Automation World December 2021

DECEMBER 2021 / www.AutomationWorld.com

28 REMOTE ACCESS CYBERSECURITY MANAGEMENT 16 12 22 33 25 39

Securing MQTT Messages Common Attack Vectors for Industrial Control Systems Frito-Lay Deploys Wearable Tech for Worker Safety Pandemic Accelerates Edge-to-Cloud Transformation Integrators Dish on Industrial Technology Trends New Product Innovations

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CONTENTS 5 AW DECEMBER 2021

DECEMBER 2021 | VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 12

Remote Access Cybersecurity Management

28 33 37

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The next big cybersecurity challenge for manufacturers is how to secure the remote access points that have been implemented on the plant floor during the pandemic before hackers can exploit these new channels into the organization.

Pandemic Accelerates Edge-to-Cloud Digital Transformation

An Automation World survey reveals an uptick in both cloud and edge deployments as manufacturers roll out performance monitoring, collaboration, quality assurance, and predictive maintenance applications in support of a newly remote and distributed workforce.

Producing Omega-3 Oils from Marine Algae A broad automation project, for a joint venture by Evonik and DSM, enables initial annual production to meet about 15% of the industry’s current total demand for omega-3 oils.

11/29/21 1:12 PM

6 CONTENTS AW DECEMBER 2021

EDITORIAL

ONLINE 10

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

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS 12

Common Attack Vectors for Industrial Control Systems

BATCH OF IDEAS 13

Leadership in the New World of Work

PRODUCTION POINTS 14

Improving Human-Robot Collaboration for Material Handling Tasks

PERSPECTIVES 15

David Greenfield Director of Content/Editor-in-Chief dgreenfield@automationworld.com / 678 662 3322 Stephanie Neil Senior Editor sneil@automationworld.com / 781 378 1652 David Miller Senior Technical Writer dmiller@automationworld.com / 312 205 7910 Emma Satchell Managing Editor esatchell@automationworld.com / 312 205 7898 Jim Chrzan VP/Content and Brand Strategy jchrzan@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1470 Kim Overstreet Senior Content Strategist, Alignment koverstreet@pmmimediagroup.com James R. Koelsch, Lauren Paul, Jeanne Schweder and Beth Stackpole Contributing Writers

ART & PRODUCTION

Industrial Sensors Boost Vineyard Data Securing MQTT Messages The Path from PID to Autonomy Securing Distributed Control Systems Making Legacy Equipment Connections Work

Filippo Riello Marketing & Digital Publishing Art Director friello@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1200 George Shurtleff Ad Services & Production Manager gshurtleff@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1170

ADVERTISING

NEWS 22

Frito-Lay Improves Workplace Ergonomics with Wearable Technology Volvo Group Capitalizes on Digital Thread Innovations Inductive Automation Explains What’s Next for Ignition Integrators Dish on Industrial Technology Trends Rockwell Automation Fair Highlights Industry Challenges, PlantPAx 5.0 Updates PMMI News PMMI’s unPACKed Podcast: Emphasis on Ease of Operation at PACK EXPO

Kurt Belisle Publisher kbelisle@pmmimediagroup.com / 815 549 1034 West Coast Jim Powers Regional Manager jpowers@automationworld.com / 312 925 7793 Midwest, Southwest, and East Coast Kelly Greeby Senior Director, Client Success & Media Operations Alicia Pettigrew Director, Product Strategy

AUDIENCE & DIGITAL

NEW PRODUCTS 39

David Newcorn Executive Vice President Elizabeth Kachoris Senior Director, Digital & Data Jen Krepelka Director, Websites + UX/UI

Universal Industrial Gateway Edge Vision Analytics Software IEC 61850 Control Module And more...

PMMI MEDIA GROUP

Kurt Belisle Publisher kbelisle@pmmimediagroup.com / 815 549 1034 Reed Simonsis Brand Operations Manager rsimonsis@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 205 7919 Sharon Taylor Director of Marketing staylor@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1710 Amber Miller Marketing Manager amiller@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1130 Janet Fabiano Financial Services Manager jfabiano@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1330

INDUSTRY VIEW 42

Why Quality Management Systems Are So Essential By Dick Slansky

INTEGRATOR VIEW 43

Best Practices for Integrating Plant Floor Automation By Michael De Boer

ENTERPRISE VIEW 44

Accelerating the Industrial Enterprise By Brian May

All Automation World editorial is copyrighted by PMMI Media Group, Inc. including printed or electronic reproduction.

Magazine and Web site editorial may not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher.

KEY INSIGHTS 46

Automation World | PMMI Media Group 401 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1700, Chicago, IL 60611 Phone: 312 222 1010 | Fax: 312 222 1310 www.automationworld.com PMMI The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies 12930 Worldgate Dr., Suite 200, Herndon VA, 20170 Phone: 571 612 3200 • Fax: 703 243 8556 www.pmmi.org

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10 ONLINE

AW DECEMBER 2021

PODCAST SERIES

How to Connect Legacy Equipment for Data Acquisition and Analysis?

In this episode of the “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast series, we connect with Luke Stephenson of Enterprise Automation to understand the best methods for connecting older devices and machines for data analysis.

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AUTOMATION WORLD TV Unpacking Single-Pair Ethernet and Ethernet Advanced Physical Layer

SPE and APL are being heralded as potentially transformative for the process industries. Find out more on this Take Five with Automation World video.

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THE AUTOMATION PLAYBOOK The Automation Playbook is a useful source of information as you look for guidance in how to approach the Industrial Internet of Things, communication protocols, controls implementation, safety, asset management, predictive maintenance, the mobile workforce, and much more.

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AUTOMATION WORLD E-BOOK

Automation Project Survival Guide

Control engineers from around the world have shared their experiences to provide a wealth of practical advice on what to do—and what to avoid—when planning and implementing an automation project.

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ON-DEMAND WEBINARS Robot Teleoperation for Lights-Out Shifts: Futuristic Dream or Today’s Reality?

In this webinar, you’ll learn about remote teleoperation for collaborative robots, which enables users to not only watch a live production line from a remote location but also troubleshoot and correct problems directly from the web browser of your phone or laptop.

Engineering Maximum Performance: A Machine Building Case Study

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Lasercoil, a manufacturer of automotive laser blanking machines, needed to build machines that could accurately cut large, complex shapes from steel coil while maximizing material use and reducing costs related to hard tooling.

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12 EDITORIAL

AW DECEMBER 2021

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS

Common Attack Vectors for Industrial Control Systems

By David Greenfield

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

I

t’s been nearly impossible to miss all the news about the uptick in cyber-attacks on the manufacturing and processing industries over the past few years. The most recent uptick is not a surprising development, however, even though most manufacturers have faced fewer attacks compared to more consumer-oriented businesses.

One reason for the lag in attacks on industry was due to many hackers’ lack of familiarity with the industrial control systems (ICS) used in both the discrete manufacturing and processing industries. As a result, most businessfocused cyber-attacks centered on breaches of enterprise IT systems, with which most hackers were already very familiar.

But when you consider the high profile and revenues of many industrial companies, coupled with the potential for significant business and community disruption made possible by attacking a company’s ICS, the incentive for hackers to become more familiar with ICSs was evident. Essentially, it was only a matter of time before industry became widely considered a target-rich environment for cyber criminals.

While plenty of advice exists for industrial companies around how to secure their ICSs, it’s also important for businesses to be aware of the principal types of cyber threats they’re most likely to be face.

Prominent sources of attack

Craig Young, principal security researcher at Tripwire, a supplier of industrial cyberse-

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curity technology, points to three sources of cyber-attacks that industrial companies should be most aware of due to their potential to cause major disruption: A disgruntled insider: “The most critical threats often come from within an organization,” says Young. “This is especially true in ICS environments where employees have access to plant controls and deep knowledge of operational processes.” Young cites the Oldsmar, Fla., water treatment plant attack as an example of what is widely considered to have been a breach conducted by an employee.

This attack is considered to be an inside job because the hacker(s) used “a legitimate company TeamViewer account, combined with apparent knowledge of the company’s human-machine interface (HMI),” said Young.

To limit the threat of insider attacks, Young suggests enforcing access controls and limiting administrator access. He adds that practicing strong password hygiene—like requiring multi-factor authentication, forced password expiration, and forbidding password sharing— is also beneficial.

A ransomware gang: Young says ransomware is commonly introduced to an ICS network in one of three ways: a phishing attack that targets employees; compromising an industry website that users may frequently download from; or by targeting VPN portals or other externally exposed IT infrastructure.

“The best way to protect against a ransomware attack is to employ security best practices, including vulnerability management,” says Young. “Attackers often scan the internet for targets rather than identifying a specific target and evaluating its network space. Therefore, network administrators need to be aware of vulnerabilities in externally exposed systems such as VPN portals and mail gateways.”

He also noted that it’s important to strengthen internal security by limiting VPN access and restricting access between unrelated servers. And, as with the remedies sug-

gested to prevent insider attacks, limited permissions are key in this instance as well.

“Users should not have access to a system unless there is a specific business need,” stresses Young.

Advanced persistent threat: Because several high-profile ICS disruptions have been attributed to malicious hackers working for foreign military or intelligence agencies— such as the Triton and NotPetya attacks—it is “hard to understate the potential impact of a wartime ICS cyber incident,” says Young. “In addition to impacting the physical safety of plant workers and local communities, attacks can lead to long-term failures, including disruption of electricity, water, fuel, and other municipal services.”

In addition to the best practice security controls noted above, Young recommends accessing resources like ATT&CK and D3FEND—organizations that help industrial companies learn about known adversaries and how they operate. “This is critical for making informed decisions on how to not only reduce the risk of intrusion but also impede an attacker’s lateral movement while increasing the defender’s chances for detection,” says Young.

To read more about industrial cybersecurity lessons from the Colonial Pipeline breach, visit awgo.to/1296.

11/30/21 11:45 AM

EDITORIAL 13

AW DECEMBER 2021

BATCH OF IDEAS

Leadership in the New World of Work

By Stephanie Neil

sneil@automationworld.com Senior Editor

A

s we move into 2022, it’s a good time to think about how the industry has changed as a result of the pandemic— and how to work effectively in the future.

Obviously, over the past two years we’ve all had to operate very differently. Some people are working remotely, others are wearing masks and social distancing on the factory floor, consumers are buying more things online vs. in the store—which impacts the way things are produced and distributed, and we’re experiencing the “Great Resignation,” a reference to the widespread trend of significant numbers of workers leaving their jobs from spring of 2021 to the present.

For manufacturers already struggling to fill jobs amid a major skills crisis and worker shortage while keeping existing employees happy, these new dynamics require a shift in the way executives lead.

That was the message that came out of a panel discussion at PACK EXPO Las Vegas that included Jan Tharp, president and CEO of Bumble Bee Seafood Company; Yolanda Malone, vice president of R&D for foods and packaging at PepsiCo; Sharron Gilbert, president and CEO of Septimatech Group, an OEM for the food and beverage, CPG, and pharma segments; and Tracey Noonan, CEO of Wicked Good Cupcakes, which was recently acquired by Hickory Farms.

