Automation World August 2020

AUGUST 2020 / www.automationworld.com

22 MUCH ADO ABOUT DATA QUALITY 28 08 33 10 35 41

Network Protocols Harmonize Around TSN Collaborative Robot Safety Software Helps Consumer Goods Manufacturer Thrive Digitization and Adaptation to a Changing World Five Ways the IEEE Standards Will Advance Industry 4.0 Virtual Commissioning Evolves Into the Digital Twin

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2 CONTENTS AW AUGUST 2020

AUGUST 2020 | VOLUME 18 | NUMBER 8

22

Much Ado about Data Quality

28

Network Protocols Harmonize Around Time-Sensitive Networking

Ensuring proper data quality for digital transformation initiatives lies in a two-pronged approach that emphasizes technology and human communication.

As the time-sensitive networking standard inches toward completion, excitement is growing over the prospect of bringing information technology and operations technology closer together. The major industrial protocol associations have been working hard with their support groups to adapt their protocols to this emerging standard.

Helps Consumer Goods Manufacturer 33 Software Thrive Amid Pandemic Uncertainty

Skin Actives proves that digitizing production operations doesn’t necessarily require big ticket software technologies. Modern material requirements planning software can address every step in the production process, from order processing to fulfillment.

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4 CONTENTS AW AUGUST 2020

EDITORIAL

ONLINE 6

Exclusive content from AutomationWorld.com: videos, podcasts, webinars, and more

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS 8 Collaborative Robot Safety

BATCH OF IDEAS 9

Reverse Engineering the Organization

PERSPECTIVES 10

Digitization and Adaptation to a Changing World Festo Explores How Digitization Affects Energy, Education How Automation Advances Affect OEE Delivering IIoT Data Across the Enterprise

David Greenfield Director of Content/Editor-in-Chief dgreenfield@automationworld.com / 678 662 3322 Luis Rodriguez Managing Editor lrodriguez@automationworld.com / 312 205 7910 Stephanie Neil Senior Editor sneil@automationworld.com / 781 378 1652 Aaron Hand Editor at Large ahand@automationworld.com / 312 222 1010 x1180 Jim Chrzan VP/Content and Brand Strategy jchrzan@automationworld.com / 312 222 1010 x1470 Kim Overstreet Content Strategist koverstreet@pmmimediagroup.com James R. Koelsch, David Miller, Lauren Paul, Jeanne Schweder and Beth Stackpole Contributing Writers

ART & PRODUCTION

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NEWS 17

Bosch Rexroth Reinvents Its Approach to Automation Siemens and SAP Integrate Software Applications Hitachi Vantara Expands Its Digital Manufacturing Portfolio Application Kits for Cobots PMMI News

ADVERTISING

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INDUSTRY-SUPPLIED CONTENT 35

Time-Sensitive Networking: Five Ways the IEEE Standards Will Advance Industry 4.0

AUDIENCE & DIGITAL

David Newcorn Senior Vice President, Digital & Data Elizabeth Kachoris Senior Director, Digital & Data Kelly Greeby Senior Director, Client Success & Media Operations Jen Krepelka Director, Websites & Digital Design Strategy

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ENTERPRISE VIEW 40

Strengthening OEM Supply Chains for Challenging Times By Brian R. May

INDUSTRY VIEW 41

Virtual Commissioning Evolves Into a Model-driven Digital Twin By Dick Slansky

INTEGRATOR VIEW 42

The Importance of Operator Feedback on New Systems By Evan Barnett

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KEY INSIGHTS 44

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6 ONLINE

AW AUGUST 2020

LEADERSHIP IN AUTOMATION Vote Now for Your Favorite Suppliers

If you have a supplier that goes above and beyond, here’s your opportunity to say thank you.

Recognize the companies that have demonstrated excellence in automation technology or services.

Voting is now open for 2021 Honorees. We’ll acknowledge the top companies in our annual Leadership in Automation feature article published in the January issue of Automation World. And don’t forget to enter your name for a drawing to receive a $200 American Express gift card.

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PODCAST SERIES COVID-19’s Impact on Industrial Automation

In this episode, we connect with Dan Malyszko of Malisko Engineering to get insights from the front lines of manufacturing about how industry is responding to the production challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic.

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AUTOMATION WORLD TV Automation World’s YouTube site offers relevant videos on the latest industrial automation insights, trends, and news. Check out our videos and subscribe to keep up with the latest technology and application developments.

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8 EDITORIAL AW AUGUST 2020

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS

Collaborative Robot Safety

By David Greenfield

dgreenfield@automatioworld.com Editor-In-Chief/ Director of Content of AutomationWorld

E

arlier this year, Automation World met with the co-founders of Veo Robotics, Clara Vu and Patrick Sobalvarro, about their approach to collaborative robots (cobots). As described in the article, Making Industrial Robots Collaborative (http://awgo. to/KVUdC), we explained that Veo Robotics’ approaches cobot development by making industrial robots capable of working alongside humans, rather than developing specialized cobots similar to most of the robots that comprise the bulk of the cobot market.

In that article, we described Veo Robotics’ FreeMove system, which uses multiple camera sensors and an algorithmic computing platform to transform industrial robots into cobots.

Now, Clara Vu is offering more insights into Veo Robotics’ application of the ISO speed and separation monitoring standard to achieve this.

Cobot standards

The first thing to understand is that speed and separation monitoring (SSM) is one of four standard methods for robotic collaboration. The other three are: safety-rated monitored stop, hand guiding, and power and force limiting.

Veo Robotics uses SSM because it works with standard industrial robots and has fewer limitations on end-effectors, speed, and payloads, according to Vu. “With SSM, no contact is allowed between the robot and human while the robot is moving. A moving robot is assumed to be hazardous; a stationary robot is assumed to be safe. SSM requires a protective separation distance (PSD) between the robot and human so that it is always possible to bring the robot to a stop before contact with a human. The PSD must take into account

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Veo Robotics' FreeMove system occlusion analysis. Source: Veo Robotics the time the robot takes to stop and the distance it will travel during that time, as well as the distance that the humans can move while the robot is stopping. SSM is fundamentally a perception problem because it relies on understanding where humans and robots are in the scene. The system needs to identify the position of each robot joint as well as all the places the robot could reach before it is brought to a stop. It must also understand the location of any humans in the proximity of the robot and where they could move.”

To create a safe perception system for its robots, Veo Robotics’ FreeMove system uses 3D time-of-flight sensors positioned on the periphery of the workcell to capture “rich image data of the entire space,” said Vu. “The architecture of the sensors ensures reliable data with novel dual imagers that observe the same scene so the data can be validated at a per-pixel level. With this approach, higher level algorithms will not need to perform additional validation. This 3D data can then be used to identify key elements in the workcell, including the robot, workpieces, and humans.”

Safety system requirements

Beyond the FreeMove system’s need for reliable data, Vu noted that the data must be “processed with safety in mind. Most algorithms that use depth images from active IR (infrared) sensing identify regions of space

as either empty or occupied. However, this is inadequate for a safety system because a safety system requires that humans be sensed affirmatively; therefore, a part of a human body not showing up in sensor data does not mean there isn’t a human there.”

Because dark fabrics may not always be accurately detected by active IR sensors, the FreeMove system was designed to classify collaborative robotic workspaces as one of three states: empty, i.e., something can be seen behind it; occupied; or unknown.

“When examining volumes of space, if the sensors do not get a return from a space but cannot see through the space, that space is classified as unknown and treated as occupied until the system can determine it to be otherwise,” explained Vu. She noted that this approach also addresses static and dynamic occlusions. “In a workcell with a standard-size six arm robot moving workpieces around, there will always be some volumes of space that are occluded from or outside the field of view of all the sensors, either temporarily or permanently,” she said. “Those spaces could, at some point in time, contain a human body part.

For example, a human could be reaching their arm into a space near the robot that none of the sensors can observe at that moment. So they are also treated as occupied for SSM purposes.”

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EDITORIAL 9 AW AUGUST 2020

BATCH OF IDEAS

Reverse Engineering the Organization

By Stephanie Neil

sneil@automatioworld.com Senior Editor of AutomationWorld

N

ow, more than ever, as social distancing impacts the way we work, as supply chain disruptions inhibit the ability to deliver goods, and as resources are reprioritized in an all-hands-on-deck effort to find and deliver a vaccine, there is a need for leadership amid the COVID-19 chaos.

And, that requires a new way of thinking.

Recently, I interviewed Mark W. Johnson, a senior partner at Innosight, a growth strategy firm he co-founded with the late Clayton Christensen—one of the most influential business theorists of this generation known for his theory of “disruptive innovation.” Christensen passed away in January, but Johnson, an aerospace engineer with an MBA from Harvard Business School, carries on his legacy through the consulting work at Innosight and the business books he writes.

Johnson’s latest book, “Lead from the Future: How to Turn Visionary Thinking into Breakthrough Growth,” was published in April. And while he and his co-author Josh Suskewicz didn’t have a worldwide pandemic in mind when they wrote the book, it is extremely relevant right now as the world spins toward an uncertain future—at least in the near term.

It’s the long-term vision, however, that manufacturers need to focus on, because, “foresight leads to insight,” Johnson has stated. To that end, the foundation of this book is based on what Johnson calls a “future

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back” approach to create growth strategy. It is a methodology for defining a future state and working backwards to set priorities and milestones. It’s an iterative and nonlinear way of thinking that goes beyond an organization’s established way of doing things. And it requires a fundamental system change.

“In manufacturing, it’s a system problem,” Johnson said. “Trying to get someone to do something breakthrough means not following the traditional path onward and upward.

It’s not like following lean and Six Sigma to drive efficiency improvement. It’s a step change. A point of departure. A transformation. And you have to go at it from a clean sheet system. Systems replace systems, so what is the new system? Imagine that and architect it by working it back.”

It can be likened to reverse engineering the business, Johnson told me, but it’s more than just technology, it involves humans, which means you have to have a method to learn and iterate and shape the system. “It’s not as clean as the traditional reverse engineering of a system where you don’t want the blueprint to be wrong…you have to be able to test and learn.”

So, for example, here we are in a world where companies like Facebook are announcing it anticipates that half of its employees will permanently work from home by 2030, brought on as a result of a pandemic that is changing the way we work.

But it’s not so easy to do. It requires technology, policies, process changes, new rules, and a culture shift to ensure people working at home feel as rewarded and in the know as those working onsite.

“It’s a system problem,” Johnson said.

“What’s the objective and what do you imagine are all of the pieces of the system in the future? What assumptions have you made and how do you walk back to the experiments you need to start today?”

In manufacturing, the same system

applies. “If a paradigm shift were to happen, what will it look like? And then you begin to architect or reverse engineer it.

Nobody knows what the world will look like 10 years from now, but by having the conversations, bringing in trends and the potential disrupters, and spending the time to ask the right questions and have the right discussions, you start to develop a point of view. It’s filled with assumptions, but innovation teams are often surprised by how much of a sense of direction they have of where they want to go.”

Technology plays an important role here, as well. As manufacturers explore and adopt digital transformation technologies like the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, 3D printing, etc., by looking far enough into the future they can begin to talk about how these technology trends will converge together to create a point of inflection to do something in a fundamentally different way than the way manufacturing is currently done.

This exercise requires the ability to constantly start with a clean sheet and figure out how to make “future back” an experiment. So, when exploring how AI fits into the production process, you shouldn’t be wondering when the right time to implement AI is, or what the right point solution is. The better question is: Do you have a plan to learn?

“The one that learns the fastest is the one that takes advantage of technology to transform manufacturing,” Johnson said. “Question the learning process to start that future vision and continually learn and adjust it.”

