The controls market is gaining strength, according to two recent studies from ARC Advisory Group. ARC forecasts that the market for batch control systems will "grow at an average annual rate of 3.4% through 2007," having reached $2.4 billion in 2002, because the "need to optimize the supply chain is increasing the need for real-time plant and production information." Meanwhile, current economic conditions "will lead to the long-term recovery of the PLC market by driving cost savings, technology infusion, obsolescence-driven replacement, and the feasibility of achieving increasingly complex automation systems," ARC believes.
The controls sector can answer industry demands for increased automation and flexibility using "four main ingredients," says Rahul Kulkarni, DAQ and control product manager at National Instruments. First, a system and the programming supporting it "must be easy to understand and use." Second, the system "must be modular and scalable." Third, off-the-shelf components should be available. And finally, all the pieces must communicate seamlessly. (For more, click here.)
"Today''s controllers respond to this demand by providing one control platform capable of doing it all -- sequential, motion, process and drive control," states Mike Miclot, Logix marketing manager, Rockwell Automation. "Along with a common platform, distributed control, which delivers increased automation and flexibility, is also gaining momentum in response to this demand. As control systems move out of a centralized cabinet and closer to the machine, a logical next step is to create on-machine solutions." (For more, click here.)
Trayton Jay, director of marketing at Mitsubishi Electric Automation Inc, points to the Programmable Automation Controller (PAC) concept, noting that "PACs support more flexible and diverse integrated solutions than the vast majority of existing products, which tend toward maybe one or two strengths." (An example, shown here, is Mitsubishi''s Q-Series Automation Platform.) Mitsubishi''s platform can "mix-and-match sequential, process, motion, and/or PC controllers on one backplane, enabling integrated control solutions covering several automation disciplines in one system," he adds. (For more, click here.)
CANopen systems increase flexibility, according to Jim Woodward, applications manager at Copley Controls Corp. "Under the aegis of the CANopen protocol, all servo amplifiers, limit switches and other I/Os, are connected via a low cost two-wire bus, which merely requires a simple modem for connection to the control computer. The control computer sends simple positioning instructions over the bus to individual drive stages." With CANopen, "motion controller goes away, elaborate wiring (along with noise and erroneous connections) is eliminated, and a simple embedded computer rather than a high end PC controls the entire system or machine," Woodward says. (For more, click here.)
Real-time solutions are paramount, notes Dick Hill, vp and gm of Manufacturing Advisory Services at ARC, "because of growing demands on manufacturers to perform flawlessly every time a decision is made." While most of the hardware and software to produce accurate data now exists, the "services component is the current challenge, since many of the applications involve multiple supplier technologies and a great deal of custom engineering," Hill tells IEN. (For more from ARC''s analysts, click here.)
"With batch processing the process variables change but the flow of product must use the same general process (i.e. add liquids or heat, perform other process actions and package product)," adds Mark Hicinbothem, senior marketing manager at ASCO Valve, Inc. Products addressing bus systems "will allow for data collection and improve infrastructure."
Lower implementation costs are essential. "For example, a control buyer will purchase equipment that can be installed in 1 hour versus 5 hours, and be commissioned in 1 hour versus 5 hours," explains Jim Overturf, vp of Eurotherm Inc, "a controller that can be maintained or replaced in minutes instead of hours and requires no training rather than days of training (knowledge that is often forgotten by the time it''s needed). On-machine equipment will save the cost of a cabinet, machine space, and reduced wiring." (For more, click here.)
And the pressure for increased efficiency, flexibility, and quality "points to the considerable optimization potential of process management," states Edward Maddock, vp of Corel. Its benefits are "achieved by linking an organization''s process documentation activities with a comprehensive set of tools for process simulation and analysis." (For more, click here.)
Distributed vs Centralized Debate
Phoenix Contact Inc industry marketing manager Mike Nager believes that distributed control architectures will continue to displace centralized controls "because mass production and miniaturization continue to eliminate the financial hurdles to incorporating processing power into smaller and less expensive devices." (The MCR-RT-I/O Plus, pictured, is a radio and I/O module.) (For more, click here.)
FETTE believes that "distributed control architecture frees a person from having to stay by the press, thereby eliminating exposure to the granulation and the noise of the machine." (For more, click here.)
"Centralized control systems will always make sense in some production environments," according to Dick Slansky, senior analyst of Lean Manufacturing & Production Management Solutions at ARC. However, distributed control brings "autonomous control, better asset management (machine condition monitoring), and enables production floor information to be more readily accessed and moved to higher level production management systems." In his view, distributed control will continue to make inroads.
