An estimated $115 billion in discrete automation systems now is in place, and a "significant portion of this is rapidly reaching the end of its usable lifetime," states a recent ARC Advisory Group study. "Companies are moving from solely manufacturing-focused methods and processes to a more extended production environment that involves much more than automated equipment, machinery, and production lines," according to ARC. (For more on the report, click here.)

Giving Industry What It Wants

What does industry want? Greater uptime, regulatory compliance, faster time to market, cost savings. "Manufacturers today have more on their minds than just automation hardware and software," says Dr. Ram Pai, director of Rockwell Automation's Advanced Technology Labs. (For more, click here.)

"As processes become more refined, manufacturers are looking more for very specific functions in their automated equipment," notes Kevin Gingerich, director of marketing services/Linear Motion and Assembly Technologies at Bosch Rexroth Corp. "Our position is that manufacturers need to optimize their processes using every resource at their disposal: Lean techniques, robots, conveyors, even full-blown automation, if that's the optimum solution." (For more, click here.) (Shown here, a preconfigured, custom Cartesian robot system from Bosch.)

Some believe the number of PLC vendors will shrink. "Consolidation in the market can lead to lack of competition, which oftentimes means higher prices for customers," AutomationDirect president Tom Hohmann tells IEN. "The challenge for automation technology providers will be to continue to offer quality products and service while remaining price competitive. The ability to offer smaller and smaller products that still maintain high-end features will also be a challenge." (For more, click here.)

Speed of installation can be a sore point. "In the past, automation engineers have focused mainly on the functionality of the machine and its components, rather than on its commissioning cost," according to Jeff Christensen, director global marketing/encoders at Danaher Industrial Controls Group. Today's engineers specify parts keeping their complexity and "how easy it will be to troubleshoot and maintain" in mind. (For more, click here.)

Companies continue to take a networked approach. With increased production line speeds, industry has shifted from manual to automated inspection. "So many manufacturers now need a centralized way to maintain and manage the ever-growing number of vision sensors running on the floor," observes George Blackwell, director of product marketing at Cognex Corp. "Ethernet is becoming a key ingredient in the way people use vision." (For more, click here.)

John Browett, product marketing manager/rack-based controllers and automation networks at Mitsubishi Electric Automation Inc, points to commoditization as a growing concern, alluding to a "multitude of single product suppliers." Many of these vendors will "disappear or be consolidated into larger vendors' offerings." Those offering complete systems "are not immune from problems either," since end users expect "more for less" from their suppliers. (For more, click here.)

"Using mass market hardware, software, and networking components in automation applications can have many advantages for bringing technology advancements more quickly and cost-effectively to end-users, " comments Sasan Goodarzi, president of Invensys Process Systems Products. (For more, click here.)

Globalization: New Challenges

Globalization creates another set of challenges, adds Omron Electronics LLC strategic marketing manager David Quebbemann: "The prominent trend of outsourcing of manufacturing overseas and how it impacts relationships with accounts in the U.S. is a challenge to automation providers. This requires close partnerships and good communication to ensure the account needs are met." (For more, click here.) (Omron's temperature controllers are used to automate batch process applications, as shown here.)

Ken Goldberg, professor of IEOR and EECS at UC Berkeley, believes that "much work needs to be done on standards and rigorous models" affecting the automation sector. (For more, click here.)

Faulty analysis and misplaced strategy continue to hamstring users, cautions Martin Schnurr, executive vp sales and marketing at Textron Fastening Systems. "Many companies succumb to the false enticements of technology and waste capital on equipment that doesn't perform to standards. Their choices lack a clear focus on manufacturing strategies and priorities, and often neglect the realities of regional economics. Such missteps can result in warranty claims and even liability issues if there are product failures." (For more, click here.)

What's in store? In the words of Contemporary Controls President George Thomas: "The convergence of IT and industrial technology is a growing force -- not for the sake of innovation, but because of commonality -- it achieves more interoperability, despite opening up multiple cans of worms in terms of network security. We now need to live by the Internet protocols . . . It is possible that the industry will embrace powered Ethernet." (For more, click here.)

More companies will use Manufacturing Process Management to create a global environment comprising the technologies "for collaborative development and management of manufacturing process information," adds Tecnomatix executive vp Amir Livne. "Software R & D is now largely focused on facilitating the integration of existing hardware and legacy software systems with higher level business and decision support systems." (For more, click here.)

Ilya Mirman, vp of marketing at SolidWorks Corp, believes that "CAD software developers will take tools that once existed only in complex, standalone packages and put them in a single mainstream design platform so that every engineer can use them on his or her desktop. This array of tools includes both analysis and design software." (For more, click here.)