A big question is, how do you hold onto the culture of the business when there is so much ambiguity right now? The answer is the

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same as what we want from our manufacturing machines: Flexibility.

“If you look at pre-COVID and manufacturing, it was all about customization and finding products that were individualistic,” Bumble Bee’s Tharp said. “Take that thinking and move it over to human resources to become customized in how you go out attracting talent. You look at it and say, ‘Okay, this person has children. They may need a different work environment. They may need different work times.’ You can be flexible with that. I hope that if anything comes out of COVID it is that we realize there is no such thing as one size fits all.”

Bumble Bee has hired several people at the executive level recently and they are now not required to move to the company headquarters in San Diego. This is a good thing, Tharp said. “It’s actually opened up a whole new world of talent for us.”

Similarly, PepsiCo announced a global shift in workplace policy for corporate associates. The company’s “Work that Works” program, launched in June, eliminates a dayto-day workplace for employees in headquarter locations. Associates, along with their managers, choose what work can be done remotely and what needs to be done in their PepsiCo office. Decisions about the best ways of working are based on roles, daily activities, and team dynamics.

Septimatech’s Gilbert noted that reliance on collaborative technology, like Microsoft Teams, has been an important part of keeping lines of communication open internally and externally with customers, and the OEM has been ramping up its online presence. “We did a lot of work and investment in that side of the business.”

But while collaborative technology in the office and robots on the plant floor can help with productivity, when it comes to leading the current and future workforce, there’s a new focus on sensitivity.

“We need to understand and embrace that

every single one of us are different,” Tharp said. “We may have the same exact job, but we’re not going to approach it the same way.

Our families are different, our values may be different, and I think if we can start dissecting and welcoming that, then you will see people coming back to the workforce. You have to take down the barriers.”

Moving forward, the discussion should really be about how to maneuver the new world of remote work.

“We’ve got to embrace the fact that this is not the same world that we were all living in two years ago,” Tharp said. “And if you look at COVID as a book, there are chapters of the book and I think we’re someplace in the middle. I don’t have all of the answers, but I do know that we have a huge opportunity to allow people to be the best versions of themselves.”

11/30/21 8:24 AM

14 EDITORIAL

AW DECEMBER 2021

PRODUCTION POINTS

Improving Human-Robot Collaboration for Material Handling Tasks

By David Miller

dmiller@pmmimediagroup.com Senior Technical Writer

A

utomation technologies aimed at streamlining material handling tasks have been on the rise both in manufacturing settings and the logistics space for some time now. Why? Because companies looking to match supply to demand are faced with a double bind. On the one hand, labor shortages are reducing the availability of manual workers. On the other, swelling e-commerce sales and a growing demand for customized orders mean that, not only are there more products to be moved, but doing so is more complex than with traditional mass production processes.

Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) have proven a popular solution to these problems due to their flexibility and ease of deployment. However, even when outfitted with robotic arms, they still have some limitations.

While ideal for moving items across large plant floors or warehouses, AMRs may still struggle with tasks such as picking, particularly if items are of diverse shapes or sizes, or are arranged in a non-uniform manner, such as what might be encountered in a box of mixed parts.

Artificial intelligence (AI) driven deep learning has been proposed to help robotic picking become more intelligent and adaptable in the long-term, but it could be years before most companies can benefit from such an endeavor. In the meantime, many are

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seeking to facilitate more efficient collaborations between humans and robots instead.

A recent partnership between robotsas-a-service (RaaS) provider Fetch Robotics and software company Lucas Systems exemplifies this approach. Lucas Systems will provide end-users of Fetch’s AMRs with AI-based warehouse optimization software that aggregates order, inventory, and location data from other systems and uses it to generate instructions for workflow optimization in real-time.

For instance, AI-driven analytics delivered via Lucas Systems’ software can direct workers as to how inventory can most efficiently be picked and packed out, while Fetch’s AMRs remain responsible for transporting the picked items to a conveyor or other system for further packing or processing.

Lucas Systems’ software includes a mobile application that allows users to scan items,

view information, and issue voice commands.

In addition, a console provides managers with real-time performance visibility and control of operations. Beyond monitoring operations, the software also allows managers to oversee workers and work-in-process, and update rules, settings, and configurations.

“The future environment of warehouses and distribution centers will be a mix of people, robots, machines, and systems all working together. The precise orchestration of all the pieces will be key to achieving a competitive advantage in performance,” said Ken Ramoutar, chief marketing officer at Lucas Systems. “That intersection of how people and robots work together is a hugely important and often overlooked part of warehouse automation equation, but it’s where a lot of the unseen value exists.”

“Artificial intelligence (AI) driven deep learning has been proposed to help robotic picking become more intelligent and adaptable in the long-term, but it could be years before most companies can benefit from such an endeavor.”

11/29/21 1:14 PM

PERSPECTIVES 15 AW DECEMBER 2021

Industrial Sensors Boost Vineyard Data

By David Greenfield

Editor-in-Chief/Director of Content

W

hen most people think of vineyards, thoughts of a lazy, sunny afternoon enjoying select wines tend to come to mind. For the owner and operators, however, the vineyard is but the first step in the production of their beverage. That’s why increasing amounts of industrial automation technology are being applied to wine-producing operations.

Bouchaine Vineyards is one of the latest examples of a vineyard adopting industrial automation technology with its implementation of Cisco Industrial Asset Vision sensors to track data throughout its 100+ acres in the Carneros AVA (American Viticultural Area), which includes parts of Sonoma and Napa counties in California.

Chris Kajani, Bouchaine winemaker and general manager, said, “For hundreds of years, much of grape growing has been based on anecdotal knowledge shared between generations of winegrowers, along with visual cues taken by walking the vineyards. Now this knowledge, which is so central to the traditions of great wines, can be digitized. This automatic accumulation of data with real time dashboards will give us insight across the lifetime of the vineyard. Cisco sensor technology allows us to gather data in real time, bringing us the ability to make site-specific grape growing decisions year after year based on our

vineyard’s microclimates.”

More specifically, Cisco sensors are used to collect temperature, light, humidity, wind, and water over the course of the growing season. According to Cisco, the sensors are advanced enough to A Cisco Industrial Asset Vision sensor track details such as the in the field at Bouchaine Vineyards. amount of light hitting individual grapevines within humidity), gateways that collect data from each block, offering key insights into the tanthe sensors (which come from Cisco with batnin development of the grapes. This kind of teries included), and a cloud-based dashboard information enables Bouchaine to refine decion which to view the resulting data. sions on irrigation, leafing, and fruit thinning.

The ruggedized sensors and gateways that Throughout the 2021 growing season, Boucomprise Cisco Industrial Asset Vision are dechaine monitored temperature, light, and husigned to withstand temperature swings, rain, midity of individual vineyard blocks in more and wind. According to Cisco, the gateways detail than they ever had before using Cisco’s can connect sensors spread over a large area, sensor technologies. reducing the number of gateways a user will “The Cisco sensors are helping us preserve need to buy and maintain. one of our most precious resources—water,” Speaking to Cisco Industrial Asset Vision’s Kajani said. “We’re using the data to water ease of installation, Kajani said, “Installing the only when and where it’s absolutely necessensors and gateways was as simple as scansary. The sensor data gives us peace of mind ning their bar codes. The whole solution was that we’ll see changes in the vineyard when up and running within an hour.” there’s still time to take action.”

Based on results gathered during the 2021 Cisco Industrial Asset Vision is an all-in-one growing season, Bouchaine is planning to inproduct that includes different kinds of indusstall more sensors to understand the environtrial sensors (for example, temperature, light, ment in smaller sections of the vineyard.

To watch a video report on this story, visit awgo.to/1290.

Wines from Bouchaine Vineyards.

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16 PERSPECTIVES AW DECEMBER 2021

Securing MQTT Messages

By David Greenfield

Editor-in-Chief/Director of Content

A

key aspect of MQTT’s (message queueing telemetry transport) architecture involves the use of an intermediary server to collect data, as it changes, from the devices it is connected to. It then publishes those data points to other systems or applications that subscribe to those specific data feeds collected by the server. Because the subscribing systems or applications do not directly connect to the device they are monitoring, some levels of security are inherently supplied by the MQTT messaging structure.

Like any security measure, however, this decoupling of devices and the systems that subscribe to them does not address every potential cybersecurity angle. Beyond the direct disconnect offered by the server, MQTT infrastructures support several options that use widely adopted internet security methods, such as those used in online banking and recommended by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology).

MQTT infrastructure

To understand MQTT’s various security measures, it helps to first understand the building blocks of MQTT’s IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) infrastructure: • MQTT edge clients – These are remotely distributed devices and/or gateways in the plant or field connected to your process to gather data.

• MQTT enterprise clients – This can be any centralized or remote application that needs to subscribe to an MQTT server to receive or send information in the IIoT infrastructure.

• MQTT server(s) – These are centralized servers that the edge and enterprise client applications connect with to send and receive data.

Arlen Nipper, president and chief technology officer at Cirrus Link and co-creator of MQTT, explains that both the MQTT edge and enterprise clients use the same security models.

“Each initiate an outbound connection over the TCP/IP network utilizing transport layer security (TLS) with security certificate credentials from a certificate authority (CA),” he said.

TLS uses a set of public/private security certificates where the MQTT clients must establish a connection to the MQTT server that is authenticated by the CA. This is the same level of security used in banking systems today and is considered best practice by NIST. The network architecture of MQTT topologies requires that MQTT edge clients have all inbound TCP ports over the network disabled, explained Nipper. “This provides a high level of security by preventing potential attackers on the internet/intranet from simply establishing a connection with the edge devices.”

While this configuration provides solid security, Nipper notes that it can create challenges for accessing the edge client for remote debugging and configuration. “These challenges can be overcome using a reverse VPN connection,” he said.

Server security

The configuration of the TLS used with the edge device is also used with the MQTT servers. “MQTT servers utilize further security measures in the form of MQTT level username,

password, and an access control list (ACL),” said Nipper. “The ACL limits which devices will be allowed to connect into the MQTT server.

The ACL also controls what topics a given username/password pair can publish and subscribe to, providing further security.”

Nipper added that the MQTT servers should be setup in a DMZ and behind a firewall that only allows two inbound ports for connection: 8883 and 443.

As the MQTT servers provide the message delivery mechanism in the enterprise services bus, Nipper noted that the MQTT servers “must be 3.1.1 OASIS-compliant.” Cirrus Link supplies an MQTT Distributor and Chariot MQTT Server for this purpose. The company also supplies the Chariot MQTT Server for multiple MQTT server redundancies and a higher number of connected clients for onpremises or cloud-connected applications.

Protection overview

To reiterate the security recommendations made above, Nipper suggests applying the following security measures at the transport

This illustration depicts the MQTT infrastructure.

Source: Cirrus Link

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and application levels: • Physical network/VPN for ultimate security; • TLS with certificate credentials from CA for all connections; • All inbound ports should be disabled at MQTT edge clients; • Only two TCP/IP ports (8883 and 443) should be open at the MQTT server; • Use MQTT client username/password at MQTT servers; and • ACLs should be used to limit MQTT client access to the topic levels they can either publish or subscribe to.

dentials from a certificate authority (CA) to secure infrastructures that use public networks, where setting up discrete VPNs to each end device is not practical or cost effective. Firewalls can also be used at the transport layer to close all TCP/IP ports on the remote devices, and only the minimum ports necessary for operation at the central location should be allowed.