7/31/20 6:36 AM

10 PERSPECTIVES AW AUGUST 2020

Digitization and Adaptation to a Changing World

By David Greenfield, Director of Content/Editor-In-Chief

C

raig Hayman, CEO of industrial software company Aveva, kicked off the Aveva World digital conference noting analyst estimates that at least two years’ worth of transformation has been compressed into about 10 weeks of time as a result of COVID-19. He added these analysts predict that the current work-from-home trend will be permanent for up to half of the workforce for at least for the rest of 2020.

That’s why “the power of technology to unify data and remove [operational] silos has never been more important,” Hayman said.

These technological capabilities are “allowing specialists to collaborate to change business models, because unified data helps them see opportunities more clearly to boost efficiency and optimize operations.” This kind of thinking is increasingly being led by global teams across industries—all connected through

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technology, he added.

Looking across Aveva’s range of customers, Hayman noted that some are under huge pressure to reduce costs and maximize capex as a result of COVID-19, while others are seeing demand for products higher than they’ve ever been. “Consumer demands have shifted and people are not spending as much on discretionary purchases like fashion and travel; they’re focused on the necessities of life.

There's been a huge rise in purchases of groceries in the U.S., and pharmaceutical sales increased by more than 50% compared to pre-crisis levels.”

In response, there will be an “increasing focus on empowering the connected workforce” across industries through the use of technologies such as cloud computing and Industrial Internet of Things, Big Data, and artificial intelligence, said Hapreet Gulati,

head of Aveva’s operations business unit.

He added that these technologies are becoming increasingly mainstream and will form the foundation for the enterprise agility required to tackle the current market challenges which are accelerating the pace of digital transformation.

“The COVID-19 crisis is providing a glimpse into a future world in which digital has become central to every interaction,” he said.

The stakes are high at the digital crossroads where manufacturing now finds itself.

The digital transformation of the manufacturing value chain represents an opportunity to reduce waste and costs by 5% to 30%, as well as grow revenues by up to 25%, said Gulati. “Manufacturing must become more agile to accommodate the increasing demand for product and packaging changes.” As evidence of this, Gulati pointed to data showing the

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PERSPECTIVES 11 AW AUGUST 2020

rate of new products introduced in the U.S. jumped 50% from 2000 to 2017. Such rapid changes are compounded by a need for manufacturers to minimize waste. As an example, Gulati noted that U.S. food manufacturers waste approximately 15,000,000 pounds of food for every billion in sales.

Three stages of transformation

Assessing China’s rebound after its initial COVID-19 wave, Hayman noted that Chinese commuter traffic is back to 75% of 2019 levels from a trough of 62% in February. Energy use is also increasing in China, with power consumption ramping back up to 40% of 2019 levels and rising, he said. “As lockdowns are lifted in the United States and Europe, we expect to see similar patterns in other economies as industries continue to minimize capex in the short term and drive efficiencies throughout their operational processes.”

This focus on improving efficiencies in operations is seen as a potential boost to digitization efforts to help companies pinpoint the

available opportunities and take advantage of the situation as the peak of the first wave of the virus passes. “There's also an increased awareness of and focus on sustainability, which we at Aveva are excited about,” said Hayman. “We see this as a huge opportunity for industries to embrace new ways of working and drive growth.”

Hayman sees the digitization of business taking place in three stages: • Unifying the data and information across operations to link asset strategies with business objectives. “This lets you better balance the cost of risk with asset performance management,” he said; • With operational data in one place, artificial intelligence and machine learning can be used to drive efficiencies and deploy teams and resources across the asset lifecycle; • With access to trusted information, companies can work more efficiently and draw insights that span entire engineering operations and performance processes.

The scalability provided by cloud-based software is key to unifying all of your data and all of your analytics into one place to make them available to your entire team wherever they are in the world, said Hayman. Cloud gives you the scale and capability to amplify your team by adopting “a learning mindset [that is] constantly evolving and improving,” he said. “Part of it is about accelerating new digital ways of collaborating and operating while taking advantage of the constantly evolving capabilities that software infused with artificial intelligence can offer.”

Explaining how Aveva is not only providing such technologies, but using them to create the software products that enable companies to do this, Hayman said there are “150 Aveva software development scrum teams around the world, with eight to 12 people on each team. These teams conduct development sprints—which are prioritized every 90 days— around what we learn every day” about how business is changing.

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12 PERSPECTIVES AW AUGUST 2020

Festo Explores How Digitization Affects Energy, Education

By Stephanie Neil, Senior Editor

T

he business and operational changes that manufacturers have adopted as a result of COVID-19—from working remotely to restricting travel to dealing with disrupted supply chains—are fairly ubiquitous across just about every segment, including the automation suppliers that make, service, and support the technology and equipment installed at manufacturing sites.

At Festo, for example, the electric and process automation company installed 6,000 VPN nodes in one day to keep its staff connected companywide while enabling them to continue to deliver the pneumatic and electrical expertise its customers require to keep production up and running. At the same time, the industrial automation company launched several projects to help in the fight against coronavirus, including the development of an emergency ventilator that uses digital pneumatics, aiding in the making of face masks produced in a container that can be moved to different ports, as well as helping in the development of antibody test devices by supplying valves and pressure regulators for compact mobile on-site laboratory devices in doctors’ offices and hospitals.

During Festo Germany’s TechTalk 2020, a virtual event the company held in association with Hannover Virtual Fair, Festo representatives addressed how the company is making customers more efficient—even during these difficult times—all while keeping an eye on the future.

Specifically, the industrial automation supplier highlighted efforts underway that utilize digital data to support sustainability, education, as well as innovations in bionic technology.

Resource efficiency

Festo is making products that save energy, like its motion terminal that can control airflow in a more responsive way, thereby lowering the pressure level of the compressed air system and saving up to 60% in energy use. While reducing pressure in a standard operation can be done manually, it is a time-consuming task that often does not get done. “We digitized it to make it easier for the customer to lower energy,” said Marcus Stemler, product manager of digital

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Festo's bionic flower can mimic actions, such as sensitivity to light and how leaves open and close. pneumatics at Festo.

And, while some may think that the ability to reduce energy requires sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI), Festo officials say that’s simply not true. “An IoT [Internet of Things] gateway, controller, sensor, and a data interface is all you need to bring data to the cloud or on premise to a dashboard for the customer,” said Dr. Frank Melzer, Festo’s member of the management board for product and technology management.

Of course, once in the dashboard, AI can be used on the data to optimize energy streams and find abnormalities, Melzer said, demonstrating that an AI system can learn how a device works in response to pressure changes in order to manage movement while minimizing energy use.

Understanding that machine builders may not have the expertise required to make decisions about what kind of technology is best to help with energy efficiency, Festo offers an energy saving consulting service that can analyze the compressed air systems to find weak points, as well as offer application engineering services.

But Festo’s offerings go beyond products and consulting services to also encompass education. That’s because being a life-long learner is essential in the ever-changing digital age.

Bionics in education

As energy efficiency enters every conversation around automation projects, Festo has turned

to nature to understand how to optimize movement. For example, this year, Festo created the BionicSwift which mimics the movement of the small swift or swallow birds. When designing the robotic bird, the focus was on the use of lightweight structure, just like the biological role model, which gives it aerodynamic agility and energy efficiency.

“Using 3D technology, we optimized the structure with high material efficiency,” said Karoline von Häfen, head of bionic projects at Festo. “Less weight means less energy consumption.”

The lightweight wings fan out during the upstroke so that air can flow through the wing, which means the birds need less force to pull the wing up. During the downstroke, the wings close up to generate more power to fly. “Agile and small, they can fly curving and looping, and you can hardly tell them apart from their natural role model,” von Häfen said.

So, what does the bionic bird mean to manufacturing? “[Using] the intelligent networking of a flying object, you can create a 3D navigation system for the factory of the future,” von Häfen said. “You can also use autonomous flight robots for material transportation to improve the use of space in the factory.”

Festo has invested in bionic technology to not only help visualize what the factory of the future could do, but to also inspire future generations. Using bionics as an educational tool is the perfect way to engage with students at an

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PERSPECTIVES 13 AW AUGUST 2020

early age. To do that, Festo has combined biology, mechanics, and robotics into a kit for education. A bionic fish, for example, can be optimized to swim faster or slower. A bionic flower mimics sensitivity to light or how leaves open and close.

“Digitization has two facets. One is as a subject matter, you can’t do it if you don’t understand the cloud, Big Data, and IT [information technology],” said Dr. Hans Jörg Stotz, chairman of the management board of Festo Didactic SE. “But also its impact on learning.

We are seeing during the coronavirus that the ways we communicate and consume knowledge has changed. Digital media is more prevalent [as is] mobile learning as people want self-paced learning. Going forward, we see AI will be part of this as the next step in the learning path. This is how digitization is beginning to shape learning in the future.”

Indeed, as the industry changes, it will require new types of interactions between humans, machines, and data, Festo officials said.

Dr. Frank Melzer (middle) and Marcus Stemler (right) of Festo discuss how digital pneumatics can save energy.

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14 PERSPECTIVES AW AUGUST 2020

How Automation Advances Affect OEE

By David Greenfield, Director of Content/Editor-In-Chief

F

ew argue about the value of production insights delivered by the well-known overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) calculation. In essence, OEE is a great tool to help understand how well a line is running.

This metric can be used to compare similar production systems and determine where improvements can be made most effectively.

If you're wondering whether or not you need to replace or fix equipment on a line or if you can get more productivity out of an existing line through targeted investments, OEE can be very valuable.

But to deliver insights precisely enough to be of real value in determining new investments—especially in light of all the advances that have been made in automation technologies over the past few years—OEE needs context. And to understand how to connect OEE calculations with operational context as industry increasingly digitizes its operations, Automation World connected with Sam Russem of system integration firm Grantek to get a better grasp on this issue for an episode of the “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast series.

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OEE as a tool

Russem noted that a common mistake he sees manufacturers make when installing software or systems to help determine OEE is that they expect the system alone to drive improvements. “OEE is a tool,” he said.

“It's another tool in your toolbox to let you know where you're struggling. But it's not a prescriptive system that tells you necessarily how to fix a specific problem. So for OEE to drive extra value into your business, you need some type of program and the proper funding around it, whether it’s a continuous improvement engineering team focused on identifying and driving those projects for improvement based on OEE data, or the use of more in-depth analysis tools.”

Despite OEE’s inability to deliver prescriptive corrections on its own, Russem said OEE can illuminate a lot of other roadblocks that could hinder a digital transformation program. “OEE can serve as a checklist to see how ready you are for digital transformation initiatives,” he said.

OEE is capable of doing this because of the core production information it provides. “So

much of digital transformation is about collecting data and putting the proper context around it to drive more informed decisions,” Russem said. “And an OEE project is going to require you to collect some standard data from each of your lines and machines, which means that all those machines need to be networked or somehow communication-enabled to send the raw data to a server or system that can put information around it. It doesn’t have to require the use of cloud computing technologies or machine learning, but it does need the framework to collect and transmit the data. In itself, OEE is not the type of modern transformative technology that I personally associate with digital transformation or Industry 4.0, simply because it's a metric that's been around on paper for years and years.

But it is valuable within a digital transformation initiative as a benchmark to see if you're ready for other data enablement projects and to determine if your digital system [is robust enough to] prescribe changes or identify the key performance indicators to focus on to measure the effectiveness of digital transformation projects.”

