greater business intelligence that will lead to process improvement, productivity gains, then enhanced business opportunities. Better knowledge management will enable manufacturers to better understand their strengths and weakness, then tailor their production processes (and maybe their offerings) accordingly.
2.) The security of mission-critical data has been and will remain a top priority for manufacturers. For this reason, equipment should be protected through several means of security, such as the AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) for data encryption; Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), a commonly used protocol for managing the security of communication actions; and more rudimentary password protection to keep out unauthorized users. Production equipment will need to have one or more layers of these types of security.
IEN: Is the web a significant factor? Why/Why not?
Wacker: Yes, because the web enables anywhere-anytime remote management of equipment for troubleshooting, training, system monitoring, disabling services and system upgrades. The web enables immediate response to any issues that arise. Travel and out-of-office expenses for operators and managers are greatly reduced, too.
IEN: Will wireless technology play an increasing role in safety/security? If so, how?
Wacker: Wireless technology will play an important role on the production line, and Lantronix is concentrating on developing that technology.
IEN: To what extent can companies integrate safety and security technologies within the industrial enterprise?
Wacker: Rather easily. Cost-effective, highly potent security technology already exists for the manufacturing space. Lantronix''s device servers with AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption seamlessly fit into any production environment.