• The third layer is application security where, within Cirrus Link MQTT Servers, username/password authentication is applied with access control lists (ACL).

“The combination of these layers ensure a robust secure IIoT network,” said Nipper.

Security layers

Nipper pointed out that network security can be divided into three layers—each of which provide a different level of security against cyber-attacks: • The physical layer provides the highest level of security where the network is isolated from any outside connection or is completely encapsulated in a virtual private network (VPN).

• The transport layer uses transport layer security (TLS) with security certificate cre-

This illustration depicts MQTT edge client connectivity. Source: Cirrus Link

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Pat

rom P

to Autonom

By David Greenfield

Editor-in-Chief/Director of Content

L

ooking back through the history of automation, it’s not difficult to see how most advances are extensions of existing technologies. This can be seen at all levels of automation—from the evolution of relays into programmable logic controllers to the enterprise, where the all-encompassing ERP (enterprise resources planning) systems were developed from expansions of material requirements planning (MRP) software over the course of several years.

When you look at autonomous systems, however, the advance can seem so vast that it’s not always as easy to see the origin point in traditional manufacturing systems. This gap can make end users wary of autonomous technologies; but when you trace the development path of autonomous systems, it can make these new technologies less intimidating.

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Connecting the dots

At Rockwell Automation Fair 2021, Jordan Reynolds, global director of data science at Kalypso (a Rockwell Automation company), gave a presentation on autonomous systems that helped explain how these advanced neural systems, as they’re applied in industry, can be seen as extensions of the PID (proportional-integral-derivative) closed-loop control systems with which we’re all familiar.

Illustrating the evolution from PID control to autonomous systems, Reynolds explained that the first step is to start with a physical system—an entire plant or a production line— and create a model or digital twin of this system that shows how that system responds to changes to inputs or operational parameters, as well as disturbances.

This model, which sets the stage for auton-

omy, is created via hybrid modeling. Reynolds said hybrid modeling is developed through two processes: first, there is input from an engineer followed by input from a data scientist who understands AI (artificial intelligence).

“There’s a delta between what an engineer knows and what a data scientist does to derive a model that can learn rather than being programmed,” said Reynolds. He stressed that, to develop an effective model for autonomous operations, you need the engineer to define basic principles and have the data scientist close out the gaps to ensure the model performs to standards. “This is hybrid modeling,” he said.

Autonomic control

Rockwell Automation is focusing on this area because it views autonomy problems as control problems.

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“Feedforward control was one of first predictive applications of control,” said Reynolds.

“It expands on feedback control and provides early indications of a state that is yet to come so that it can be addressed proactively. Model predictive control (MPC) is a modern version of feedback control, where you use multivariable models to characterize how a system performs. We use those models to control a system better than we could with PID.” Reynolds noted that Rockwell Automation acquired Pavilion Technologies in 2007 for its MPC technology.

“MPC is good with highly predictive systems that don’t change that much,” said Reynolds. “But it falls short when recipes or parameters change. The MPC must be updated because it does not adapt on its own. That’s where adaptive control comes in. In adaptive control, the model doesn’t have to be perfect because it can adjust to changes.”

Reinforcement Learning is a newer concept that expands on adaptive control and is an emerging method of AI that has developed along with the abilities provided by cloud computing resources and greater connectivity among plant floor systems.

Explaining the connections between PID and

Jordan Reynolds, global director of data science at Kalypso (a Rockwell Automation company). autonomous operations with Reinforcement Learning, Reynolds said PID is used to ensure the system complies to the setpoints, whereas MPC determines the setpoints based on the multiple inputs and outputs of the system. Go-

PV – process value SP – setpoint CV – controlled variable MV – manipulated variable DV – disturbance variable

Digital Twin

Controller (Optimization)

Lab Results

ing further, Reinforcement Learning creates an executive function that can strategize.

Reynolds provided a car racing example to help illustrate this concept. MPC keeps the car in the lane, he said, while Reinforcement Learning helps you strategize about how to win the race, e.g., when to change tires, when to take the inside lane, etc.

Deep learning neural networks, like those used in Reinforcement Learning, is where most innovation has come from as industry advances toward greater use of autonomous systems. The problem is that, even though neural networks are highly accurate, they’re not very transparent or explainable. “An engineer can’t easily get an answer as to why decisions are made by the neural network,” Reynolds said.

That’s why Rockwell Automation focuses on deep symbolic regressions to explain how an AI control model works. Reynolds said Rockwell Automation uses this in its FactoryTalk Analytics LogixAI. According to Rockwell Automation, FactoryTalk Analytics LogixAI applies analytics within the controller application to achieve process improvement.

It is an add-on module for ControlLogix controllers that streams controller data over the backplane to build predictive models.

Reynolds’ presentation featured a slide explaining Reinforcement Learning within an industrial production construct.

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Securing Distributed Control Systems

By David Greenfield

Editor-in-Chief/Director of Content

D

istributed control systems (DCSs) are commonplace in continuous processing, particularly in the oil and gas and chemical industries where they’re used to control several machines or processes at the same time. This differs from PLCs (programmable logic controllers), as a PLC is typically used to control just one machine.

This difference in how DCSs are used to manage multiple machines and processes ups the ante in terms of the impact a security breach of a DCS can have. With this type of vulnerability in mind, Tim Mirth, PlantPAx platform leader at Rockwell Automation, says plant decision-makers exploring DCS-related cybersecurity improvements should be aware of these common DCS cybersecurity challenges: Open systems. “Open protocol networks are a historical hallmark of distributed control systems and are usually considered a huge benefit,” said Mirth. “But the additional avenues of risk associated with online, connected control systems may leave producers more vulnerable. The Zone and Conduit model can help mitigate the threat and keep critical assets segmented from most vulnerable areas.

Managed firewalls are another important part of protecting open systems.

Legacy equipment. Older machines, especially if they have not been updated in many years, are potential entry points for viruses, worms, and hackers. “This is where a risk assess-

ment can expose a vulnerability and develop a strategy to strengthen them,” Mirth said. “In larger plants you may not even know there is still an obsolete operating system on your network.” Mirth noted that if replacement of a legacy device is not possible, some protection can be gained with network segmentation to build in layers of defense.

Evolving workforce. “The people who have access to your plant and systems are an important piece of the overall cybersecurity puzzle,” said Mirth. “Breaches can be caused by innocent mistakes as well as those with nefarious intentions.” To address this, Mirth said to ask yourself: Do you know who manages user accounts and system access for your company? Also, are there any accounts that have remained active and unused for

This illustration highlights the control connection differences between a PLC-controlled system (left) and a DCS-controlled system (right). Source: RealPars

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years? Adhering to international standards, such as the ANSI/ISA-62443-3-3 standard, and managing your users as part of a cybersecurity strategy can help mitigate this risk, Mirth added.

Unknown ROI. Too often, companies view cybersecurity as an expense with an unidentifiable ROI (return on investment). Mirth said that, with cybersecurity or any risk mitigation initiative, “it’s less about how much money the company will make and more about what you don’t want to lose. With a proper risk assessment, vulnerabilities, risks, and mitigation strategies can be evaluated and allow producers to answer questions such as: What risk are we willing to accept? What will it cost to make the changes needed to feel comfortable in our risk posture?” Mirth said it may not be as expensive as you think to make changes, and the opportunity cost for not protecting your systems is too great to pass up implementing even some simple measures.

Finally, Mirth pointed out that it is necessary for industrial companies to realize that having an evolving plan will be needed to properly secure your DCS. That’s why it’s important to recognize the criticality of the cybersecurity challenges he cited and to “select a plan that keeps enhanced overall security, flexibility, and digital transformation in mind and won’t trap you from making the progress you need to run your business.”

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Making Legacy Equipment Connections Work

By David Greenfield

Editor-in-Chief/Director of Content

I

f you’re involved in any kind of Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0, or advanced manufacturing initiative in general, a key task will involve extracting data from older equipment. Given that large numbers of automated equipment and devices across industry pre-date any sort of broad, network-centered data aggregation or standardization efforts, this task is not as straightforward as it might seem.

To better understand how manufacturers can more effectively go about extracting data from older equipment in a meaningful way, we connected with Luke Stephenson, business manager at Enterprise Automation, a control systems integrator, for a recent episode of the “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast series (www.awgo.to/1283).

“Everybody knows businesses that use, collect, and observe data in real time are more agile and more effective when it comes achieving their objectives,” said Stephenson.

But before you head out to collect all the data you can from your equipment, Stephenson said there are many important questions to ask; the first of which should be: What would those equipment data, if they were available to you in real time, enable you to do?

Stephenson said this question is so important because the way in which data is stored, accessed, and gathered can “really change what you're able to do with it.”

Offering an example to show why answering this question is so important to determining your data aggregation approach, Stephenson said: “If you have a factory floor with one hundred machines on it, you don't go after [the data from] all one hundred machines right out of the gate.” He said you should start with one machine to learn which data collection methods work best for you so that you can then scale that approach.

However, if your company is aware of how it could use a particular range or data set from

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different equipment if they could just get that data into a repository, then have that target serve as a baseline from which to determine the best data extraction methods for your equipment and use that to scale up from.

Essentially, the determining point here is whether you know what data you need and for what purpose(s). If you’re uncertain, start with one machine.

Data format and communication difficulties

Explaining why older equipment can be more difficult to extract data from, Stephenson pointed to devices that communicate using “serial communication protocols and protocols that are often considered proprietary.

Once you start getting into Ethernet-based communication or even just two-wire or fourwire communication, there are a lot more ways to pick that information up.”

Most legacy devices are not going to have a built-in ability to transmit on sort of modern IoT type of communication protocols or be able to communicate with those types of platforms directly, Stephenson said; so you have to install a translator between the legacy device and the edge-of-network device used to collect the data.

“You want to translate the data from the legacy protocol into a more modern version, such as MQTT, so that you can then use it in different ways,” he said.

Stephenson also cautioned users to pay attention to the format used for extracted data. Formats such as JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) will typically be more viable with IoT platforms than files in .csv or .xml formats.

MQTT and the cloud

there,” said Stephenson.

Essentially, when a system is built for data collection—whether it’s for use with older or more recent equipment—it's most likely going to include the use of edge devices to get equipment data into a format that can be used for different purposes and by different systems.

“A publish and subscribe message broker, like those used for MQTT, are scalable and built for the future,” said Stephenson. “I can't think of one IoT device that's not capable of communicating via MQTT. And all software systems, whether they’re SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), CMMS (computerized maintenance management system), or ERP (enterprise resources planning), can connect to MQTT message brokers. They’re super-efficient, fairly easy to set up, and very scalable. And they’re effective whether you’re connecting multiple devices in a plant or multiple plants across the country.”

He also stressed the importance of aggregating the data you collect in the cloud.