"While distributed control architectures have already displaced centralized controls for process operations in general, most batch automation systems still employ batch executives that function in a monolithic architecture," observes Robert Babecki, product manager at Invensys Process Systems. "Newer technologies have the potential to make distributed batch systems much easier to implement and manage." (For more, click here.)
Kulkarni notes that "supply chain optimization is a continuous process that cannot be achieved in a single day. Gone are the days when an automation plant did not change for 20 years after being set up. Today''s competitive environment demands that processes be modified to suit market demand at regular intervals. The only way to achieve this is to have a very scalable and flexible system that can be easily modified by different engineers at different points in time without reinventing the wheel. Distributed control architectures provide this capability," he says.
Adds Miclot: "This approach provides major savings in wiring costs, both in material and labor, as well as system flexibility. In fact, end users have seen system savings from 20 to 60%, depending on the size of the machine or process and the number of I/O points in the control system."
Distributed control calls for "powerful controllers linked by various highly flexible networking options," emphasizes Jon Giardina, PLC product marketing manager at Omron Electronics. "It differs from distributed I/O systems, in that distributed I/O solutions utilize centralized control. In distributed control solutions, local controllers have the capability to handle logic and make local decisions, with only higher level instructions coming from a remote controller. Customers do not have to wade through a massive centralized program, nor is their entire system relying on the availability of one controller." (For more, click here.)
On the Horizon
"Cost effective, easy to use, high precision control systems are the products to watch out for in next generation applications like MEMS and nanotechnology," predicts Kulkarni.
Asish Ghosh, vp/Batch and Safety Systems at ARC, concurs. "Recent improvements in performance and accuracy are making MEMS an attractive alternative for industrial instrumentation applications. Several companies are pushing the envelope in MEMS technology by integrating instrumentation and mechanical components onto a single substrate. Motorola has developed a two-chip approach, where surface micromachining is used to define a sensor structure, which is wired to a signal-conditioning chip. Analog Devices has an integrated approach that combines the sensor and the electronics on a single chip," says Ghosh.
"Advances will come in embedded control and programming software, allowing control systems to be defined in the application domain and distributed across multiple control device boundaries," Miclot tells IEN. "As a result, the automation will ''learn'' rather than rely solely on the user to study data and make adjustments. This will give a control system capabilities that include reconfiguring itself based on need, automatically rebalancing workload, and repairing faulted systems -- to name a few."
Bill Lydon, product manager for electronic products at WAGO Corp, says the controls sector is "catching up with general computing by having a common programming method for all controllers. IEC-61131-3 goes far beyond traditional PLC languages to handle complex data devices and perform processing of manufacturing information." (For more, click here.)
Meanwhile, the motor sector is developing new methods for squeezing more power into smaller spaces, and "engineers are considering motors with a high power-density ratio," according to ThinGap Motor Technologies. (For more, click here.)
Babecki focuses on Ethernet. "The use of high speed switched Ethernet for process control is one significant innovation on the horizon. The new networking technology deploys standard 100 megabit/1 gigabit Switched Ethernet in a redundant/fault-tolerant configuration."
Not enough progress has been made in resolving software and hardware debugging issues, documentation challenges, and installation headaches.
Explains Chantal Polsonetti, vp of ARC''s Automation Consulting Team: "In spite of their negative impact on crucial manufacturing metrics such as time-to-market and maximum machine uptime, software documentation challenges and installation headaches continue to plague manufacturers." Windows 2000 and subsequent operating systems have eliminated the "deadly DLL hell and the documentation headaches associated with which DLLs go with which application, operating system, etc." Yet installation problems remain, and the absence of "solidly defined and managed requirements documents that reflect not only functional requirements but also integration requirements and stakeholder input remains a primary contributor," says Polsonetti.
"Considering the importance of documentation and the mercurial nature of what is required by a given company at any given time, there will always be challenges with documentation," FETTE contends. "We are currently working with a company to improve and more closely monitor changes to our documentation, and we follow GAMP guidelines for ease of compatibility for our customers."
Kulkarni believes that the "key to achieving software and hardware installation utopia is to have different vendors support common standards. Research should focus on making software platforms more open and supporting more off-the-shelf hardware."
"More memory, greater use of open standards, and more robust operating systems will add to the migration of even the most skeptical users from using computers for non-critical applications to the most critical applications," contends Scott Evans, product manager at AC Technology Inc, a member of the Lenze Group. (Shown here, SSi1000 Series Language-driven servo drives from AC Technology.) (For more, click here.)