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Infrastructure, data integrity, and contextualization

For OEE to play an effective role in the digital transformation of a manufacturing business, the data collection and transmission systems supporting it must be installed and used correctly. Based on his work with a variety of manufacturers, Russem highlighted three common areas that tend to create problems for manufacturers when they're installing systems from which they can derive OEE. Those roadblocks are: infrastructure, data integrity, and data contextualization for enterprise resource planning (ERP) integration.

Infrastructure is a significant roadblock because of the expense. “If you're not collecting data, because you need to get more machines on the network or upgrade PLCs [programmable logic controllers], you might find that the cost of that infrastructure and hardware is going to be higher than the actual cost of the OEE system,” noted Russem. “To overcome this, manufacturers have to think bigger and consider all of the other value be-

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yond OEE that infrastructure upgrades can bring and how that's going to contribute to the overall digital platform. Any digital transformation project is going to need data, so putting the infrastructure in place to support an OEE program will also support the rest of your digital transformation initiative—and that helps support the financial justifications needed for these upgrades.”

Data integrity is another particularly tough roadblock for many manufacturers, according to Russem. “Maybe your part counters aren't accurate; maybe the downtime code sent to OEE isn't really what stopped the line; maybe the way the system counts rework doesn't align with the way it was formerly calculated on paper. Any of these can cause people to not believe the data going into or coming out of the system, and that can lead to a loss of faith in the systems and hinder buy-in and acceptance of it very quickly,” he said. “For these reasons, it’s critical to include time for data validation and to have a plan in place for what you're going to do if you do find a gap during the validation.”

The third issue Russem noted is data contextualization for use by an ERP system. An OEE calculation should be based on what product is being produced on a given line, Russem said. “This can be really valuable if you're expecting to find different evaluations based on what SKU you're running and you want to investigate those differences. Or maybe you have different ideal performance and throughput rates, depending on the product you're running. In either case, the system needs to know that to make sure you're benchmarking against the right thing.”

Russem added that this kind of information isn't always available when starting a new OEE project—and that might mean some level of ERP integration is going to be required.

“In that case, OEE becomes your first step in enabling the digital transformation by connecting production systems to enterprise systems as well to lower-level automation technologies to exchange data automatically,” he explained.

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Delivering IIoT Data Across the Enterprise

By David Greenfield, Director of Content/Editor-In-Chief

W

hen data related to production operations stayed within the realm of plant floor systems, common data tagging procedures for use by controllers or manufacturing execution systems were often sufficient for making the data transferrable and usable by other plant floor technologies. But the idea of digitization for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) or Industry 4.0 initiatives requires the data to be understood by systems beyond the plant floor.

Arlen Nipper, president and chief technology officer at Cirrus Link Solutions, a supplier of IIoT, supervisory control and data acquistion, and manufacturing execution system applications, explains that, “data easily understood by OT (operations technology) functions—for example, temperature—may be unusable in the IT (information technology) realm without more clearly defined parameters describing the data. The IT world may look at a piece of temperature data with no idea if it is scaled across a range like 0 to 4095, Celsius or Fahrenheit, and so on.”

To address this lack of data understandability across systems, Nipper says some companies are solving this problem by manually editing tags in multiple applications outside of OT. “But that process is time consuming, error prone, and in-

efficient,” he says.

A few months ago, Automation World reported on the launch of the Sparkplug Working Group (http://awgo.to/PfroT). This group was designed to address the data transferrance issues noted by Nipper. More specifically, the Eclipse Foundation, which hosts the Sparkplug Working Group, describes the work of the group as being focused on “the definition of technical specifications and associated implementations that rationalize access to industrial data, improve the interoperability and scalability of IIoT solutions, and provide an overall framework for supporting Industry 4.0 for oil and gas, energy, manufacturing, smart cities, and other related industries.”

Nipper explains that Sparkplug is “an open source software specification that provides MQTT clients with a framework to integrate data. The specification articulates three goals: • Define an MQTT Topic Namespace optimized for IIoT; • Define MQTT State Management to take advantage of continuous session awareness; and • Define the MQTT Payload.”

Basically, Sparkplug adds features including birth and death certificates (session awareness) to help contextualize plant floor data. Sparkplug defines how to publish and represent plant floor data so that any subscriber knows what it is and how to use it. This is an important addition to MQTT as MQTT only serves to publish data to a broker and deliver it to multiple consumers.

MQTT, on its own, does not include a methodology for data representation.

Nipper, who also happens to be one of the coinventors of MQTT, provides another example to illustrate how Sparkplug can contextualize plant floor data for use by any system, anywhere.

“Consider a Modbus protocol asking for register 40,027 returning a value of 2047. Most data consumers will have no idea what 2047 represents. Is it a temperature? Is it a pressure? With Sparkplug, instead of calling the register 40,027, it would say: compressor temperature, scale from 0 to 100 degrees Celsius, tied to ‘X’ asset device, is 27 degrees Celsius. With all of the necessary textual information for the data included, instead of one proprietary piece of data, it becomes shareable across the enterprise.”

Beyond the basic transference of data, Nipper notes that, with Sparkplug, machine learning and artificial intelligence applications can use the same standard interface for data without having to know and understand the entire OT environment. “They can subscribe to the OT data and use it immediately for IT functions,” he says.

How MQTT serves to connect IT and OT.

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Bosch Rexroth Reinvents Its Approach to Automation

By Aaron Hand Editor at Large

L

ooking to reinvent your technology, it might make sense to ask what some of the key innovators in the world of technology might do. That’s exactly what Bosch Rexroth did with its latest control platform— reinventing automation rather than just reiterating existing technologies.

“We wanted to do something that would bring significant improvements for the automation market,” said Dave Cameron, director of sales for automation and electrification solutions at Bosch Rexroth. “So we asked, ‘What would automation look like if it were invented by Apple, Google, or another innovative company?’”

The answer involved starting over at the drawing board, which Cameron likens to carmaker Tesla. “They didn’t just take a combustion engine design of the automobile and create an electric vehicle,” he said. “They started with a new design.”

Introducing what it’s calling the ctrlX Automation platform, Bosch Rexroth has done away with traditional boundaries between machine control systems, information technology (IT) and the Internet of Things (IoT). It’s a more flexible and scalable platform, providing both centralized and decentralized automation topologies with the help of a Linux real-time operating system, open standards, app programming capabilities, web-based engineering, and IoT connections.

Bosch Rexroth has a strong focus on primary and secondary packaging applications, and that will serve as a target market for the new automation platform. But it will serve a “vast market of applications,” Cameron said, including additive manufacturing and traditional machine tool operations. End users will be attracted by the space savings in the installation, including the reduction of cabinets required and the elimination of cooling in the cabinets, noted Bipin Sen, regional sales manager for Bosch Rexroth. From the OEM’s perspective, ctrlX Automation provides them with the ability to develop their own applications and their own IP that can be embedded in drives. “It allows OEMs to develop machines

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Bosch Rexroth’s ctrlX Automation platform features open software architecture, a choice of programming language options, and app-based functionality. that are cutting-edge and differentiates them from other OEMs,” he added.

Software-driven design

In the past, machine design was mainly about bringing together pieces and trying to optimize the results. But now we live in a world much more driven by software.

“Machine design and engineering really means software development now,” Cameron said. “The ability to engineer faster is greatly based on software tools.”

The ctrlX Automation platform combines the latest engineering software technologies with all programmable logic controller (PLC) and motion tasks. Software functions are combinable with apps—which could be created by Bosch Rexroth, its customers, or thirdparty suppliers—in a variety of programming languages such as C++ or IEC 61131, script languages such as Python, or new graphical languages such as Blockly.

Bosch Rexroth is calling the new platform the smartphone of automation, with Cameron noting that it mirrors the user-friendliness. “It’s the most flexible platform with the most scalable hardware. Users can create new apps in a

variety of programming architectures,” he said.

“They can also modify apps any time without really changing the hardware of the system.”

The openness of the system liberates machine manufacturers from dependency on the availability of PLC specialists and proprietary systems. Configuration and commissioning of automation components is completely web-based, eliminating the need to install software. The system environment is also available virtually, enabling programming without hardware. The development environment also supports GitHub, providing access to millions of registered users prepared to share code and giving designers access to virtually unlimited support.

Bosch Rexroth says ctrlX Automation cuts engineering time and effort by 30-50%, significantly reducing time to market for new machines.

The ctrlX Automation platform supports all common industrial open protocols and interfaces, Cameron said. More than 30 direct connection options and communication standards are offered, including OPC CONTINUES ON PAGE 19

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Siemens and SAP Integrate Software Applications

By David Greenfield

Director of Content/Editor-In-Chief

I

ndustry has seen a variety of approaches to the digitization of production operations as a means of connecting the plant floor to the enterprise. From the rise of Industrial Internet of Things platforms to internet-connected sensors, one thing has been clear to date—there is no one-size-fitsall solution to the process.

In an effort to provide a more comprehensive approach to industry’s digital transformation, Siemens and SAP have created a technology and expertise partnership to deliver what they call an “integrated end-to-end software solution across product lifecycle, supply chain, and asset management to eliminate process and information siloes and deliver a comprehensive solution for Industry 4.0.”

Supporting the companies’ ability to offer this end-to-end technology is the integration of Siemens Teamcenter and SAP’s S/4Hana.

The companies’ initial focus will be on the discrete manufacturing industries, such as aerospace, automotive, electronics, and industrial machinery.

Beyond software integration, this partnership includes SAP having the ability to offer Siemens Teamcenter software as its core foundation for product lifecycle collaboration and data management, while Siemens will offer SAP Intelligent Asset

Richard Howells, vice president of awareness and thought leadership for SAP’s Digital Supply Chain.

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Management systems and SAP Project and Portfolio Management applications to address product and service lifecycles and enable new collaborative processes between manufacturers and operators.

In their joint announcement, SAP and Siemens said this partnership is designed to help companies “break down the siloes between engineering and business so that manufacturers, product design teams, and service managers have access to the information they need to quickly create and manage customer-centric product and service offerings.”

Klaus Helmrich, CEO of Siemens Digital Industries, added that this collaboration is “about more than just interoperability and interfaces; it is about creating a truly integrated digital thread that unites product and asset lifecycle management with the business that enables customers to optimize production of products.”

Klaus Helmrich, CEO of Siemens Digital Industries.

Explaining the thought process behind such a broad partnership, Richard Howells, vice president of awareness and thought leadership for SAP’s Digital Supply Chain, said, “The companies have seen that, to truly realize the benefits of Industry 4.0, the leaders of the industry must come together and set an industry standard solution that enables the true digital thread connecting supply chain, manufacturing, asset management, and business information and processes.”

Howells added that COVID-19 has highlighted the need for resiliency in industry’s supply chains, “as we see our customers facing fluctuating demand, unstable supply, and constrained capacity across their supply chains. End-to-end supply chain processes are at the forefront of addressing these challenges and are now a boardroom topic. Having visibility and collaboration across all departments, from engineering and R&D, through manufacturing, delivery, and maintenance, and all the way through to how customers use and leverage products and assets are critical.

As we go into recovery mode, companies will need to be poised to deliver to the increase in demand for products and services. This partnership aims to improve time to value for those products and services through design efficiency and accelerated innovations. And for the many customers who use SAP and Siemens solutions; this partnership will provide a clear roadmap for these companies as they make decisions about the technologies that will power their businesses through the COVID crisis and beyond.”

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UA and up-and-coming standards such as time-sensitive networking (TSN) and 5G. “The ctrlX data layer ensures that the realtime and non-real-time data exchange is shared across domains and reduces the engineering effort,” Cameron added.