“This is where the rubber hits the road. Collecting data is all well and good, but making use of the data is really why you invest the time and energy to do it. And today, the cloud is a safe way to do this—even though people sometimes shudder at the term ‘the cloud,’” said Stephenson.

He explained that the cloud is integral to data collection and analysis because once your data is in the cloud or other data repository, there are a host of services and software that can help you with it—whether that's for data visualization through something like Microsoft’s Power BI or Tableau or for specific applications like predictive maintenance.

“These tools go beyond what humans can do in terms of drawing insightful conclusions. It’s also a good way to make the data available to those with credentialed access wherever they may be located. We want to be able to get our data when we need it; and putting it in the cloud does that the best,” Stephenson said.

“MQTT (message queueing telemetry transport) is going to be the most common and most supported data messaging service out

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Frito-Lay Improves Workplace Ergonomics with Wearable Technology

By David Miller

Senior Technical Writer

A

s the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) expands, it’s not just smart instruments, conveyors, and robots that are being outfitted with data-gathering intelligent sensors. Increasingly, they’re finding their way onto workers themselves. Wearable technologies are being put to a variety of uses, including enabling remote assistance via augmented reality (AR) headsets, measuring labor efficiency to develop pay-for-performance frameworks that reward workers for efficiency, and monitoring the postures of employees with the goal of improving workplace ergonomics and reducing injuries.

A recent case study from Frito-Lay demonstrates this latter application. Beginning in the summer of 2020, the company outfitted workers in 34 of its North American manufacturing and distribution centers with Kinetic’s Reflex devices. The devices are belt-mounted wearable sensors that automatically detect when a worker is assuming high-risk postures such as bending, overreaching, or twisting that may lead to repetitive strain injuries while on the job. From here, the actions taken are twofold. First, workers receive real-time feedback via a gentle vibration which alerts them that they have assumed a high-risk posture, helping them to adjust their behavior. After that, the data is sent to a cloud-based web dashboard that provides management with insights on how to improve workplace ergonomics.

Not only does this help to improve the health of workers by preventing injuries, but it saves Frito-Lay money by reducing worker compensation costs related to repetitive strain and other workplace-related impairments. According to Frito-Lay, the initiative has resulted in a 19% reduction in Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recordable injuries, and 67% less work-time lost—a critical improvement amidst continuing labor shortages.

In the past, Frito-Lay sought to reduce the number of high-risk postures workers assume by bringing in athletic trainers to educate them on how to perform physical

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tasks more safely. However, this approach has been largely ineffective, as the information communicated during these one-time training sessions is seldom retained. Moreover, the company has found that employees have been more willing to make changes to their behavior when they are receiving and acting on data insights themselves, rather than merely taking instructions from supervisors. To further motivate them, the Reflex software sets quantitative benchmarks for workers to pursue and allows them to compete against each other to see who can improve the most.

“We’ve always done all the traditional ergonomic work, but there has been something missing. We weren’t able to tap into that behavioral element to create a sense of ownership in the individual employee and help them behave posturally in a different way,” said Cormac Gilligan, vice president of global environment for health and safety at PepsiCo, Frito-Lay’s parent company.

In addition to helping workers adjust their own postures, the data gathered by the Reflex devices can also be used to redesign the spatial arrangement of facilities, mak-

ing them easier to navigate for workers. For example, the use of Reflex at Frito-Lay’s Kern plant in California, helped management identify precisely when and where the most high-risk postures were occurring and why they were so difficult to avoid in those locations. By analyzing this data, the company discovered that workstation space limitations during ingredient changeover were forcing employees to twist and bend in a dangerous way. Not only that, but the size and position of a conveyor being used meant that workers had to continuously over-exert themselves to reach items moving along it.

“After receiving an alert, employees stop and think about whether there is something they could do differently. They then initiate conversations with us about why they have to adopt a high-risk posture, and how we could redesign the workspace or the process,” said Gilligan. “So you’ve got culture change happening at the same time as behavior change.

That is something we’ve never had before with our ergonomics programs.”

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Volvo Group Capitalizes on Digital Thread Innovations

AW DECEMBER 2021

By David Miller

Senior Technical Writer

T

he concept of a digital thread that allows for consistent data to be shared across a product lifecycle from the design stage all the way to operations, maintenance, and repair is becoming increasingly common in industry. By enabling end-to-end product lifecycle management (PLM), a digital thread can allow manufacturers to improve the design of future products by leveraging usage data.

In addition, it can streamline the process of sharing bills of materials, operational data, and other documentation between various facilities and business units, allowing for information siloes to be broken down.

One company that has taken advantage of the digital thread is Volvo Group, which

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manufacturers buses, construction equipment, and power products for marine and industrial applications. Volvo Group began its transition in 2018 when Volvo CE (A Volvo Group subsidiary focused on construction equipment) adopted PTC’s Windchill, a PLM software platform for data governance and traceability that provides end users with a single source of truth across engineering, operations, suppliers, and customers.

The challenges that led Volvo CE to adopt Windchill were multi-faceted. Volvo CE faced unpredictable market conditions, a demand for shorter product lifecycles, and a growing need to fulfill varied and customized orders increased the degree of complexity the company was required to navigate. At the same time, a long history of mergers and acquisitions resulted in a complex and costly IT landscape that made use of four different

product data management (PDM) systems.

As a result, different teams within the organization relied on differing interfaces and struggled to exchange data.

Volvo CE began by implementing Windchill at two sites, training several hundred workers in its use. By 2019, the company had added an additional 2,000 users and deployed the program in 11 more factories. By the end of 2021, Volvo estimates that Windchill will be used by more than 3,000 users across 15 of its sites.

According to the company, the results have been substantial—a 70% efficiency gain in the quality of work instructions, a 30% reduction in data entry errors, and a 30% improvement in change management handling.

Following on these successes, Volvo Group is currently expanding its partnership with PTC. Its new initiative will see the company moving all of its computer-aided design work

to PTC’s Creo software, which is designed to exchange data seamlessly with Windchill.

Establishing this data pipeline will allow for improvements in the production innovation and design process, said Lars Stenqvist, chief technology officer at Volvo Group.

“By working together on a common vision, we have driven important improvements to the PTC product suite, and important improvements in enabling Volvo Group to bring great products to market,” said Jim Heppelmann, president and CEO at PTC. “The digital engineering approach that we will achieve together will serve as an example to companies around the globe.”

Inductive Automation Explains What’s Next for Ignition

By David Greenfield

Editor-in-Chief/Director of Content

A

t its 2021 virtual Ignition Community Conference, Inductive Automation highlighted the steps it has been taking over the past year to position the Ignition industrial automation software platform for its next steps, indicating that several new updates will be forthcoming in the next few months.

Carl Gould, director of software engineering at Inductive Automation, said, “Our primary area of focus for the software development team is on quality and process improvements.” He said the company has been staffing up the quality team to achieve a “nearly one-to-one staffing ratio of software engineers to test engineers. We're also building up our QA (quality assurance) infrastructure with automated test infrastructure and automated benchmarking so that every release we put out has undergone a rigorous set of testing to ensure that Ignition can be as stable and defect free as possible.”

Two industrial automation technology trends having a big impact on Ignition are mobility and data access, said Travis Cox, co-

2112_News.indd 24

director of sales engineering at Inductive Automation. With a greater focus on mobility, developers are extending automation systems to smartphones and tablets to take advantage of mobile device capabilities such as GPS, the built-in camera, NFC (near-field communication), and Bluetooth, and “leverage those features to build the bigger solu-

tion,” he said. Inductive Automation’s Ignition Perspective module allows users to build industrial applications to monitor and control production processes from a mobile device, desktop, or touch panel.

As for the data access trend Cox noted, he said industry’s increasing interest in leveraging edge computing and MQTT communi-

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cations is targeted at bringing [production floor] data into a modern infrastructure and the cloud for additional applications, such as analytics and machine learning. “We're seeing a lot of customers leveraging AWS and Azure and their asset modeling tools to go a lot further with the data they collect,” he said.

Application highlights

A fixture of the Ignition Community Conference is its Discover Gallery, where key Ignition implementations are spotlighted to show off the software’s capabilities as an automation platform. In part of his keynote presentation at the conference, Cox noted several applications in this year’s Discover Gallery, including: • A project system integrator DMC completed for Ginkgo Bioworks. Cox said Ginkgo Bioworks expanded its automation capabilities to increase its nationwide diagnostic testing capacity in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The goal of this implementation was to prepare COVID-19 test samples for DNA sequencing and PCR (polymerase chain

with 20 network domains, and tens of thousands of devices with nearly 9,000 data points. Their solution is one that uniquely integrates the IT world in the OT (operations technology) space for the mining industry.”

• An application showcasing all of Ignition’s features in one massive system is a project by integrator CPM Beta Raven for Smithfield’s hog feed production.

Smithfield wanted to completely automate its hog feed production plant, as the feed mill was working entirely with push button control systems, relay circuit boards, and physical labor. Using Ignition to handle Smithfield’s materials receiving operations, recipes, inventory tracking, product loadouts, historian data analysis, notifications, and visualization, Cox said Smithfield operators now “have the capability to focus on ingredient and product accuracy and production times for the best results.”

reaction) testing for the virus. “At the heart of this new lab is Ignition SCADA, with nearly 50 separate PLCs, lab equipment, quality vision systems, and robots [connected to Ignition and] all triggering actions that impacted the samples,” said Cox. “All of this occurred while the biological processes, physical lab layout, and system requirements were changing daily due to pandemic, [which is why Ginkgo Bioworks] required a solution that was agile and scalable.”

• Cox also noted an Ignition Perspective implementation built by BHP for the remote operations center of its Minerals Australia business to monitor and manage the status of critical technology infrastructure across Minerals Australia’s operations. “The solution [using Ignition Perspective] allows the Minerals Australia team to leverage off-theshelf software with traditional SCADA functionality alongside modern mobility and IoT connectivity options,” Cox said.

“They’re monitoring more than 30 sites

Integrators Dish on Industrial Technology Trends

By David Greenfield

Editor-in-Chief/Director of Content

A

session at Inductive Automation’s virtual Ignition Community Conference 2021 featured four system integration professionals offering their viewpoints on the automation trends they see as having been the most impactful this year. The session, led by Shay Johnson, sales engineer at Inductive Automation, featured Jake Hall, business development manager, Feyen Zylstra; Brian McClain, business development manager, Corso Systems; Cody Warren, senior controls engineer, Tamaki Control Ltd.; and Dustin Wilson, senior project manager, Phantom Technical Services.

Though the conversation tackled several points, from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems adding plant floor software packages to high-performance HMI (human machine interface), Ethernet at the device

2112_News.indd 25

level, remote access technologies, and the reasons why automation projects fail were among the most engaging topics of discussion.

The rise of “Ethernet I/O on the device level has been huge lately,” said Warren. “I think customers are seeing the value of that as opposed to the hardwired approach. A lot of the work we’ve been doing the past couple years has been upgrading old, out-of-date PLCs and I/O. And it’s easier to do this with the arrival of IO-Link masters.”