According to Nager, "applications will always exist that need specific buses for control, i.e. the use of Interbus for high speed predictability in material handling. However, even in those cases, the information will be passed throughout the organization using Ethernet or its successor."
Jay believes that the device network "wars are somewhat over for the moment, and now we are in the ''protocol wars'' regarding which industrial protocols will reside as standards on Ethernet. Rockwell has Ethernet/IP (the CIP protocol of DeviceNet and ControlNet applied to Ethernet), Siemens has Profinet, Schneider has Modbus/TCP, all of which are published standards and will likely become the de facto standards within the home market of the purveying player."
An Embedded Future?
Will embedded servers play more of a role in controls? Kulkarni thinks so. "With supply chain optimization becoming increasingly important, it is necessary that plant data be fed back to top management in real-time so timely decisions are made," he notes. That means "embedded web servers are becoming a necessary feature for any control system."
"If Internet/intranet web servers are the meaning in this case, we will definitely see increased integration of capability for remote data collection and maintenance," says Jay.
Evans thinks the future of embedded depends on the application. "Embedded servers will play a role in machinery, especially those involved in a ''long'' process. However, embedded servers in components such as motor controls will not be prevalent any time soon."
Jason Weber, product manager at Rockwell Software, notes that "integrated design environments are becoming critical to meet time-to-market requirements and customer demands. Because of the tight integration of controllers, HMI and other aspects of automation system design, having an integrated design environment is increasingly important." (For more, click here.)
Where are other R & D hot spots? "Software development has undergone a tectonic shift in moving to Microsoft .NET technology," says Babecki. "Control vendors are now challenged to apply .NET to the industrial environment. The real question is whether they can afford to invest in new automation architecture or whether they will settle for a patchwork incorporation of .NET."
Wireless will play a growing role in control applications where "installation of cable is costly or impossible," according to Kulkarni. "Typical applications such as wastewater management and factory automation include remote monitoring and control for moving platforms. Challenges like noise and line of sight needed are slowly being overcome by different wireless standards. In addition to radio modems, recent technologies like 802.11 and Bluetooth are perceived as a reliable form of communication."
ARC expects wireless to expand substantially in the next one to two years. "Right now wireless is just edging its way into control," observes Harry Forbes, senior analyst/Industrial Networks & Wireless Solutions at ARC. "Applications with very difficult deployments, like upstream oil and gas, as well as other SCADA applications are leading the way. Often these deployments are combined with digital Fieldbus installations." ARC also sees "wireless I/O in the form of single and multi-point cable replacements proving irresistible to process manufacturers when examined on a case-by-case basis. Information, asset management, and asset tracking applications require wireless LAN or WAN infrastructure," Forbes adds.
Internet-based control is spreading, but roadblocks remain. Evans sees increased web control for process machinery, but believes "it is not realistic for real-time applications in broad volume." Jay believes that "some low response applications may lend themselves to remote control over the Internet. We see most remote Internet applications to be for programming, maintenance, supervisory or data access, where a local controller at the site has email out or web server capability supporting direct interaction."
The web will play a bigger role in the future, Miclot contends. "For diagnostics, customized HMI, and some ''tuning'' capabilities, Internet-based control is here or just around the corner. In terms of performing control over the web, there is still some room to grow. Keep in mind that while the web is another option for these tasks, it will augment rather than replace existing HMI control capabilities."
How can companies maintain legacy equipment with advanced control technology, in the spirit of the lean enterprise? Quatech president/CEO Steve Runkel provides one answer: "Network enabling legacy serial equipment is an ideal way to both streamline industrial systems and to provide the real-time plant and production information that is vital to successful supply chain management. Serial Device Servers that permit standard RS-232/422/485 manufacturing equipment such as CNC machines to be accessed via Ethernet are the key to this approach." (Pictured, Quatech''s ThinQ serial device server takes under 10 minutes to install.) These servers can help create "virtual COM ports on any PC enabling an entire production process to be remotely monitored and controlled via a single workstation." This allows companies to use their "pre-existing Ethernet backbone. . . while leveraging the substantial investment in legacy production equipment and proprietary software applications," observes Runkel. (For more, click here.)
"Control system migration is a primary issue among many automation users today," comments Larry O''Brien, research director/Strategic Process Automation Solutions at ARC. "Few new plants are being built, and capital expenditures continue to shrink. With the increased focus on return on assets (ROA) and Operational Excellence (OpX), users must find ways to effectively migrate from one generation of control system to the next, whether it is from the installed supplier or a competitor."