Future-proof technology

Beyond future communication standards Bosch Rexroth is looking to future-proof ctrlX Automation in a number of ways, such as with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, which Cameron calls the “keys to realizing the factory of the future.” Bosch’s definition of the factory of the future is the “ability to be flexible, be connected, and be able to handle a lot size of one,” he added.

The platform takes advantage of the trends in technology that enable more powerful processing capabilities in ever-smaller form factors. It’s based on a new generation of multicore processors that provide sufficient processing power for almost all automation tasks and can be integrated into embedded PCs and industrial PCs, or directly into drives.

The system’s new hardware and software module can reportedly cover all automation tasks—from simple control applications and IoT applications to high-performance motion control. The complete automation system includes IoT, PLC, software (ctrlX Works), motion, safety, drives and motors, I/O, control system (ctrlX Core), industrial PC, and humanmachine interface components.

The ctrlX Drive is a new drive system that enables extremely modular machines, Cameron said. “It reduces hardware, speeds up installation, significantly reduces software installation, and integrates functions that previously required a lot more space,” he said.

“What we’re after is enabling space savings of up to 50%.” In fact, the redesigned drives enable 40 axes to fit within just 1 m of space.

Portions of ctrlX Automation are available now for some applications, including handling and robotic applications. “The portfolio will be expanded continuously over the next few years,” Cameron said.

The app-based system makes it easy to add new automation and control functions at any time. “It’s very flexible in terms of adding the functionality you need and making it more than just traditional machine control,” said Brian Schmidt, applications engineering supervisor for Bosch Rexroth. Users can browse for apps

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and install additional functionality in much the same way as you shop in app stores for your phone, he added, showing off several existing apps that target AI-based analytics, motion control programming with Node-RED, 3D visualization of robotic motion, and more.

“With this architecture, we can stack on func-

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tionality. If we decide a year from now that we want to support a new programming language, it can be added on as an app. It might not even be an app that Bosch Rexroth has developed.”

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Hitachi Vantara Expands Its Digital Manufacturing Portfolio

By Luis Rodriguez Managing Editor

A

s COVID-19 continues to impact the manufacturing industries through fluctuations in market demand and supply chain disruptions, Hitachi Vantara has extended its Lumada portfolio of technologies to address health, safety, and environment issues and deliver supply chain and operations optimization, asset insights, and predictive quality. The new capabilities leverage the company’s Lumada Video Insights and Manufacturing Insights technologies.

Using a combination of thermal cameras, LIDAR, computer vision, and machine learning, Lumada Video Insights enables companies to screen workers non-intrusively for symptoms of COVID-19, as well as monitor for proper hand-washing techniques and social distancing requirements.

Additions to the Lumada Manufacturing Insights software were developed to deliver improved overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and operations efficiency, as well as product quality optimization through predictive and prescriptive insights.

Hitachi Vantara says the expanded Lumada Manufacturing Insights portfolio can be tailored to fit any manufacturing environment or process to converge operations technology and information technology silos, consolidate disparate information, and provide advanced analytics and insights to help drive change across engineering, plant, and business operations.

According to HItachi, its Lumada offer-

ings, coupled with its advisory and consulting services, can enable manufacturers to connect production floor manufacturing execution systems to enterprise resource planning systems to create a digital thread that provides clear visibility into the data of the organization.

Application Kits for Cobots

By Luis Rodriguez Managing Editor

U

niversal Robots (UR) has added 20 software and hardware kits to its UR+ platform for collaborative robot (cobot) applications. The UR+ platform is an ecosystem of products made to integrate with cobots from UR. These kits were developed by UR+ partners to eliminate the duplication of engineering efforts when deploying cobots in large, medium, or small companies. UR says this decreases project risk and complexity, making the cobot application ready for faster implementation in tasks such as: finishing, inspection, assembly, machine tending, material removal, dispensing, and material handling.

One example of these new kits is Robotiq’s finishing kits, which are now compatible with more than 20 pneumatic and electrical orbital tools from a variety of national and

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international brands. This kit allows manufacturers with polishing or sanding processes to use the kit’s built-in path generator to ensure consistent applied force in each cycle to increase quality and productivity while reducing programming time from hours to minutes, says UR.

Included with all kits is UR’s URCap software, which gives users control of all peripherals directly from the cobot’s own teach pendant in a 3D user interface.

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Packaging Industry Remembers John Kowal

By Dave Newcorn

Senior Vice President, Digital & Data

J

ohn Kowal, director of business development at B&R Industrial Automation passed away on July 8, 2020 after a long battle with cancer. Kowal was one of the most influential figures in packaging automation over the past two decades. In the 1990s, Kowal authored a book on PC vs programmable logic controller control.

Joining the servo division at what is now Bosch Rexroth in the late 1990s, Kowal evangelized the potential for servo control for the packaging machinery industry at a time when there was resistance to the new technology. As part of this effort, Kowal was instrumental in propelling the thensleepy OMAC organization into the packaging community in the late 1990s, giving it a sense of purpose and vitality that put it on the map. At the time, OMAC stood for Open Modular Architecture Controls but was later renamed to Organization for Machine Automation and Control.

In 2002, Kowal was tapped to join Elau, a then privately-held German servo control manufacturer that wanted to take on entrenched competitors in the highly competitive U.S. motion-control market. John spearheaded what was considered to be one of the most audacious marketing programs in the field of packaging automation

at that time. Elau grew its presence in the U.S. rapidly from a standing start until it was eventually acquired by Schneider Electric in 2005. Its marketing was a big part of that. Kowal moved on to B&R in 2010, handling marketing for B&R’s global automation business, where he remained until his passing this In honor of John's lifelong passion for July. Throughout this fishing, donations to Michigan's Trout period Kowal became an increasingly active Unlimited are requested in lieu of flowers. and influential member of PMMI, The Association for Packaging tremendous contributor to the automation and Processing, serving on its board of and packaging industries, and in particular directors. During John’s 20+ year career in to OMAC. He was one of the most gracious packaging automation, he relished promopersons I have known; always willing and tion of the latest motion control technolenthusiastic to help in any way he could. ogy to help OEMs make their machines He was a friend, mentor, and role model better for the end customer. to many people throughout the industry.

Following are Kowal’s services to PMMI: Thank you, John, for guidance and friendship. You will be missed!”

• 2010–2013, Global Marketing Committee; Pat Reynolds, emeritus editor at Packaging • 2010—2014, Strategic Planning Committee; World added, “With his unique way of demys• 2012–2015, Board of Directors; tifying controls and automation technology, • 2015–2018, Membership Committee; and John taught me a lot about advanced packag• 2019-2020, Business Intelligence Committee. ing machinery. He’ll be missed.”

Bryan Griffen, director of industry service at PMMI, and a longtime friend and collabortator of Kowal’s, said, “John was a

Conducting Virtual FATs: Best Practices

T

he OpX Leadership Network has released its best practices and leadership guidelines for executing virtual factory acceptance tests (vFATs), to address the changing operational landscape brought on by COVID-19.

This addendum to the existing Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) work product tackles how to most effectively use communication and connection technologies to allow consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies to interact remotely with OEMs. “The pandemic has required new methods

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be established for executing FATs, which are likely to become standard procedures in the post-pandemic ways of working. This document provides the guidance both CPGs and OEMs need to successfully implement these new processes,” says Bryan Griffen, director of industry services, PMMI. “The OpX Leadership Network’s unique perspective in blending CPG and OEM input makes these best practices critical learning for anyone interested in virtual FAT options.”

The OpX Leadership Network was founded in 2011 by PMMI to ensure CPG

companies and OEMs are well-connected and well-prepared to solve common operational challenges, make smarter decisions and achieve operational excellence.

There are two parts to both the FAT work product and vFAT addendum—the playbook and an editable checklist. Both the FAT and vFAT work products, as well as other operational solutions, are available for free download at http://awgo.to/opxdownload.

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MUCH ADO ABOUT DATA QUALITY

By David Miller, Contributing Writer for Automation World

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Ensuring proper data quality for digital transformation initiatives lies in a two-pronged approach that emphasizes technology and human communication.

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A

s the era of Industry 4.0, with its promises of predictive analytics, integrated business planning, and increased operational efficiencies continues to heat up, Big Data is a topic on everyone’s mind. Yet, with so much discussion of the potential value to be leveraged from the growing quantities of data being generated by all manner of sensors and devices, less attention is being paid to the all-too-necessary precursor of effective analytics—data quality.

In this domain, the age-old maxim “garbage in, garbage out” still reigns supreme. Even the most advanced machine learning algorithms are useless when fed poor quality data.

“Data quality is everything,” says Tom Redman, president at Data Quality Solutions. “The first thing is that if you’re using existing data to train a model and you don’t do a really good job cleaning it up, you’re going to get a bad model. Even if the model [you construct] is good, if you put bad data into it, you’re just going to get a bad result. If you stack these things up, it’s like a cascade, and the problem will quickly get out of control.”

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So, how does one define what is or isn’t quality data? This is a challenging question because much of the answer depends on the particular problem you’re looking to solve.

Generally speaking, the quality of data can be measured in accordance with four primary dimensions: accuracy, consistency, completeness, and timeliness.

If values that have been gathered from across a network have accuracy, they properly reflect the information that was produced by each device. For example, if several devices within a single space are all reporting the ambient temperature in that area, data analysts should expect those values to either be the same or within a reasonable deviance from one another. Consistency is similar. When data is consistent, it means that multiple events reported under similar conditions do not exhibit irreconcilable variances. In contrast, completeness is attained when there are no substantial gaps in a time-series of reported events or captured values from sensors. Finally, if data possesses timeliness, it means that it has been able to pass from its initial point of creation through various communication protocols and levels of integration into a data management platform where it can be synchronized with data from other sources quickly enough to effectively be acted on.

While such a whirlwind of metrics and criteria may seem convoluted, Redman says that it can all be boiled down into two simple axioms. Data must be right, meaning that it’s accurate, consistent, and complete. It must also be the right data, which entails not only meeting technical standards of quality, but being unbiased and pertaining to the par-

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ticular range of inputs for which one aims to develop a predictive model. Poorly calibrated equipment may be responsible for shortcomings in the former, but the latter is especially important because it calls on the insight and creativity of human analysts and their ability to communicate their needs to operational technicians who create data further upstream.

Ensuring data quality from the outset

Redman’s approach to ensuring data quality differs from some others in that, while he acknowledges technology is important, he believes that it is first and foremost a management concern. In his view, when communication between data creators and data users is made clearer, it becomes exponentially easier to not only collect the data that is right, but the right data.

“One thing that you’ll notice is that no one ever really creates bad data if they’re going to use it themselves, but a lot of data is created the first time in one part of an organization and not used until somewhere downstream in another part of it. People go along blithely creating the data, and then the people who have to use it say, ‘Oh, this is no good,’ and so they have to clean it,” he

says. “It never occurs to them that maybe they should figure out who’s creating the data and go down there and have a little chat about their requirements. The goal of data quality should be to get out of the cleaning business altogether.”

In other words, a conscious decision needs to be made to develop methods of communication between the various members of an organization whereby the requirements of all data being generated can be clearly delineated. Redman sees this as management’s responsibility to impose, and, if necessary, to provide training for as well.

And while Redman stresses that kinks in the communication pipeline should be fully sorted out before an organization rushes to more sophisticated technological approaches, once a strong workflow has been put in place by management, investing in the right hardware and software is also important.

Increasing data cleaning efficiency

Given the strenuousness of a data janitor’s work, Redman’s stance isn’t surprising. According to Anil Datoo, vice president of data management at Emerson, around 70% of all data integration activities are spent validating, structuring, organizing, and cleaning data, a statistic that was echoed in an article on Big Data in The New York Times in 2014. With so much time being committed to the task of data cleaning and very little headway having been made to reduce it over the past half-decade, working to ensure that more data is in tip-top shape from its inception isn’t a bad strategy.