The value of remote

Like every business, industrial operations continue to struggle with maintaining effective operations amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“You never know when someone is going to be at work the next day, so being able to call on your integrators remotely and for us to be able to utilize Industry 4.0 and IoT (Internet of Things) to see and diagnose issues remotely, in real time, instead of having to be on site has been a huge benefit—because

every customer is limiting how many feet actually touch their floor right now,” said Wilson. “A lot of what we’ve done these past two years would have been impossible without some of the improvements that have happened with Industry 4.0 and Ignition. I can’t imagine having sneaker net right now and trying to make changes to programs where you have to physically be on the plant floor to make an adjustment.”

McClain concurred with Wilson’s comments about the importance of remote technologies, adding, “Remote data monitoring has been a recurring theme we’ve seen over the last year not just from supervisors, but managers who want remote access to their production data because they may not be able to go into the facility, or it may not be safe to do so.”

Efforts made by the IT departments at industrial companies have been beneficial in enabling this, McClain said. “IT departments

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Rockwell Automation Fair Highlights Industry Challenges, PlantPAx 5.0 Updates

By David Miller

Senior Technical Writer

T

he process industry user group keynote at Rockwell Automation Fair 2021 emphasized updates to the company’s PlantPAx 5.0 distributed control system (DCS), a plant-wide control system that uses a common automation platform to integrate process and discrete control functionalities with data drawn from across the enterprise.

The system is reportedly designed to be scalable, modular, and capable of employing a diverse range of different architectures based on end-users’ individual needs.

Jim Winter, global process director at Rockwell Automation, pointed to four categories of needs and challenges Rockwell Automation sees among its process industry end users that can be addressed with PlantPAx: • The changing workforce. With many baby boomers nearing retirement age and a looming skills gap among newer workers, many companies are hardpressed to hire the talent they need, particularly as more sophisticated, digital technologies make their way into manufacturing. Moreover, many new workers learn differently than prior generations. With the rise of mobile devices, on-the-fly or “just-in-time” learning in the field is becoming more common.

• Increasing capital and operational costs. Rising input and overhead costs are leading many companies to move away from monitoring short-term financial and performance metrics and toward a lifecycle approach to bolster their bottom lines. The hope is that, when measured over multi-decade spans of time, even incredibly small gains in efficiency may yield a substantial return-on-investment.

• Disrupted supply chains and market volatility. Global material shortages, logistical difficulties, and uncertain demand have made it more difficult for manufacturers to plan ahead in recent years. As a result, technologies that

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facilitate advanced predictive capabilities or flexibility have become increasingly vital.

• The need for more sustainable operations. Customer preference, as well as governmental initiatives have put growing pressure on many manufacturers to enact sustainability initiatives and enhance the traceability of their products. In many cases, reaching these goals requires the deployment of new technologies.

How PlantPAx updates can help

Dave Rapini, PlantPAx business manager at Rockwell Automation, outlined three areas where PlantPAx’s features can address these challenges: • Open technologies. Employing open standards has allowed PlantPAx users to integrate devices and content far more effectively, which has eased the adoption curve. In particular, PlantPAx’s use of OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) has made the integration of third-party applications and equipment possible.

This can improve scalability, allowing for efficiency gains to more quickly spread throughout the broader enterprise.

• Low-code and no-code approaches.

In the past, process control applica-

tions for simple machinery such as motors and pumps required developers to write their own proprietary code, which had to be learned by operators and maintenance personnel. In contrast, PlantPAx has standardized the code for these basic applications via its onboard library. The applications can also be displayed via Asana diagrams, rather than as lines of code, allowing for both consistency across deployments and ease of use.

• Digitization. Every PlantPAx installed in the field has its own unique system ID, which creates a digital fingerprint of all instrumentation, hardware, and software data associated with it. Once this data has been extracted, it is digitalized and pushed into the Rockwell cloud. From here, Rockwell can send customized messages to end users pertaining to upcoming part obsolesce, security issues, or software patches that need to be tended to. In addition, should end users need to contact technical support, their unique system ID can allow troubleshooting to proceed more easily, as issues do not need to be verbally described, but can be viewed in real-time instead.

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PMMI NEWS 27 AW DECEMBER 2021

PMMI’s unPACKed Podcast: Emphasis on Ease of Operation at PACK EXPO Hosted by Sean Riley

Senior Director, Media and Industry Communications, PMMI

M

undo PMMI's Lilián Robayo, OEM's Natalie Craig, Automation World's David Greenfield, and ProFood World's Melissa Griffen look back at PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO 2021. Together they highlight what they felt were the most impactful takeaways from the show, uncovering everything from new recyclable materials to robots. The group also discusses the ways machinery manufacturers are making equipment easier for new employees to operate, helping to tackle the lack of skilled labor as older employees transition into retirement.

Please subscribe and find more unPACKED podcast episodes at pmmi.org/podcast.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 25 in these facilities have made big strides here recently to help create an environment that has made remote access feasible. I remember it wasn’t too long ago when trying to do something like exposing a visualization dashboard or data for supervisors to see outside of their network was virtually impossible. You would talk to IT departments about opening some ports to create the right networking architecture for this and you would just get these blank stares. But now, more organizations are seeing the benefit of this and creating systems and secure methodologies that we can use to implement and deliver these remote access solutions.”

Also, “the amount of remote training I have seen happen in the past 18 months is unprecedented,” added Hall.

Hall noted that the lack of in-person conferences since early 2020 has likely contributed to the increased interest in remote training and videos.

Automation project failures

The integrators on the panel agreed that the current heightened level of interest in automation in response to digital transformation trends has been accelerated with the advent of COVID-19. Likewise, the urgency to implement technology to address pandemic-related issues has also increased the rate of implementation difficulties.

Hall referenced a statistic that indicates

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only about one quarter of IoT initiatives in manufacturing are successful. He believes the reason for this is largely due to unclear business objectives and the lack of road maps for these projects.

“A lot of times, the systems are so complex they’re unable to be communicated effectively to the integration team,” he explained, noting that project changes made during development and implementation, often due to a lack of clear understanding on all sides, can cause costs to rise by 50x.

To avoid this, Hall recommend two things: • Aligning your projects teams together—is there a detailed complete spec or document that’s keeping everything up to date?

• Learn and proof—From the data you’re able to collect, are you able to act on it? Then, from your implementation, are you able to define the root causes [of problems]?

The ability to overcome project failures

depends on your ability to define the problem and then validate and deliver systems to address it.

From there, “are you able to learn and improve?” Hall asked. “If you can’t do those things, you’re probably not going to be successful with your implementation.”

Wilson stressed the importance of being able to define your long-term goals for the project. “Once you have your long-term projections, you can model the system correctly so that once you have all the data available, it has context to it. By modeling your data correctly, you can know exactly where to find all your control points for a motor. Then, when you push those data points into the cloud and you’re doing Big Data analytics on them, you’ll have a consistent format for everything in it.”

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28 CYBERSECURITY AW DECEMBER 2021

Remote Access Cybersecurity Management The next big cybersecurity challenge for manufacturers is how to secure the remote access points that have been implemented on the plant floor during the pandemic before hackers can exploit these new channels into the organization.

By Stephanie Neil, Senior Editor

C

yber-attacks have been on the rise since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the Ransomware Task Force, an international coalition of experts formed to combat ransomware criminals. Ransomware is a type of malware used by attackers who threaten to publish the victim's data or block access to their systems unless a ransom is paid.

Ransomware targeting infrastructure and manufacturing is a profitable business for bad actors because the impact and money lost due to production downtime is reason enough for companies to pay up fast. And as manufacturers create more connections into equipment to keep operations running from afar, it creates new pathways for hackers to access.

“If you think about the history of controls, [these systems have] always been disconnected, so no one worried about security,” says John Livingston, CEO of cybersecurity firm Verve Industrial. He says companies installed firewalls to protect the network, but no one worried too much about security of the machines inside the network barrier. “So they didn’t patch them, they used standard passwords, and allowed more people access to an incredibly insecure infrastructure that

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was completely unmanaged,” he says.

Now, however, OEMs and industrial control system (ICS) suppliers are rapidly rolling out remote access tools as a way for plant managers to monitor machines from wherever they are. The problem is, there are way too many methods of remote access.

Cargill, a global manufacturer with facilities in 70 countries, is a good example of an industrial company working to secure their systems amid a rise in the use of remote access technology. “We have so many OEMs that we mostly deal with at the local level,” says Dominic de Kerf, Cargill’s smart manufacturing expert focused on automation, instrumentation, and process control. “They know a lot about their machines, but cybersecurity is not something they do well.”

And every supplier has a different remote access method, making the management of security systems to block access into an ICS opening an IT nightmare.

The concern was so great for de Kerf that, when asked to join a remote access workgroup within the Organization for Machine Automation and Control (OMAC), he gladly accepted. The OMAC workgroup is facilitated by ei3 Corporation, a provider of technology

used to increase machine performance and secure remote connections.

Members of this group include large consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers such as Cargill, Frito-Lay, and P&G, as well as OEMs like ITW Hartness, Durr USA, Milacron, Mettler Toledo, Nordson, and ProMach.

Technology suppliers Beckhoff Automation, Mitsubishi Electric Europe, Sick, Siemens, and of course, ei3, as well as many system integrators and organizations like PMMI, the Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, are also involved (note: PMMI is the parent company of Automation World).

The group has produced a 90-page Practical Guide for Remote Access to Plant Equipment which was released in January 2021.

It details best practices to define, analyze, control, improve, and secure remote access.

It walks readers through specific steps to safeguard a facility, focusing on processes and terminology—especially between IT and OT (operations technology) departments.

PMMI followed up with its own report, 2021 Cybersecurity: Assess Your Risk, which zeroes in on what OEMs need to pay specific attention to, noting that machine builders are highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks, as cyber-criminals

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CYBERSECURITY 29 AW DECEMBER 2021

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The BeyondTrust secure remote access software architecture.

R see them as a bridge to reach other targets.

This focus on OEMs raises the question: Who is ultimately responsible when there is a security breach?

“At the end of the day, the manufacturer is ultimately responsible, but whoever is developing the platform is responsible for making sure it is deployed in a secure way,” says Jacob Chapman, a solutions architect with Nozomi Networks (formerly with Grantek at the time of this interview).

A universal approach

Manufacturers like Cargill are asking for vendor-agnostic tools dedicated to remote access security to avoid having to deal with a variety of proprietary offerings from different vendors.

This is a valid request “but it requires operators take control back from the OEMs,” Verve’s Livingston says. “And this is not just true with remote access, but [with cybersecurity tactics] across the board. We’ve given control over to people who make the control

systems. Now manufacturers are beholden to the vendors. And as a CIO and chief security officer, you can’t say you are operating securely when there are 40 different vendors controlling your OT systems.”

Taking back control means managing the security of the production floor infrastructure. The Verve Security Center is an OT systems management platform for industrial control system cybersecurity, protecting the end points inside of OT. “It basically lets you do IT security in OT,” Livingston says. “You get the same functionality, but it is safe for industrial control systems.”

Verve partners with vendor-agnostic tools for securing the network, including Dispel.io and BeyondTrust.