"Design engineers can expect to see application-specific motion control solutions, without custom design, development and manufacturing costs or lead times," adds John Stroup, group executive at Danaher Motion. (For more, click here.) (Exact servomotor solutions can be specified with Danaher Motion's electromagnetic ARM Series, shown.)

Siemens Energy & Automation Automation Solutions manager Filomena Wardzel points to "component based automation coupled with the explosion of mechatronic system design." This technology brings together the "advantages of component technology with the benefits of distributed intelligence in an innovative automation concept." With greater standardization these automation modules allow for streamlined startup and "increased uptime due to faster identification of failures in the system." Wardzel believes that the release of embedded Windows XP will spur PC-based control because the "footprint and stability of the embedded platform will truly result in a 'PC in a PLC' framework." (For more, click here.)

Innovations To Look For

Pai predicts that the "industry will see many innovations in open, intelligent, flexible, environmentally friendly manufacturing systems built upon an integrated architecture." Goals include improved energy efficiency, flexible autonomous control, smaller motors, and higher level smart sensors.

"Upcoming innovations include more features in micro/nano PLCs, allowing the products to offer the same features once only found in large PLCs," notes Hohmann. Danaher Controls continues "to invest in the use of ASIC technology to shrink the size of its encoders, while increasing functionality such as diagnostic data that the encoders can communicate back to drives and controllers," Christensen adds. "Cost effective, easy to use, high precision control systems would be the products to watch out for next generation applications like MEMS and nanotechnology," according to Rahul Kulkarni, DAQ and Control product manager for National Instruments. (For more, click here.)

Nels Tyring, founder/CEO of integrator TVC Systems, contends that open systems provide the key to technological innovations. "Until recently, for the potential user with a large project, implementation of open systems was a substantial problem," since there were "no reliable yardsticks with which to measure the integrators of control and information systems." The CSIA Registered Systems Integrator Program now "establishes standards for control systems," Tyring says. (For more, click here.)

"I see RFID tags and their interactions via wireless networks, especially in noisy environments, as key innovations," Prof. Goldberg adds.

Wireless: The Debate Goes On

The debate over wireless remains heated. David Hancock, vp marketing at Automation Control Products, discusses the pros and cons. On the con side, wireless is new and "new is traditionally abhorred by the industrial community." Other problems include reliability and standards issues, as well as "occasional communication delays (signal interruption, frequency hop, etc.) usually unacceptable in our market." Yet wireless is easier to connect and install and "allows 'roaming' monitoring of status," relates Hancock. (For more, click here.)

"Wireless will absolutely play a bigger and bigger role, just like the PC did," Thomas states. "PCs were not designed for the factory floor and neither was wireless, but if people find it helpful, they'll use it. It is excellent for commissioning tools and for data acquisition. It is not a good application for control where hard-wired logic will prevail and there are still concerns about security."

How about the web? "The Internet will eventually allow several things to happen," says Craig Welch, product manager at SK Daifuku Corp. "For automation suppliers, long-distance diagnostics, for example, will help keep systems up and running. For our customers, the Internet will be the platform for collaborative supply chain communication all up and down the line, from raw material vendors to end users." Security is the big concern.

SK Daifuku director of business development Jim Neuner tells IEN that collaborative manufacturing is "already happening. In order to drive the cost out and still present a full suite of solutions, more and more industry companies will negotiate licensing deals or private label equipment and software." (For more, click here.)

Collaborative manufacturing systems (CMS) have become a "critical lynchpin in the efforts to integrate with ERP and supply chain," notes Steve Lewarne, Wonderware vp of marketing. "It is also critical to create a context for process data. That is, while historians can gather all process data and store it, CMS systems are necessary to put that data in the context of a specific customer order, or batch, or lot." (For more, click here.)

Not much headway has been made in integrating automated systems with the rest of the enterprise, in the opinion of Craig Hartman, director of Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Manufacturing Group. "In today's environment, companies need to know what's happening at any moment in time, what's possible based on impending events," he says. "They need a highly responsive supply chain and manufacturing systems to ensure they meet these challenges . . . However, the fact that many manufacturers have not successfully linked plant operations to the rest of the supply chain makes these objectives elusive. According to several research firms, only 39% of manufacturers have connected their shop floors to their enterprise systems. In fact, some large manufacturers are currently managing as many as 25 separate networks within their manufacturing plants, with multiple incompatible protocols and standards." (For more, click here.)

Siemens' Wardzel concurs, noting that integration is "moving fairly slowly." For one thing, while companies "know there is real value in tying their systems together . . . they can't truly quantify it." Successful integration also requires strong support at the top to mediate "turf wars" between IT and manufacturing.

Lewarne has a more sanguine view: "Much work has been done around EAI. Indeed, customers are driving standards such as S95 to address this issue specifically. So there has been much done, and much being done currently around this critical issue."