However, even if such measures can ulti-

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The Outlier Removal function in this Seeq graph is being applied to a fiber length sensor located in a harsh environment, which makes it prone to dropouts and spikes. With the outliers removed, the sensor signal can be contextualized into the appropriate states.

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Emerson’s Rx3i CPL410 edge controller combines deterministic and nondeterministic control and enables users to collect, analyze, and historize data at the machine level for more advanced analytics where the data originates. mately ease the burden of handling data, the sheer volume being created renders it nearly impossible that cleaning can be bypassed altogether, says Michael Risse, vice president and chief marketing officer at Seeq. Moreover, it’s often difficult to know precisely what data will be needed until a new problem has emerged.

As a result, software tools that enhance the efficiency of sorting and cleaning large volumes of data can be an invaluable tool, even in the most organized managerial regimes.

"A critical part of this conversation is that data must be right for your particular analytic. One thing that's vital is making sure the original data is stored in its raw form. If it's summarized—because someone assumed they knew what I wanted to do with it, or it is already somehow altered or cleansed based on someone else's expectations—it might in fact be ruined," Risse says. "I might be looking for exactly the anomalies or outliers which someone else thinks should be removed. One of the big challenges of all of this is that we often don't know what we're going to need until we need it."

From Risse’s perspective, while improving data quality from the outset of an operation might be useful in some contexts, in others, over-sanitizing what’s available could actually create further problems, even under the strictest forms of guidance. That’s why

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Seeq’s software is designed to help users parse large quantities of data more rapidly so that it doesn’t need to be summarized or curtailed earlier on in the pipeline.

A use-case can help illustrate the utility of Seeq’s software. Take, for example, an industry that employs batch production, like pharmaceuticals or food and beverage. Often, if a quality issue emerges, manufacturers will simply dump an entire batch and start production over rather than try to identify the source of the problem because the analytics necessary to do so are so time-consuming that, by the time they have been conducted, the batch will be completed anyway. Using Seeq’s software, the process can be accelerated so that decisions can be made quickly enough to have an impact on the outcome.

“In one example at a refinery we worked with, it was taking them two weeks to get insights on their daily production,” Risse says. “Now, they can turn that decision around in an hour and increase production every year with the same plant, the same assets, and the same people.”

Managing expectations for digital transformation initiatives

valuable advice to offer.

First and foremost, Datoo recommends beginning the transition with a small, targeted project, rather than diving in all at once.

“Our main recommendation is just to start and develop a small use-case. It doesn’t have to be cost prohibitive because there’s a lot of opportunity within operating environments; so if you can just target something that resonates operationally, would have a good return on investment, and can get the attention of operational stakeholders, you’re set,” he says. “Continue to measure success along the way, be flexible, and expect to make iterative changes. There’s no simple answer to these problems, so it’s important to allow for that.”

Similarly, Redman urges adopters to pick a specific problem and stick to it. Too often, he says, organizations make the mistake of hiring data scientists, giving them access to all of the organization’s information, and waiting to see what they come up with.

In Redman’s opinion, such undisciplined approaches are doomed to failure.

Managing expectations is important too.

While improving data quality at the outset is possible with a managerial focus and the tools to improve data cleaning efficiency, organizations shouldn’t expect their digital transformations to reinvent their business overnight, Redman cautions. At the same time, Seeq’s use cases show that, when used properly, data insights can, with time, unlock the key to truly transformative results.

Most importantly, data quality should remain at the core of all digital transformation initiatives. Just as a chef is often only as good as the ingredients provided, data scientists are likewise limited by bad data.

In addition, the two-pronged approach of eliminating the root cause of poor-quality data through management innovations and parsing data more effectively through the use of advanced software points to the farreaching effects of industry’s digital revolution. Far from being the sole province of a few computer analysts, Big Data touches every segment of industry, from operations to administration. And while adapting to this new paradigm isn't without its challenges, businesses hoping to thrive in this era of uncertainty must be prepared to do so.

For those looking to take the plunge in pursuit of becoming a more data-savvy organization, Redman, Datoo, and Risse all have

7/31/20 6:16 AM

Journalists you should know David Greenfield has covered industrial manufacturing for nearly 30 years, having held multiple editorial director and publisher positions prior to joining Automation World magazine in 2011.

Based in Atlanta, David maintains his frequent flyer status covering events across the US and Europe.

Follow David’s popular podcast series— search for it by name on all the major podcast sites and find them at AutomationWorld.com/ podcasts.

Keeping you informed about what matters in digital manufacturing–

Q&A with David Greenfield Among the features you’ve covered recently, what stands out?

No one feature in particular, but rather the digital transformation of industry as a whole has been fascinating to observe and report on.

When you’re not focused on industrial automation, how do spend your time?

Playing guitar, attending concerts at small venues and exploring favorite restaurants, especially Mediterranean cuisine.

Go-to TV series: Better Call Saul, Russian Doll, La Casa de Papel and Ozark Favorite musician: For a musician, this is like asking a parent to name their favorite child, but here’s what I’m listening to lately: The Bright Light Social Hour, Black Pumas, Robert Glasper, Go Go Penguin, and Amanda Shires’ “To the Sunset” album.

Favorite app: Love/hate relationship with Twitter Book you’ve been recommending: Hard to Handle—The Life and Death of the Black Crowes. Having been in the Atlanta music scene since the late 1980s, I saw their transformation, so it was interesting to get the inside story on the band from its inception.

David Greenfield. Worth following.

LinkedIn.com/in/davidjgreenfield Twitter.com/DJGreenfield

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Network Protocols Harmonize Around Time-Sensitive Networking

As the time-sensitive networking standard inches toward completion, excitement is growing over the prospect of bringing information technology and operations technology closer together. The major industrial protocol associations have been working hard with their support groups to adapt their protocols to this emerging standard.

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TIME-SENSITIVE NETWORKING 29 AW AUGUST 2020

By James R. Koelsch, Automation World Contributing Writer

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ime-sensitive networking (TSN) is poised to have the biggest impact on industrial networking since Ethernet was introduced to the plant floor more than two decades ago. “The goal is to ensure a harmonized protocol-agnostic TSN network that avoids different ‘flavors’ based on the protocol used,” says Michael Bowne, executive director of Profibus and Profinet in North America.

TSN is a set of bridging, or switching, standards being developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers under its IEEE 802 networking standards group. “The promise of TSN is to make standard Ethernet real-time capable and entirely deterministic,” explains Ken Austin, senior Ethernet product marketing specialist at Phoenix Contact. “Should the TSN concept be successful, it will mean the removal of network delays and uncertainty in time-sensitive applications via time synchronization and prioritization of data streams through scheduling and coordination of best communication paths.”

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Dr. Al Beydoun, executive director & president, ODVA.

Naturally, this promise has generated a lot of enthusiasm in industry. The major industrial protocol associations have already announced their support for TSN, and some have even gone so far as to publish early concepts of how their protocols will work with it. The associations have also been collaborating with automation vendors to bring TSN to fruition.

Right now, the automation industry is in the midst of a two-step process: the writing of the underlying IEEE standards and the development of a profile for industrial automation. “TSN is not just one thing,” explains Bowne. “It is a collection of IEEE standards that can best be thought of as a toolbox.”

Because IEEE 802 standards cover all industries, each industry will need to identify which of these tools it needs and use them to define a common profile for itself. To develop such a profile for industrial automation, the IEEE and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have joined forces and are working to develop a joint profile called the IEC/IEEE 60802 TSN Profile for industrial automation (TSN-IA profile).

Bowne and others, however, expect that it will be a few years before TSN-based networks will begin appearing in the field. They generally give four reasons. “First, the

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TSN-IA Profile needs to be completed, and the last remaining IEEE standards need to be finalized,” says Bowne.

“The basic TSN technology needed for bridges was completed with the release of IEEE 802.1AS this year,” adds Paul Brooks, manager of technology business development at Rockwell Automation. “Assuming that it will have sufficient scope, the key basic standard for interoperability of applications will be ‘IEEE 802.1Qdj, Configuration Enhancements for TSN’, which is scheduled for a 2023 or 2024 release.” Meanwhile, the IEC/IEEE 60802 joint working group debating the TSN-IA profile is scheduled to be complete in 2021. At least, those were the expectations before the COVID-19 outbreak.

The second reason that implementing TSN will take a few years is that, once the standard and profile is finished, chip makers will need time to produce TSN-capable chips.

“Automation devices will use TSN-based standard communication chips instead of today’s specific real-time Ethernet hardware,” explains Thomas Brandl, communication product owner at Bosch Rexroth.

The third reason involves downstream development cycles. “Automation device manufacturers will need to implement these chips in their devices,” says Bowne.

And finally, the fourth reason, is that endusers must decide that they can install those devices in their factories. “Because you need a whole marketplace of devices for that to happen, it’s going to be a long time before people are going to start seeing TSN in the real world,” Bowne adds.

Once TSN implementation begins, it is expected to start in select applications.

“Small-scale bounded TSN implementations that are limited to single machines will likely be more common initially in existing facilities, and some greenfield develop-

ments could see wider scale TSN rollouts,” says Dr. Al Beydoun, executive director and president of ODVA.

Standards harmonization

To do their part in making that happen, industrial protocol associations are already busy preparing their protocols to accommodate TSN. “The specification for running Profinet over TSN has been written, prepared, approved, and published since mid-2019,” reports Bowne. However, his organization’s work is not finished. It is developing testing procedures that ensure devices conform to the specification.

Bowne attributes the rapid development of the specification for running Profinet over TSN to the fact that many of the mechanisms employed by TSN had already been part of Profinet for many years. For this reason, he expects the long-term effects of TSN on Profinet itself to be minimal.

The OPC Foundation is likewise looking to harmonize with TSN, which it is doing through the Field Level Communications (FLC) initiative OPC launched on November 5, 2018. The organization sees TSN as an opportunity for bringing its OPC UA (Open Platform Communications with Unified Architecture) technology to the field level between controllers and devices such as sensors and actuators.

TSN would allow OPC UA not only to offer an open, standardized, and interoperable product for most industrial communications, but also to provide semantic interoperability from sensors to the cloud.

A key aspect of the FLC initiative is a universal quality of service (QoS) concept. “OPC UA does not define its own transport protocols,” explains Peter Lutz, director of the FLC initiative. “Instead, OPC UA is an industrial

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TIME-SENSITIVE NETWORKING 31 AW AUGUST 2020

EtherNet/ IP Network Architecture with TSN Capabilities.

framework that can be easily adapted to existing transport layers, depending on the different requirements and use cases. This framework already includes mechanisms for a secure, reliable, manufacturer-and platformindependent information exchange.” He also notes that the universal QoS modeling concept allows mapping the modeled information and services to different underlying transport protocols and physical media.

Lutz reports that his organization has specified first use cases and applications that build on the QoS model for controller-tocontroller (C2C) and controller-to-device (C2D) interoperability for factory and process automation. “C2C and C2D require

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cross-vendor semantics for motion control, functional safety, and remote I/O,” he says.

“At the same time, they also demand realtime communication capabilities with guaranteed bandwidth and low latencies.”

The OPC Foundation has already developed many of the required specifications. The first release of the functional safety specification is under review, and the first specification for control-to-control communication was announced at the SPS event in Nuremberg, Germany, in 2019. “The next step will be to extend the OPC FLC standard for the communication between controllers and devices, like I/O and servo drives,” says Brandl. The OPC Foundation launched a Motion Working Group in May 2020 to define the motion profile

for standardized communication between controllers and drives.