For its part, the Dispel Moving Target Defense technology flips the model of the traditional static defense system. “Rather than having a static target, like a castle that adversaries are trying to hit, we build submarines that move and keep assets safe because

they can’t see where they went,” says Ben Burke, chief operating officer at Dispel.

According to Burke, a traditional on-premises system may have several steps to connect through the firewall, but it is basically a beacon beckoning all to connect. “What’s different about the moving target defense is we push the connection entry point to the cloud and shift it over time, so you are not directly connecting to the OT environment. When you first connect, you have to go through our cloud infrastructure before getting there,” he says.

The on-premises gateway establishes an encrypted tunnel to the cloud network.

Once that half of the bridge is built, the virtual desktop gets the user profile and connects to the other side of the network. The two come together to create a temporary bridge through which the user can access the encrypted tunnel through the gateway and firewall and then to the specific OT endpoint.

This infrastructure cycles over time so that

Learn

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11/29/21 1:22 PM

CYBERSECURITY 31 AW DECEMBER 2021

OT has a new virtual desktop with each log in.

“For an adversary, every day the entire user profile has completely changed. There is no methodology for performing reconnaissance on it,” Burke says.

Systems integrator Grantek uses this Dispel technology in its Engineer-in-a-Box remote access tool, a plug-and-play appliance that provides secure remote access to an ICS. It just needs to connect to an Ethernet port anywhere on an OT network and to disconnect, just turn it off.

Separately, BeyondTrust is solving the security risks typical of Windows-based remote access products, as well as proprietary approaches associated with embedded systems. BeyondTrust’s Privileged Remote Access eliminates the use of risky open ports and closes remote access backdoors using the company’s Jumpoint technology, which serves as the remote desktop protocol broker.

The user logs into an appliance that sits either in the cloud or is installed on premises and deploys a piece of software that makes outbound connections into the appliance

with multifactor authentication to all potential connection types.

“We set up all the connections and all you see is ‘machine 1, IoT 2, System 3,’ for example, and it opens it up for you,” says Morey Haber, chief security officer at BeyondTrust.

“Jumpoint connects into the environment through an administrative screen where you can select where you want to go and choose the protocol needed to get there, whether it’s traditional Windows remote desktop protocol or Linux or embedded VNC. The same piece will broker any type of communications and allow work from anywhere into the critical infrastructure, including OT.” It is secure because the end user knows nothing about devices downstream and they can’t do anything without signed permissions. In addition, passwords are changed each time, so even if a bad actor were to steal a password, it couldn’t be used.

The OEM element

OEMs hold a lot of responsibility when it comes to keeping equipment secure, but it’s

not an area they tend to have a lot of expertise in. In response, several ICS and security vendors are delivering OEM-specific tools.

Rockwell Automation recently rolled out a tool that couples its FactoryTalk remote access cloud-based software—which allows OEMs to manage, configure, and initiate secure connections to customers’ equipment—with its Stratix 4300 remote access router installed at the customer’s site. The offering provides multifactor authentication and encrypted protocols. A digital input also gives onsite staff control of remote connections so that they’re only made when enabled locally.

“Together it creates a passive network that is outbound only,” explains Robert Ponsonby, Rockwell Automation’s global OEM partner program manager. Made more for monitoring than making changes on a machine, there’s no risk of someone getting in and messing with code, he says. ei3 has its own OEM offering called the Amphion Edge Device. Using ei3’s virtual private network (VPN) appliance, it is a piece of hardware that acts as an edge device using

Remote Machine Diagnostics and Commissioning Home/office

Remote Site

Remote Site

Perform secure remote diagnostics and commissioning for machines over wired or wireless using a Skorpion IP Router.

EIGR-C C

EIGR-V

Learn more at www.ccontrols.com/machine

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32 CYBERSECURITY AW DECEMBER 2021

industry standard security protocols to create a secure network from the machine to the ei3’s security application in the cloud, providing a managed secure network. “We are looking after the network, constantly patching and monitoring all aspects of a VPN,” explained ei3 founder Spencer Cramer, noting: “If you just put a VPN appliance on a machine and you are not updating it, that VPN appliance will quickly become a vulnerability to the organization.”

In addition to managing the security of the access point, ei3 controls the access of individuals. If an organization owns equipment from many different OEMs and uses services from different integrators or consultants, it’s not reasonable to open that equipment to everyone. “With the ei3 cloud security center, we give the owner of the equipment the ability to control the access to the equipment. They can create a temporary one-time link to open a door for a single person to access a single piece of equipment, and it’s all done through web pages, so no software or firewall configuration is needed. It’s done in a way that a plant manager or line supervisor can ask for support and, once it’s done, that door closes and locks.”

It’s also important to note that the ei3 technology works with any type of industrial automation controls and networks, including legacy protocols. “This is an important point because you can find hundreds of companies that will help you connect to brand new equipment, but [we can] help you with 15-year-old equipment,” Cramer says.

Verve’s Livingston agrees that understanding what’s already out in the field is an important part of foiling potential attacks. “OEMs are making investments in new devices, and all new code is being reviewed,” he said. “The problem is they have devices that have been in the field for years. How do they go back in time and review all that code that has been written over the last 30 to 40 years?”

That is where aDolus Technology comes in. The company, founded by Eric Byres, a recognized expert in ICS and IIoT cybersecurity, created the aDolus Framework for Analysis and Coordinated Trust (FACT). It is an AI-powered advanced aggregation, analytics, and correlation engine that creates up-to-date cybersecurity risk intelligence on software components as they flow between suppliers, developers, OEMs, service providers, and operators. aDolus helps OEMs manage risk from

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The aDolus Framework for Analysis and Coordinated Trust (FACT) platform displays risks in components aggregated into a “FACT score.” incoming third-party software by automating compliance and governance. “It is a way to have a better understanding of the software supply chain, which provides a better ability to thwart a potential attack,” says Ron Brash, vice president of technical research and integrations at aDolus. “It provides OT asset owners assurance that files are tamperfree, authentic, and safe prior to installing on critical devices.”

Brash points to the SolarWinds hack as an example of how aDolus can help. “Many companies didn’t even know that they had SolarWinds products deployed in their OT systems because that software was supplied through an OEM. Thus, it took months for companies to address the issue even after it was publicly disclosed. Currently, asset owners, integrators, and many vendors do not have sufficient

visibility into their product's vulnerability status, and asset owners are often unconsciously carrying that burden.”

Stay vigilant

While the industry has seen an increase in ransomware attacks since the beginning of the pandemic, Verve’s Livingston believes that it’s just the beginning. “I’d argue we’ve not yet seen the problems that will arise because of remote access issues.” He points out that a hacker typically sits in a system for 180 to 270 days before an attack happens. “If you do the math, we are about to get hit with bad times.” To stop—or at least manage a potential attack—means that you first need to get control over remote access, he says.

11/29/21 1:22 PM

EDGE-TO-CLOUD DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION 33 AW DECEMBER 2021

An Automation World survey reveals an uptick in both cloud and edge deployments as manufacturers roll out performance monitoring, collaboration, quality assurance, and predictive maintenance applications in support of a newly remote and distributed workforce.

By Beth Stackpole, Contributing Writer

C

halk up another automation advance brought to you by the COVID-19 global pandemic—an uptick in cloud and edge computing deployments as manufacturers scrambled to keep factory floors running and personnel productive amid a largescale shift to remote work and limited inhouse operations.

According to Automation World’s 2021 Cloud & Edge survey, 62% of companies are currently leveraging cloud technologies as part of their digital transformation roadmaps—a significant bump over the 51% reported in a similar 2019 Automation World survey. Adoption of edge and fog computing technologies also surged since the pre-pandemic research: This year’s survey saw edge computing deployments jump to 55% of responding companies compared to 43% in the prior survey; fog computing’s growth was less substantial, expanding into a quarter of companies surveyed compared to 20% in 2019.

While the global pandemic accelerated digital transformation across the board, it was not a factor in the increased use of edge computing but was an impetus for

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Thanks to an investment in cloud ERP, Core Technology Molding was not only able to keep operations going, but tripled its business during a pandemic year.

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34 EDGE-TO-CLOUD DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AW DECEMBER 2021

What benefits has your company received from using cloud computing technology?

What benefits has your company received from using edge computing technology?

Improvement to profitability

Improvement to production output

50%

54%

Improvement to production output

Reduction of downtime

Reduction of downtime

Reduction of waste

43% 43%

46%

Reduction of waste

Improvement to profitability

Decrease in production costs

Decrease in production costs

Other

Other

29%

25%

14%

None

4%

50%

35%

27%

8%

None

0%

Results exceed 100% as respondents were allowed to answer multiple options.

HPE’s Edgeline EL8000 Converged Edge systems is a compact, ruggedized computing system that can be placed in harsh, remote environments.

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more prevalent use of fog computing, primarily to accommodate remote management applications. A quarter of manufacturers participating in the survey stepped up their use of cloud technologies over the course of the pandemic to deliver anywhere, any-time access along with real-time monitoring capabilities for critical automation systems and plant floor equipment during a period when many had to limit the number of personnel physically allowed on site.

“When plants were shut down and employees couldn’t physically return to work, manufacturers quickly realized they need to have automation capabilities in place to get facilities back up and running remotely,” says David Breaugh, manufacturing business leader at Microsoft. “COVID also created an explosion in demand to the point where manufacturers didn’t have enough capacity to keep up. They deployed use cases to help improve through-

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EDGE-TO-CLOUD DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION 35 AW DECEMBER 2021

put without disrupting daily operations.”

The Automation World survey found use of edge computing split 50-50 between data aggregation and data analysis applications, and the model gained traction for production and manufacturing data analysis applications, cited by 63% of respondents—up from 52% in 2019. More significant in terms of growth for edge were applications related to equipment data analysis for capacity or overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)—they were cited by 63% of respondents to this year’s survey compared to only 20% in 2019.

In comparison, both fog and cloud computing had a larger split between data analysis and data aggregation, with the delta being wider for cloud usage—58% primarily tapping the technology for data analysis and 42% for data aggregation. Cloud was also evenly split between use cases related to data aggregation and storage and enterprise effectiveness analysis (both at 52%) with production/manufacturing data analysis (42%) and equipment data analysis (39%) far less entrenched. For its part, fog computing was most likely introduced to aggregate or store data, according to 60% of respondents, with its use dropping off significantly for the range of different analysis use cases.

Manufacturers reported a slew of benefits associated with each of the technologies with some notable standouts. For example, cloud computing was more likely to facilitate improvements to profitability (50%) with edge and fog computing associated with boosting production output, cited by 54% and 38%, respectively.

In keeping with the 2019 Automation World survey findings, manufacturers are generally not choosing between computing paradigms. Rather, they are deploying a range of cloud and edge technologies depending on their specific business requirements and business cases and are ultimately leveraging the paradigms as complementary. The key, experts advise, is mapping out an architecture and strategy designed to encompass both. “Where people struggle most is they create an edge architecture and a separate cloud architecture and then try to have them interact and they run into problems,” notes Wes Sylvester, vice president of Cisco’s Industry Solutions Group. “In the same way people talk about the flexibility to scale up and down from cloud applications, you have to build flexibility into your architecture so that data that goes to the cloud today might someday be leveraged on-premises.”

New use cases emerge

As the pandemic dictated a need for social distancing, resulting in fewer people on site, adoption of cloud technologies soared to support worker productivity and collaboration as well as remote access and monitoring of critical plant equipment for troubleshooting and quality assurance applications.

Augmented reality/virtual reality and cloudbased tools connected limited numbers of plant floor workers to plant management or off-site experts to aid in remote maintenance and visual inspection while cloud-enabled systems helped quality operations teams keep pace with surging consumer demand as fewer workers were used on site to promote worker safety.

Core Technology Molding Corp., a manufacturer of highly engineered plastic products and tooling designs, credits its investment in the cloud-based DelmiaWorks ERP system, which features a real-time process monitoring capability, as central to keeping operations on track during a period when employees routinely had to work from home. “The cloud enabled work to go on seamlessly and we produced just as many parts and got new customers because of those capabilities,” says Geoff Foster, Core Technology’s CEO and

Was COVID-19 a factor in your decision to deploy cloud computing technology?

NO 75%

YES 25%

Was COVID-19 a factor in your decision to deploy edge computing technology?

NO 100% Was COVID-19 a factor in your decision to deploy fog computing technology?

YES 100% Results exceed 100% as respondents were allowed to answer multiple options.

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36 EDGE-TO-CLOUD DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AW DECEMBER 2021

needed around data and managing apps and edge systems at scale across many factories, locations, and sites,” he explains.

Best practices for moving forward

Litmus for OEE is a scalable edge platform that delivers critical data connectivity across assets and data sources to measure OEE and optimize asset performance.

president. “It set us apart from competitors and we tripled our business this year.”

Meanwhile, Emerson saw its customers ramp up investment in the use of sensors and the roll out of edge gateways to augment manual inspection rounds through collection of data and analytics to gauge equipment health and reliability. “Previously, people were looking into automating some manual inspection with sensors and edge gateways, but held back because they thought it was too expensive,” explains Peter Zornio, chief technology officer at Emerson. “Suddenly, they didn’t have people to do inspections, so they didn’t have a choice.”

Siemens also saw an acceleration of projects and deployments across both edge and cloud platforms, according to Bernd Raithel, director of product marketing and deployment of new technologies at Siemens Factory Automation. Customers leveraged edge computing and cloud simulation technologies to do virtual commissioning of machines upfront before they were built and deployed in the field, as well as to allow OEMs or

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machine builders to remote monitor equipment and send guidance to operators, Raithel says. Other use cases that gained traction during the pandemic included predictive maintenance and anomaly detection applications that leveraged edge computing and analytics in concert with cloud technologies for powering artificial intelligence (AI), including the training of neural networks.

Litmus, an edge-to-cloud industrial IoT (Internet of Things) platform supplier, says its customers are leveraging edge capabilities for data collection and processing, creating local dashboards and KPIs for machine operators and plant floor managers to monitor asset utilization, OEE. They are also leveraging edge applications to facilitate rules-based alerts that indicate machine downtime. With its built-in support for edge-to-cloud data integration, the platform leverages the cloud to aggregate data across multiple plants for deeper analysis of multi-plant performance and for training of AI (artificial intelligence)models, says John Younes, Litmus’s chief operating officer.

“We’re offering one platform to do everything

With edge-to-cloud deployment increasingly the norm, organizations need to stop thinking about where to deploy data and applications and instead focus on the business task at hand. As part of any roll out strategy, it’s important to consider the requirements of the process as it relates to cost, security, latency demands, and even the need for a reliable internet connection. From there, it’s all about understanding where data currently resides and what you want to do with it.

“For example, with condition-based monitoring where data is hot and reaction needs to be in milliseconds, the edge is the right location,” explains Bharath Ramesh, head of global product management and strategy, converged edge systems, at HPE. “For applications that are not as time critical, like operational metrics, the cloud is more efficient to get economies of scale.”

It’s also beneficial to embrace the mind set shift that comes with new platforms like the cloud, especially since they encourage greater experimentation. “In the automation world, that’s intimidating because you traditionally have had to spend a lot of capital and do heavy-duty process change to try new things,” says Jason Andersen, vice president of strategy and product management at Stratus. “In the cloud, you have a freer hand to experiment and try new things, which is very liberating.”

In the end, experts say to start with small pilot projects, score some early wins, and move forward from there. Don’t just focus on collecting data from industrial assets— the real advantage comes with knowing what you want to achieve, targeting the right data, and then putting it to work across the edge-to-cloud landscape. “We have tons of data and we don’t know how to leverage it to drive real intelligence,” says Mark Besser, senior vice president of customer success at Savigent. “More data isn’t the answer—it’s about getting access to the right data to solve business problems.”

11/29/21 1:29 PM

CASE STUDY 37 AW DECEMBER 2021

Producing Omega-3 Oils from Marine Algae A broad automation project, for a joint venture by Evonik and DSM, enables initial annual production to meet about 15% of the industry’s current total demand for omega-3 oils.

By Jeanne Schweder, Contributing Writer

A

partnership that had its roots in the 1980s, when NASA went looking for technology that could be used to produce food in space, is now making a significant share of the world’s omega-3 oils from natural marine algae, helping to protect wild fish stocks from over-exploitation for their oils while enabling the growth of sustainable aquaculture.

There’s a complex web of people, research, and technology behind this space-age story,

which links the cities of Delft, the Netherlands, with Blair, Nebraska. These linkages produced Veramaris, a $200 million joint venture between Germany-based Evonik and Dutch company Royal DSM. Its goal was to create the world’s first high-volume facility to manufacture omega-3 oils from marine algae for farm-raised salmon.

DSM has expertise cultivating marine organisms and biotechnology capabilities in development and operations, while Evonik’s

focus has been on industrial amino acid biotechnology using large-volume fermentation processes. Their breakthrough combines a special strain of algae in EPA and DHA omega-3—two fatty acids that have proven to be essential for good health in fish and people. The strain’s unique capabilities enable a much larger scale of production than ever seen before in algae cultivation.

While 35 years of research and investment made this venture possible, getting a highly automated factory up and running quickly was another challenge. The Blair facility was already making another product, so its production processes had to be maintained while new automation capabilities were added and other systems and equipment were upgraded to manufacture the algal oils.

This is the point where NovaTech, a U.S. company with extensive experience in process automation, entered the picture. “The project involved taking some of the existing plant’s capability and repurposing that to produce the omega-3 oil, which required new equipment and controls. At the same time, the plant’s

In the lab at the Veramaris facility where omega-3 oil is made from marine algae.

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38 CASE STUDY AW DECEMBER 2021

automation system was upgraded. Basically, every arrow in our [automation] quiver was used, so to speak,” says Dwight Wood, vice president of global sales for the NovaTech LLC Process Division, which is based in Owings Mills, Maryland.

“This was a very complex, demanding project with a tight schedule and a diverse global team, so it was a monumental task to bring it all together and integrate it into an existing production line while separating out new equipment,” adds David McBride, automation engineer at the Blair plant.

With the automation project now complete, the plant is able to produce enough EPA and DHA to equal what could be derived from 1.2 million tons of wild-caught fish each year. This initial annual production is expected to meet about 15% of the salmon aquaculture industry’s current total demand for omega-3 oils.

A highly automated process

NovaTech’s portion of the project included implementation and integration of a distributed control system (DCS) update and expansion; new applications programming; graphics for a high-performance human-machine interface (HMI); S88 batch management software; an updated real-time data historian application; and I/O migration from an older version to a new modern I/O platform, along with startup and ongoing onsite support.

“The key was implementing the full set of processes in a robust, reliable, flexible system.

It also needed to be highly automated so the plant can effectively run on its own with minimal operator interaction,” explains Wood.

While many companies may begin with a standardized system, much customization often needs to be done as a project develops to tailor applications to specific processes.

“On a different project, we worked with a

larger automation vendor, and they refused to cater to some of our special needs and instead required us fit into their mold,” says McBride.

“NovaTech, a mid-sized company, was more flexible and able to offer us custom solutions.”

Although certain procedures and processes are increasingly standardized and automated, numerous key steps in and around the automation are still dependent on operator input or manual intervention. When the operator is interrupted to handle other tasks, off-spec product can result, requiring costly corrective steps or product disposal.

The DCS is used to minimize such potential operator variability while enhancing automation along with consistency and reliability. The system monitors key variables such as flow, applied temperatures, pressure, level, and material conveying/handling. While the plant was already using NovaTech’s D/3 DCS, this was further upgraded to display real-time process information in a high-performance HMI. Custom graphics, built using dynamic objects from an extensive library, make it easy for the operator to control the process, enter information and interact with sequence programs.

Replicating a golden batch

“For this particular project, there were extremely stringent specifications to produce the end product, so batches must be performed reliably and correctly every time,” says Wood. “We worked with the customer to understand the requirements, and then outlined an automation strategy to meet their specific goals from a control perspective.”

NovaTech also fielded a team of engineers onsite at the plant during the project.

Fermentation processes, like those used to produce the algal oils, can be especially challenging to control due to a number of variables. The process involves preparing vessels, incoming media and downstream tanks, as well as managing volume, time, and temVeramaris facility in Nebraska produces perature to cultivate omega-3 oils from natural marine algae. the beneficial microorganisms essential to production.

When manufacturers produce batches, particularly when utilizing fermentation, they are trying to replicate a perfect “golden batch” each

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time. Toward this end, the project integrated ISA S88-based layered batch management software, which is designed to help reduce cycle times and life-cycle automation costs.

It also aids control and flexibility when slight recipe adjustments may be required.

The batch management software integrates recipe management and the automation layer so operators can quickly and easily develop, scale up, modify and schedule batch manufacturing recipes as required.

Comparing each batch historically against the perfect standard can also be an important element of maintaining quality control.

To enhance this capability, the project involved an upgrade to the company’s OSIsoft PI System (OSIsoft was acquired by Aveva in 2021), a real-time data historian application with a highly efficient database. The application records data from process control systems into a compressed time-series database. This provides a manufacturing site with historical predictive insights in real-time.

“It is important to have both real-time and historical access to product data,” explains Wood. “Having the ability to quickly retrieve that kind of information allows companies to more consistently manufacture product of the highest quality and integrity. And if there is ever a problem with product in the field, it simplifies tracking and troubleshooting.”

It was also necessary to migrate to a modern I/O system, NovaTech’s 8000 series platform, which is a remote I/O family that is highly integrated with the D/3 DCS. “The combination facilitates greater automation with better diagnostics, troubleshooting, and asset management capability,” says Wood. “With the configuration used, we can drill down to the controller, to the specific I/O card, so the operator does not have to go into the field to get the status of a specific card.”

Since there were hardware, software, and engineering requirements tied into the project, NovaTech tested these in their facility before implementing them at the plant. The company also partnered with local contractor Interstates Electrical Contractors for wiring the new I/O, as well as for general support during startup and commissioning.

“Even with state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment, controls, and production automation in place,” adds Wood, “how these are applied makes all the difference in the success of a project.”