Having been involved with the OPC FLC’s working groups from the beginning, Bosch Rexroth is preparing a software upgrade that will allow its new automation control platform to adopt the new communications standard. “The modular architecture of our new ctrlX Core controller allows for using OPC FLC with TSN and EtherCAT simultaneously without mutual impact,” says Brandl.

Accommodating high speeds

TSN will not replace protocols that have excelled in applications requiring highly synchronized, highly deterministic motion control. “TSN is an augmentation to the best effort approach in Ethernet,” explains Bob Trask, North American representative of the EtherCAT Technology Group. “TSN provides bounded determinism in heterogeneous IEEE 802 networks, but it still has a significant latency.” Consequently, high-speed machinery and other motion-control applications will still need an industrial protocol like EtherCAT that can guarantee real-

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“TSN provides bounded determinism in heterogenous IEEE networks, but it still has a significant latency.” time communication of data.

EtherCAT will be able to continue making those guarantees because it can be incorporated into TSN-based networks, and vice versa, without any changes to the devices.

This incorporation involves an upgrade on the master side of the network and a moderate extension in the bridges connecting EtherCAT segments. “We’re working with Beckhoff Automation to develop a TSN coupler that basically sets up a talker and a listener TSN pipeline to stream EtherCAT messages,” says Trask.

EtherCAT’s bridging concept relies on shared frame forwarding and processing on the fly to streamline communications. “It can pack a frame with many nodes of information going to a bunch of slave devices,” says Trask.

Consequently, integrating EtherCAT into a

Bob Trask, North American representative of the EtherCAT Technology Group.

TSN network does not need a port for each slave and can get by with fewer ports, which reduces both complexity and latency.

Inserting a TSN infrastructure between the master and the slave segment also creates a logical separation. The result is greater flexibility for master devices, a guaranteed maximum for latency, and a predictable frame loss rate.

The CC-Link Partner Association (CLPA) has also incorporated TSN into its protocol, releasing CC-Link IE TSN in November 2018 as a technology for deterministic, high-speed control. “Having CC-Link IE TSN supported natively in devices will allow doing safety, motion, and control on machines and devices that were previously disconnected,” says Tom Burke, who is both global strategic advisor for CLPA and global director of industry standards at Mitsubishi Electric Automation. Because of TSN, the machines and devices will now be able to perform transactional control.

Burke reports that CC-Link IE TSN is already being adopted in Asia and that CLPA is also working with its partners to deploy it in Europe and North America. The plan is for CC-Link IE TSN to be CLPA’s flagship protocol. “Because we have a huge installed base of devices from all of our partners that support our current protocols, CC-Link IE field and CC-Link IE control, we have a migration plan that allows our suppliers to add support for CC-Link IE TSN to their existing devices,” says Burke. “We are working with our suppliers on the appropriate bridges and gateways to make this a reality.”

A wait-and-see approach

Not all protocol associations have released their adaptations yet. “ODVA has chosen a measured approach by waiting until the TSN standards are finalized before adapting

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EtherNet/IP for TSN,” reports Beydoun at ODVA. He and his colleagues want to avoid false starts and any resulting adverse effects on the many contributors and users in the EtherNet/IP ecosystem.

This strategy, however, doesn’t mean that ODVA has been idle. On the contrary, it has been busy working through strategic member groups to adapt its EtherNet/IP for TSN. Part of the groups’ mandate is to develop adaptations that will allow EtherNet/IP to support the TSN standard without any proprietary modifications.

“All current technologies—including DLR (Device Level Ring), CIP (Common Industrial Protocol) Motion, and CIP Sync—will be able to adopt methods that 60802 defines through the introduction of new hardware, and some through the introduction of firmware upgrades,” says Beydoun. The member groups are working to keep the additional technology to a minimum and to ensure that existing EtherNet/IP installations will be able to take advantage of their past investments.

One of these strategic members, Rockwell Automation, has been supporting this work on a few levels. At the 2020 ODVA Industry Conference, for example, a representative delivered a presentation on adapting CIP Motion for TSN (http://awgo.to/LQvgX). The automation vendor is also supporting the standard through prototyping activities in its pre-product development.

“Fortunately, because EtherNet/IP was designed using standard, unmodified Ethernet and the TCP/UDP/IP software suite, we believe that the primary impact of TSN will be on product hardware,” says Brooks. “The impact on the protocol will be relatively small.”

7/31/20 6:12 AM

CASE STUDY 33 AW AUGUST 2020

SOFTWARE HELPS CONSUMER GOODS MANUFACTURER THRIVE AMID PANDEMIC UNCERTAINTY Skin Actives proves that digitizing production operations doesn’t necessarily require big ticket software technologies.

Modern Material Requirements Planning software can address every step in the production process, from order processing to fulfillment.

By Jeanne Schweder, Contributing Writer for Automation World

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hen sourcing ingredients and materials from around the world, and making dozens of different and often customized products, staying organized is a mammoth task. That’s especially true for a small manufacturer like Skin Actives, a manufacturer of skin and hair care products.

To get a better handle on the company’s operations, Skin Actives chose MRPeasy, a

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cloud-based material requirements planning (MRP) software specifically designed for companies with 200 or fewer employees. This manufacturing-centric software was introduced six years ago and is now being used or tested by an estimated 1,000 manufacturers worldwide to keep track of everything from inventory control to demand forecasting to managing production workflows.

“There’s a lot of redundancy built into

MRPeasy to help us stay on top of sourcing, inventory, and orders, which has been particularly valuable during the virus shutdown,” explains Michelle Murnighan, chief of operations at Skin Actives. “Like everyone, we’re working with reduced staff, but the software enables us to know which sources of material to use for each order, what staffing is needed, and how long and how much it will cost to make a product. This was particularly impor-

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Testing incoming ingredients to make sure they meet specifications is an important part of the workflow for Skin Actives.

tant at the beginning of the shutdown when we had a major increase in online ordering.”

Skin Actives sells directly to consumers and professional salons, as well as distributors and online merchants, both under the Skin Actives brand and as white label products. “When we receive an ingredient, the software automatically gives it a lot number so we can designate which lot to draw from—whether we’re making standard or customized products. Batch number allocation is also necessary to comply with FDA regulations,” adds Murnighan.

The company has a staff of 15 and annual sales of more than $2 million. The company is based in Gilbert, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix. While raw ingredients and materials for manufacturing are sourced from the U.S., Europe, Australia, China, and other Asian countries, all products are made in the U.S. Sources of materials used by Skin Actives range from one-person specialty operations to large corporations, supplying everything from essential oils, botanical ingredients, and research chemicals to packaging.

While some ingredients are kept in stock, others are ordered on demand. This makes staying on top of inventory especially important when it comes to bulky packaging imported from China, which has a lead time of many months to minimize shipping charges.

Skin Actives replaced its original hybrid customer relationship management (CRM)

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and MRP software with MRPeasy in March 2017. The software is used for every step in the production process, from taking an order all the way through the manufacturing process, including private label sales and fulfillment. The company also uses MRPeasy for data analysis, looking at historical trends to create demand forecasting. This enables a more efficient purchasing process and avoids product shortages.

The software is used by all employees, including customer service for order entry and CRM interactions.

“Different views of the data are determined by user profiles, so different functions see the most appropriate information for their job,” says Murnighan. “This allows workers to verify information or error check without having to consult with managers. The quality control department, for example, can check incoming ingredients to ensure specifications have been met.

They can also attach certificates of analysis and compare each lot to prior lots.”

Murnighan says MRPeasy has been particularly useful in five key areas. First and foremost is its ability to allocate lot or batch numbers to products or ingredients, which allows for traceability at all times. “We used to have to create a traceable trail using a paper-based manual process, which made tracing a nightmare and often required us to recall additional products to make sure we had caught everything. Now, if there’s ever

a problem with a product, we can locate the source of the issue immediately.”

Inventory management is another area that’s seen a vast improvement. “We can track product movement much better now,” she explains. “We have the ability to enter in customer write-offs when there is a need to dispose of a portion of an order or damaged product. We can also see the reason for stock counts being off or lost ingredients.”

Tracking bills of materials is also easier.

“This software allows us to keep a change log that we can view at any time,” says Murnighan. “If a customer says they want to change and go back to a version we supplied them before, we can do so easily.”

MRPeasy has even helped Skin Actives better define its workflows. “It uses workstation systems, so we can note every step of the process,” she says. “This helps a lot with costing since it lets us see how much labor is going into a product, especially when it’s a custom one. It also gives us ideas for efficiency improvements.”

Murnighan says one of the most important benefits of MRPeasy has been the ability to have complete information sharing across the facility. “It’s been fantastic, and it’s very intuitive to use. Everyone can see everything, which helps with the flow of information. It helps everyone connect to the process flow and where products stand in the process.”

7/31/20 6:09 AM

INDUSTRY-SUPPLIED CONTENT 35 AW AUGUST 2020

Time-Sensitive Networking: Five Ways the IEEE Standards Will Advance Industry 4.0 Understanding why the data accessibility provided by Time-Sensitive Networking will help industrial organizations achieve the promise of Industry 4.0.

Jordon Woods,

director of deterministic Ethernet technology, Analog Devices

A

cross the world, I meet with customers investing hundreds of thousands, even millions, into making the promise of Industry 4.0 a reality.

This new paradigm of ubiquitous connectivity is inspiring manufacturers, from the largest automation OEMs to emerging businesses. They see the potential to make their businesses more productive, efficient, adaptable, and profitable for the bottom line and, ultimately, for their employees, stakeholders, and customers.

Industry 4.0 promises unprecedented levels of flexibility that translate into agile production by allowing manufacturers to adapt to seasonal or changing customer needs, for example. We will be able to improve uptime (which controls overhead and maintenance costs), reduce resource time and involvement, and boost business and customer confidence. These are just a few examples of potentially industry-changing outcomes we can anticipate as a result of the fourth industrial revolution.

Underscoring these massive opportunities is the need to acquire, communicate, and analyze data. Data, and most importantly the insights extracted from that data, is the currency by which all of these improvements can be obtained. However, in most factories today, data lives in siloes where it sits isolated and inaccessible, and therefore, unactionable. For years, manufacturers have tried to solve for this, but working in siloes has stunted these projects.

Enter Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN), a set of

Requirements for time sensitive networks.

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IEEE Ethernet standards that is foundational for meeting the many powerful outcomes of Industry 4.0. With TSN, all data across the factory—from the floor to servers, front office, and everywhere in between—can coexist and communicate. Because TSN is the first step to breaking down existing data siloes that hinder industrial communications, it can enable ubiquitous access to precious, decision-making data.

TSN is the jumping off point for helping industrial organizations achieve the promise of Industry 4.0 in five key ways, all rooted in making data more accessible: • Creates a common language. By creating a uniform understanding of time synchronization—and uniform treatment of all data packets and information—TSN allows data to speak a common language. While equipment interoperability challenges will still exist, manufacturers will be able to derive more value from their data that can now all coexist in the same Ethernet path.

• Enables scalability and agility. TSN can help Ethernet manage a range of transmission rates for data sends so that there is enough bandwidth for data throughput at all priority levels. Ultimately, manufacturers can add or reduce capacity more easily and adapt to changing customer priorities and needs.

• Supports more reliable automation. TSN supports the real-time, deterministic

data crucial for accuracy and precision.

If the timing of a data point (a signal, for example) is delayed or off in any way, a machine may not respond properly and cause downstream impacts that decrease productivity and result in lost revenue. Consider, for example, the precision required for a robot to work alongside a human; if the robot’s movements are off by even a fraction of an inch, worker safety can be jeopardized. TSN facilitates instantaneous communication applications like this and many more to improve safety and quality.

• Helps close the divide between information technology (IT) and operating technology (OT) specialists. By providing a common set of tools, TSN supports the often distinct and competing goals of IT and OT teams. It presents a common framework, a shared language, that supports collaboration. Additionally, we’re seeing many OT specialists near retirement age, meaning they’ll take their historical expertise of today’s field buses to retirement with them. TSN has the potential to solve for these future skills gaps by providing a common framework that enables IT specialists to support industrial Ethernet. This saves resources and can increase productivity.

• Allows companies to allocate their R&D spend elsewhere. Since TSN solves for

bandwidth constraints, companies no longer need to build new bandwidth allocations when they try to scale up or add new capacity. We’ve seen companies invest tens of millions in infrastructure that becomes obsolete or ineffective just a decade later. TSN dramatically reduces the need for rebuilding and thus creates opportunity for investment in technologies that support greater automation.

It frees up capital for reinvestment in upskilling employees by training them to manage and operate complex robotic systems, for example.

There is no doubt that TSN standards are a crucial, foundational building block for the promise of Industry 4.0 and the many applications it will transform—ushering in the next generation of technology to revolutionize how manufacturers work and operate. Yet it’s just one piece of a broader ecosystem we’re building to bring the fourth industrial revolution to life. That requires software, middleware, advanced silicon components, brilliant inventors and engineers, dedicated technicians and operators, education, and time. But my colleagues at Analog Devices and across the industry believe in the incredible potential of these emerging technologies and, like our customers and partners, feel inspired by the nearly endless opportunity.

Time sensitive networks solve the four main requirements of time, traffic shaping, synchronization, and bounded latency.

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7/31/20 6:08 AM

NEW PRODUCTS 37 AW AUGUST 2020

Medium Voltage Service-Oriented Drive

Schneider Electric, www.schneider-electric.com/us The Altivar Process 6000, equipped with the EcoStruxure Asset Advisor, can help optimize operations by enabling process optimization, improving energy management, enhancing asset management, and providing a tailored engineering system. It allows businesses to plug into the Industrial Internet of Things to manage maintenance tasks on assets with preventive and predictive management based on real-time assessments and predictive analytics. The inclusion of EcoStruxure Asset Advisor transforms data into insights to help run operations more efficiently and safer, with greater availability and increased profits, and can deliver greater energy management through smart data collection, real time performance information, and lifetime energy monitoring to reduce consumption rates.

IoT Bridge Cloud Data Logger with I/O

AutomationDirect, www.automationdirect.com SE-PB100 Stride Pocket Portal is a low-cost, wireless Industrial Internet of Things end-to-end cloud data logger that connects industrial equipment and sensors to the cloud. The Pocket Portal has an RS-485/power port, input/output port and browser interface. It provides limited control with Modbus RTU write capability (up to 115.2k baud) and 3 VDC discrete output logic. With this unit, unmonitored devices can become Internet-of-Things-connected and be monitored with Modbus RTU via four digital and two analog inputs. Features include panel or 35 mm DIN rail mounting; operating temperature range of -20 to +70 °C (-4 to +158 °F); Wi-Fi, power, and Bluetooth LED indicators; and CE and FCC agency approvals.

The unit requires a Wi-Fi internet connection and a monthly data subscription.

Fanless Ultra Compact Embedded System for Edge Computing

Axiomtek, us.axiomtek.com The eBOX100-51R-FL is powered by the high-performance Intel Core i5-7300U or Intel Celeron 3965U processor. Weighing just 600 grams, the unit shares the features of the company’s eBOX100 series—ultra-slim form factor, rugged design, and I/O connectivity—that provides flexibility and a range of applications in edge computing as an Industrial Internet of Things gateway. The front-facing I/O connectivity design provides convenient access for easier installation and maintenance. The system comes with one DDR4-2133 SO-DIMM slot with system memory up to 16 GB, two RS-232/422/485 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, one DisplayPort++, one AT/ATX quick switch, one screw-type 12VDC power input connector, and two SMA type antenna openings. In addition, it is equipped with one M.2 Key E 2230 slot for Wi-Fi and one M.2 Key B 2242 for SATA storage.

Hazardous Area Approved Surge Protectors

Ametek Drexelbrook, www.drexelbrook.com These surge protectors secure instrumentation, personnel, and the environment from induced surge and transients from field cabling on installed certified instrumentation, as well as on new applications. These surge protectors are intrinsically safe and flameproof approved and provide up to 20 kA surge current isolation. The units are certified with FM, ATEX, IECEx, in addition to other global safety certifications. The screw-in mounting of the surge protector allows the surge protectors to be mounted inside the actual hazardous area without compromising approvals.

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7/31/20 8:43 AM

38 NEW PRODUCTS AW AUGUST 2020

120 W Triple Output Programmable Power Supply for Automated Test Applications

Saelig Company, www.saelig.com ABI Programmable Power Supply (PPS) suits a wide variety of automated test and measurement scenarios. Part of the ABI System 8 series of automated test modules, the PPS can also be used as a versatile standalone PC-controlled power supply. Each output is independently adjustable and can provide 40 W of power (1 A @ 40 V rising to 8 A @ 5 V under all AC supply conditions) with a resolution of 1 mV and 1 mA. All channels are isolated and have equal capabilities. The output polarity can be reversed under software control. Channels can be combined into arbitrary groups for easy multichannel control; any number of channels can be added to a group, and up to three independent groups can be created.

Line Scan Camera for Inline Nondestructive Inspection Using SWIR imaging

Hamamatsu, https://www.hamamatsu.com The C15333-10E InGaAs line scan camera uses short-wavelength infrared (SWIR) imaging. The unit is a high-sensitivity, low-noise camera with a fast line rate, and is suitable for industrial needs. Its high sensitivity in the SWIR region from 950 nm to 1700 nm, 1024-pixel array with 12.5 µm x 12.5 µm pixel size, and built-in pixel correction functions all contribute to high-accuracy inspection.

The unit also ensures highly efficient and high-throughput inspection thanks to its fast line rate (40 kHz max) and GigE interface. In addition, its compact design and low cost make it easy to integrate into inline inspection systems. The camera’s dimensions are 49 mm x 49 mm x 100 mm, and it weighs only 250 g.

Temperature Transmitters with Bluetooth

Endress+Hauser, www.us.endress.com The iTEMP TMT71 and TMT72 transmitters offer innovative functions, high measuring performance, and ease of use across industries. These single-channel transmitters feature a user-friendly operation concept and wireless communication via Bluetooth in conjunction with highly accurate and reliable measurements. Both units are available with an integrated Bluetooth interface that enables users to display measured values wirelessly, perform configuration tasks, and can be operated using the company’s SmartBlue app. Access to the device is password-protected and the security concept for Bluetooth communication complies with safety standards. The units can be configured using device drivers stored in the transmitters.

COM Express Type 10 Carrier Hosts Four mPCIe I/O Modules

Acromag, www.acromag.com The ACEX4041 interfaces four I/O module slots to an Intel Atom COM Express CPU module on a Mini-ITX format for a variety of data acquisition and control applications. Provisions are provided for both M.2 and SATA SSD data storage, plus a variety of peripherals on board the unit. Ports for two RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0, two RS-232, one Mini-DisplayPort, and audio connections are also included. The I/O modules support conduction cooling and are rated for -40 to 85 °C (-40 to 85 ºF) operation. Power is sourced from a 10-36 VDC and/or ATX supply with redundant, auto-switch power capability. A development system package is available to simplify evaluation and proof-of-concept engineering efforts in a lab.

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7/31/20 6:06 AM

NEW PRODUCTS 39 AW AUGUST 2020

LEADERSHIP IN AUTOMATION Industrial Box Thin Client

Pepperl+Fuchs, www.pepperl-fuchs.us The BTC14 Box Thin Client is designed for use in harsh industrial environment conditions and 24/7 operation. Equipped with four DisplayPort interfaces, the BTC14 is able to support up to four Ultra HD monitors with 4K resolution at 60 Hz, making it usable in quad monitor installations. An additional DP++ option also allows users to connect HDMI monitors. Like the BTC12, the BTC14 is equipped with modern interface technology, such as dual Gigabit Ethernet for network redundancy, serial interface port to support legacy peripherals, 4 USB ports for modern peripherals, and wide range DC power input for office and industrial applications. All connectors of the BTC14 can be mechanically secured to prevent disconnection, even in the event of vibration.

Vote online for your favorite suppliers! automationworld.com/leaders Show your appreciation! for a commitment to excellence among automation suppliers.

Support innovation and leadership in manufacturing automation.

Touch Panel PC Brings Control Room Capabilities to Field Operations

Honeywell Process Solutions, www.honeywellprocess.com The Experion PPC combines the company’s Experion human-machine interface with touch-screen functionality on a true-widescreen 1080p display, improving field operator effectiveness by up to 20% in abnormal situations. The unit is certified for Class 1, Division 2 hazardous locations and can be used throughout a plant while meeting rigorous, real-time process control demands in extreme environmental conditions. Extending the Experion human-machine interface from the control room to field operations enables customers in industries such as oil and gas, refining, chemicals, power, renewable energy, and metals to significantly reduce total cost of ownership. Depending on the system availability needs, the unit can perform as a remote Experion HS station, as an Experion HS Panel server with station, or as a remote thin client connecting to the engineering station.

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7/31/20 6:05 AM

40 ENTERPRISE VIEW AW AUGUST 2020

Strengthening OEM Supply Chains for Challenging Times Brian R. May

managing director, Industrial North America, Accenture

G

lobal supply chains of OEMs—from automakers and heavy equipment producers to electrical equipment companies—are being impacted by COVID19. As part of prevailing during the recovery, such industrial companies will need to create more resilient and agile supply systems.

Supply chains are facing multiple challenges that are having adverse effects along all dimensions. Examples of these challenges include worker and operations safety; production difficulties due to inventory imbalances; manufacturing excess or capacity shortages; shipping restrictions; and labor availability.

Among the most challenging issues is satisfying uncertain demand in some instances while keeping pace with accelerated demand driven by supply shortages.

In this environment, OEMs will need to improve the resilience of their supply chain by ratcheting up the ability of their organization to sense, understand, and anticipate radical shifts in demand, and develop more agile business systems that can rapidly adapt and respond to it.

Key to achieving these improvements will be to create an intelligent supply chain that includes providing the organization’s workforce with new ways of using digital technology. Moreover, there are a range of other actions companies can take to enable the supply chain to withstand significant changes in its environment and enhance agility.

Resilience building

To build resilience, companies need to: • Establish a real-time control tower for optimal visibility of potential process incidents, such as ruptures, major plan deviations,

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quality, lead-time, and cost issues.

• Improve the ability to anticipate and mitigate volatility and risk using the control tower and embedded predictive analysis.

• Prioritize demand across customer segments to address supply shortages.

• Reskill the workforce to enable greater flexibility in making needed changes and corrections.

• Institute near real-time simulation to more effectively assess changes required to quantify performance impacts and future projections.

Providing agility

To build in agility, companies need to: • Accelerate flexibility and differentiation of products to provide faster customization.

• Use the operating model process and structured decision-making to expedite faster decision-making.

• Create agile systems that can rapidly respond to changes that include quickly reconfiguring manufacturing modular assets.

• Connect with ecosystem partners that can aid in responding quickly to customer needs and challenging demand.

These supply chain steps are fundamental to setting the foundation for helping industrial organizations address current and new issues that will likely arise during the recovery. For example, there remains a high dependency on the human workforce that will be even more critical during the recovery, and this will include the need to fill talent gaps.

Creating a vision

As OEMs deliver products, services, and experiences around the world, they are facing multi-country supply chain disruptions. Information technology (IT) and its operating cost are growing, and greater flexibility is required to enable companies to produce the tailored, customized products and services that customers have come to expect. Companies are also having difficulty distributing parts and materials and tracing the country-source of products. These are all challenges that industrial organizations should be prepared to act on.

Going forward, it will be important to have a vision. The value chain of OEMs is as broad as the supply chain and can yield invaluable insights into cost control and growth opportunities that will be essential to succeeding in the current environment.

Companies should engage in scenario planning that includes assessing the organization’s strategy resilience against extreme world developments, and gauging supply chain resilience against current and potential business targets. In addition to digitizing the supply chain wherever possible and rethinking worker roles, augmenting operations with automation, such as robotics, should be considered along with re-imagining the back office to aid agility. Given that companies are experiencing budget constraints, automating and re-inventing the back office could add value that can be re-directed to investment in supply chain capabilities.

Supply chains are at the heart of enabling industrial companies to serve a wide range of business customers and consumers. Strengthening their resilience and agility will help companies more effectively ramp up during the recovery and sustain success in the future.

As OEMs deliver products, services, and experiences around the world, they are facing multi-country supply chain distruptions.

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INDUSTRY VIEW 41

Virtual Commissioning Evolves into Model-Driven Digital Twin

By Dick Slansky Senior Analyst, ARC Advisory Group

V

irtual commissioning (VC) technology allows manufacturing and controls engineers to virtually simulate manufacturing production systems and validate that the physical packaging machines, conveyance systems, automotive production systems, robotic work cells, and controls will all physically function as designed.

VC uses a virtual model that represents an accurate 3D simulation of mechanical, electrical, and controls systems to validate the physical functions of a production system prior to implementation. The inherent complexity of integrating the different engineering disciplines previously necessitated a labor-intensive commissioning process. VC technology and applications were developed to greatly reduce or eliminate the physical process, shortening the time to launch, and ultimately producing significant cost savings.

The initial VC applications emerged as part of the overall digital manufacturing portfolios offered by product lifecycle management suppliers. Here, 3D CAD models of machines, robotic work cells, and production systems could be used to virtually simulate motion and production functions. The other part of VC involved creating software that would emulate the control systems to virtually test the physical system. Today, we are seeing the convergence of traditional VC with the more recent emergence of the concept and implementation of the digital twin.

The evolution of VC

The automation industry has long acknowledged the benefits of using virtual models to simulate the performance of physical systems, enabling integration issues to be identified before entering the time-consuming and

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AW AUGUST 2020

expensive process of physical commissioning.

To successfully implement VC, however, the virtual factory model must be accurate. While these types of simulation models were used with some success in the aerospace and automotive industries, this was not the case in the overall automation market.

Controls engineers and automation researchers have organized four categories of general controls development: • Physical commissioning, which involved testing the physical systems (factory production systems) against the hardware without the assistance of virtual modeling tools.

• Model-in-the Loop (MiL) where the application creates a logic model of the programmable logic controllers (PLCs), humanmachine interfaces (HMIs), and electrical and mechanical systems. The application connects the logic model to a simulation model of the production system.

• Software-in-the-Loop (SiL) is the software code that runs the logical model.

• Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) testing, which uses a virtual production systems model to test the hardware controllers. This is sometimes referred to as controls emulation.

scope and involves capturing sensor data from physical machines and systems in operation and using that data to create simulations in real time. Because of its real-time characteristics, a digital twin can simulate a system while it is operational, allowing manufacturers to monitor the system, create models for adjustments, and make changes to the system.

The actual VC process is usually an iterative approach using MiL, SiL, and HiL concurrently.

Once the MiL is complete, controls engineers use SiL testing to verify that the logic in the model is consistent once it has been compiled into machine code. If no errors are found at this stage, final HiL testing is conducted by compiling the software onto the physical PLC or HMI. Today, suppliers of robust VC development and simulation platforms typically provide a range of simulation and VC applications that meet this approach.

With systems design modeling tools, the creation of a model-driven digital twin can begin concurrent to the design process. Model-driven digital twins make VC more accessible and add the power of advanced simulation technology and capability to the overall automation process.

The primary goal of the commissioning process, whether physical or virtual, is to bring a completely integrated, assembled, and validated mechanical, electrical, and controls software production system into operation. The challenge for successful VC implementation goes beyond just virtually emulating controls logic for the automation hardware. It involves integrating all the engineering disciplines of mechanical, electrical, and software logic design into a systems design approach that normalizes the constraints that each system places on the other.

VC becomes part of the digital twin

Today, we’re seeing the convergence of established VC technology with the more recent emergence and implementation of digital twin technology across industry and business.

While VC represents the simulation and modeling of machines and production systems to virtually validate the system and the controls that automate it, the digital twin is broader in

Model-driven digital twin advances VC

For VC to become a practical technology across manufacturing and automation, automation generalists need to be able to create and use the virtual models for complex simulation applications. The development of advanced, modeldriven design methods have taken the form of the digital twin. Additionally, the continuous advancement of simulation modeling applied to today’s production systems offers a much more robust and accurate virtual representation than the earlier and simpler modeling tools for VC. Moreover, the software development standards for model rendering and connectivity have been improved significantly. Taken together, these make VC more practical for the automation industry.

Model-driven digital twins

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42 INTEGRATOR VIEW AW AUGUST 2020

T�e Importance of Operator Feedback on New Systems Evan Barnett

ebarnett@avanceon.com project engineer, Avanceon

By showing the operator as much information as possible—without overwhelming them with unnecessary details—we were able to make their transition to a new system as easy as possible.

2008_IntegratorView.indd 42

R

ecently, I was at a customer site for a project startup. As I watched the operators going about their day, interacting with both our newly supplied human-machine interface and some pre-existing screens that we hadn’t developed, one incident really caught my attention. An operator pressed a button on screen to open a valve. Nothing happened. He pressed again. Still nothing happened. After a third attempt with the same results, he walked over to the valve and opened it by hand.

The operator went on to explain that this was a relatively common occurrence—the button had always seemed to be temperamental. To see how this button actually went about opening the valve, I began investigating their code. It turned out there were six different conditions, in which at least one had to be met for the button to have any effect. I could find nothing on the screen, however, that gave any indication this was the case. Whether the conditions were met or not, the button looked and behaved exactly the same way. When it didn’t work, there were no messages indicating why. As far as an operator could tell, it was just a software glitch.

Before leaving the site, I met with the operators to get their feedback on the newly installed system. One of the things they appreciated most was how clear everything was. This was achieved in a few ways. On the buttons themselves, we placed indicators so the operators would know when they could be used or not.

Operators also had access to a popup window with the list of reasons as to why they couldn’t be used.

By showing the operator as much information as possible—without overwhelming them with unnecessary details—we were able to make their transition to the new system as easy as possible.

This situation serves as a good reminder of something that can be easily overlooked when developing a project: Don’t forget the operator. Often times, projects are designed and developed without actually talking to the end users. But project success hinges on acceptance of a new system by everyone, not just management.

Including operator input as part of your project plan allows you to deliver a product that is not only useful, but more importantly, user-friendly. That’s the way we approach things, do you agree or have a different approach? Would love to hear it!

7/31/20 5:57 AM

ADVERTISER INDEX 43 AW AUGUST 2020

COMPANY

TELEPHONE

WEBSITE

PAGE #

Automation World Q&A with Dave Greenfield

312.222.1010

LinkedIn.com/in/davidjgreenfield

27

Automation World Leadership in Automation

312.222.1010

automationworld.com/leaders

39

AutomationDirect

800.633.0405

www.automationdirect.com/enclosure-climate-control Cover-2

Beckhoff Automation

952.890.0000

www.beckhoff.us/EtherCAT-P-Box

CIMON, Inc.

800.300.9916

www.cimon.com

1

Digi-Key Electronics

800.344.4539

www.digikey.com/automation

3

Emerson Industrial Automation & Controls

888.889.9170

www.emerson.com/industrial-automation-controls

Galco Industrial Electronics

888.526.0909

www.Galco.com

Hammond Manufacturing

716.630-7030 www.hammondmfg.com

Inductive Automation

800.266-7798

Inductive Automation

800.266-7798 demo.ia.io/automation

PMMI Is Your Answer

571.612.3198 www.pmmi.org

Telemecanique Sensors

800.435-2121 www.tesensors.com/XCWireless

Wago Corporation

800.DIN.RAIL

www.InductiveAutomation.com

19

Cover-4 11 15 Cover-1 Wrap 5 Cover-3 13

www.wago.com/us/planning-pro2

7

AUTOMATION WORLD INDUSTRIAL INTERNET OF THINGS— AUGUST 2020 EPICOR Software

800.999.1809

www.epicor.com

9

Festo

800.99.FESTO www.festo.com

11

MAVERICK Technologies

888.917.9109

www.mavtechglobal.com/dcsnext

13

Opto 22

800.321.6786

www.opto22.com

16

PI North America

480.483.2456

us.profinet.com/go-digital

7

Wago Corporation

800.DIN.RAIL

www.wago.us/IIoT

3

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7/31/20 8:36 AM

44 KEY INSIGHTS AW AUGUST 2020

One way the company ensured this change worked was to put workers’ process knowledge into a central location—known as the Collaboration Support Center. This allows operators, as well as external contractors, to gain remote access into the system to help guide overall operations, focus on early recognition of problems, and optimize operations across Georgia-Pacific’s production sites.

Luis Rodriguez on how Georgia-Pacific is changing the way its IT and OT departments approach the use of new technologies and manage the loss of in-house expertise created by a retiring workforce. http://awgo.to/1085

The implementation of smart manufacturing systems at small-to-mediumsized facilities dispelled concerns that making the digital transformation is too costly, as the total cost for connecting five critical machines and applying four smart systems was very affordable, even for a manufacturer whose annual revenues were only $10-15 million. Concerns about time costs were also eliminated, as each implementation was completed in less than half a day.

Dr. Ananth Seshan of MESA International on digital transformation for smalland medium-sized manufacturers. http://awgo.to/1086

For 5G to be feasible for manufacturers and other industry segments, you are looking at a good five years plus. The 4.9G/LTE solution that exists today, when deployed as a private network, tackles 85% of what’s required for industrial applications.

Stephane Daeuble of Nokia on why manufacturers shouldn’t wait for 5G technologies to coalesce into a full-scale ecosystem. http://awgo.to/1087

The material handling robots have neural networks capable of addressing perception, segmentation, and human pose estimation to perceive their environment, detect objects, navigate autonomously, and move objects. These robots are trained both on real and synthetic data using Nvidia graphics processing units to render ray-traced machine parts in a variety of lighting and occlusion conditions to augment real data.

David Greenfield on BMW’s use of Nvidia’s software development kit to develop specialized logistics robots. http://awgo.to/1088

Digital manufacturing is demolishing long held rules of thumb manufacturing executives have used to guide operations. Increasingly manufacturers must test every assumption against facts and data. This often means creating data to establish information for facts in unexplored or shallowly explored areas of operational and financial systems. It also means extending and integrating manufacturing, financial, sales, and logistics systems in ways that previously have been difficult and expensive.

Larry White of the Resource Consumption Accounting Institute on why effective manufacturing analytics needs input from finance and IT. http://awgo.to/1089

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