11/29/21 1:11 PM

NEW PRODUCTS 39 AW DECEMBER 2021

Universal Industrial Gateway

Spectrum Controls, spectrumcontrols.com Featured at Rockwell Automation Fair 2021, the upgraded Universal Industrial Gateway from Spectrum Controls features a second Ethernet port and bigger display. The device can speak to up to 12 protocols simultaneously, talk to multiple devices at once, move thousands of tags, and bridge communication gaps between devices, whether Ethernet or serial.

Compatible protocols include Modbus, PPI, DirectNET, CCM, TI-HostLink, EtherNet/IP, S7comm, and DF1. The Universal Industrial Gateway can reportedly be deployed in minutes using a browser-based interface.

Edge Vision Analytics Software

Adlink, adlinktech.com The EVA SDK is analytics software that enables users to integrate visual data from pre-trained artificial intelligence (AI) models and field scenarios for implementation in proof-of-concept cases. Pre-installed on Adlink’s AI vision hardware, EVA SDK offers a no-code graphical user interface, ready-to-use plugins, ONNX runtime, TensorRT, and OpenVINO, allowing developers to build an AI vision application with no AI expertise needed. Benefits of EVA SDK include: selecting from more than 10 cameras, with no need to learn camera APIs; simplifying integration with a drag-and-drop GUI, which allows switching of image sources, image processing adjustment, and AI models; supporting review function of each step from image capturing, image pre-processing to AI inference, so that users can verify and debug if necessary; guaranteeing the quality of edge AI vision systems with Adlink-verified open-source plugins; and enabling flexible, optimized configuration for higher cost efficiency.

IEC 61850 Control Module

ProSoft Technology, prosoft-technology.com Presented at Rockwell Automation Fair 2021, the IEC 61850 module for ControlLogix systems is an in-rack product that integrates with a library of electrical protection devices from Rockwell Automation. The module enables an intelligent packaged power system— connecting the industrial enterprise and helping to increase productivity. IEC 61850-enabled devices support a standardized data structure, increasing vendor flexibility for end users.

Each ProSoft IEC 61850 client module supports up to 40 IEDs on a redundant PRP-enabled network, and up to a maximum of 225 I/O connections to the ControlLogix processor.

Mobile Application for Connected Plant Workers

Eschbach, eschbach.com Shiftconnector Go Mobile Rounds is an application from Eschbach, the provider of the Shiftconnector digital manufacturing software for the pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing sectors. The application connects field workers with board operators via the Shiftconnector platform for routine actions and compliance management. It is available for iOS, Android, and Windows, and allows workers to report activities directly from their mobile devices to a central location no matter where in the plant they are located. With its ability to function off-line, Shiftconnector Go Mobile Rounds also gives workers the opportunity to document actions when they might be in a location that does not have cellular access. The information is saved on the device and delivered when access is restored. For security requirements, if devices are shared between shifts, users have a specified PIN or password, which must be applied to access the application.

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40 NEW PRODUCTS AW DECEMBER 2021

Top Modules for Autonomous Mobile Robots

ROEQ, roeq.dk Capable of handling total payloads of up to 1500 kg, the new ROEQ top module TMS-C1500 combined with the new S-Cart1500W shelf cart can increase the payload capabilities of MiR’s MiR500, MiR600, MiR1000, and MiR1350 autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). Using the TMS-C1500 top module, a MiR1000 or MiR1350 AMR can be deployed on applications with payloads of up to 1500 kg, enabling MiR AMRs to be used in applications with heavier payloads than before. Similarly, the TMS-C1500 allows a MiR500 or MiR600 AMR to be used for applications with payloads of up to 800 kg, a substantial increase over the 400 kg payload supported by other mobile robotic equipment systems for the two AMRs.

Cloud-Native Industrial Edge Software

Nokia, nokia.com The Industrial Edge is a scalable application and compute platform designed to meet the mission-critical digital transformation needs of asset-intensive industries such as manufacturing, energy, and transportation. It combines compute, storage, wired and wireless networking, one-click industrial applications and automated management on an on-premise operations technology (OT) platform. Using the Nokia MX Industrial Edge, enterprises gain an on-premise cloud architecture that unifies edge requirements in an as-a-service package. The platform reportedly removes the complexity, knowledge, and economic hurdles typically associated with deployment, integration and life cycle management of high-performance compute applications and mission-critical networking.

Low-Code Automation Software

Bright Machines, brightmachines.com Brightware Studio offers a new self-service capability that enables flexible automation at greater speed and lower cost. The software provides additional functionality to the Bright Machines Microfactory—the company’s flagship product which combines intelligent software and modular building blocks to automate repetitive assembly and inspection tasks. Based on a modern, low/no code workflow, Brightware Studio is operated using an intuitive user interface, giving production line operators and technicians the ability to program, run, analyze, and debug the assembly process on the factory floor.

Online Application Marketplace

Bosch Rexroth, boschrexroth.com Bosch Rexroth has developed a marketplace in line with its app-based control platform ctrlX Core featuring apps developed by Bosch Rexroth and third-party providers. The marketplace allows users to create their own customized applications and libraries. For example, new automation and control functions can be added to ctrlX Core at any time.

The ctrlX Store provides users with a range of apps to establish a customized software system. Users can purchase any app in the ctrlX Store and install it on ctrlX Core. With apps from third party suppliers, users can, for example, integrate these apps with artificial intelligence for production and process improvements or use smart software expansions for mechanics such as gearboxes or gripping and clamping systems. The portfolio of apps also covers areas such as IT security, connectivity, manufacturing IT, voice recognition, and visualization.

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NEW PRODUCTS 41 AW DECEMBER 2021

Enterprise Resource Planning Software

Epicor, Epicor.com Kinetic, a cloud-based ERP platform for manufacturers, has recently been updated. The software now includes a new Epicor Cloud Enterprise Services package for large manufacturers that contend with uniquely complex bills of material (BOMs) and material resource planning (MRP) requirements. With the new services package, large manufacturers gain greater control and flexibility to manage multiple plants and facilities worldwide on a scalable and secure cloud platform. The software also delivers substantial computing power, a customizable cloud infrastructure, and access to support expertise to accelerate complex global manufacturing processes.

Robotics Training Platform

OnRobot, onrobot.com Learn OnRobot is a free online training platform that guides users, step-by-step, through the process of designing and deploying cobot applications featuring OnRobot tools such as grippers, vision cameras, processing kits, and sensors in setups with all major cobot and light industrial robot brands. Localized with support in nine languages, Learn OnRobot’s library of simple, direct ‘How To’ videos and 3D simulations provides detailed information on collaborative applications, including machine tending, palletizing, pick and place, and sanding. The platform is accessible via PCs, smartphones, and tablets, which enables access to Learn OnRobot resources from the shop floor during the deployment process. Learn OnRobot also mitigates labor shortages by enabling collaborative automation deployments, empowering companies to respond quickly to challenging labor conditions.

MQTT Gateway

Real Time Automation, rtautomation.com The MQTT protocol has now been made available on Real Time Automation’s 460 industrial gateway line. The MQTT protocol gateway makes it easier to move industrial device data to cloud applications like AWS IoT Core or enterprise systems. The gateway enables manufacturers to configure their industrial device data to schedule predictive maintenance, monitor system health, as well as measure and analyze overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). This MQTT family of gateways is customizable and allows manufacturers to pick single tags, userdefined tags, data space blocks, and other data using any one of the protocol drivers in the Real Time Automation protocol suite.

Machine Tending Application Cells

ABB, abb.com The FlexLoader M family of modular machine tending application cells for the metals industry is aimed at maximizing flexibility and machine utilization while minimizing lost productivity caused by unforeseen production stoppages. Featuring six different versions, the FlexLoader M family offers a variety of ways to load and unload machines based on the size, shape, and amount of the workpieces being handled. These cells are well-suited for foundries and die casting operations producing multiple types of products in varying quantities.

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42 INDUSTRY VIEW AW DECEMBER 2021

Ar

ualit ana o ntial

By Dick Slansky Senior Analyst, ARC Advisory Group

Q

uality management systems (QMS) have been in place since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. They were used to manage and curtail defects in products and eventually evolved to become a set of standards that controlled both the product and production processes.

As manufacturing and production lines became more automated and accelerated in the 1950s and ’60s, and production rates increased rapidly, quality became even more important because the potential of large quantities of sub-standard products entering the market became a reality. Quality control (QC) systems eventually gave way to quality assurance (QA) systems when manufacturers began to understand that quality products had to have quality built into the production process, and not just a QC system that discovered defects in an end item inspection and scrapped bad parts.

Evolution of the QMS market

The QMS market focuses on modern QMS systems that represent the evolution of quality management to its current portfolio of products. Today, a comprehensive portfolio of quality systems would include audit management, compliance management, corrective and preventive actions (CAPA), defect tracking, document management, feedback tracking, incident management, non-conformance tracking, risk management, and supply chain quality. Some QMS providers focus on specific areas such as SPC, quality assurance assessment, and enterprise quality consulting.

The QMS market sectors are divided between PLM, MES, and ERP suppliers that offer QMS systems as a part of their overall enterprise software portfolio. Most MES products offer quality management as an integrated component of an overall manu-

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m nt

facturing planning and execution portfolio.

Some of the large PLM providers offer MES as a component of their design/build/operate lifecycle. Most of the current QMS market are pure play QMS providers, many representing point solutions that focus on specific quality technologies.

Today, the term that describes the market is QMS, where TQM (Total Quality Management) refers primarily to the underlying methodology and approach to the quality process. Perhaps the most common description of how quality and quality improvements have evolved into present-day QMS is the identification of: Quality Inspection, Quality Control, Quality Assurance, and TQM.

From quality control to quality assurance

The quality inspection stage began about the same time (early 20th century) that large manufacturing and mass assembly production lines emerged. Companies like Ford, then one of the world’s largest manufacturers, employed teams of inspectors to check the quality of the model-T car. Some elements of statistical quality control were introduced in the 1930s and ’40s, but this method of quality control was the primary process until the 1970s and ’80s when quality assurance emerged from the Japanese auto manufacturers.

The quality assurance (QA) phase focuses on pre-production processes and relies on quality standards (most notably ISO 9000) or instructions to assist with reduction of the risk of failures and mistakes in the processes used to produce a product or service. ISO 9000 is now used extensively throughout the world as the de facto guide to quality assurance.

The fourth stage, TQM, involves understanding and implementing quality management principles and concepts in every aspect across the organization and enterprise from product design to manufacturing to customer feedback. TQM is focused on continuous process improvement procedures in which all organizations of the enterprise are involved and committed to quality as a mindset and process. In other words, the quality is built into the enterprise and overall process, assuring a quality product.

t m QMS extends beyond manufacturing

Overall growth in the QMS software market will be driven primarily by the demand for more reliable products by consumers in emerging markets. One of the major trends in this market is the rapidly growing sales of goods over the internet that will require producers to offer quality products that will not be returned, as processing these returns due to quality issues represents a major cost center for internet-based sales.

While quality assurance and overall continuous improvement methods have been in place for decades in discrete manufacturing, the adoption of these quality methods have moved to other industries like bio-tech/ pharma, medical devices, consumer goods and services, and non-manufacturing industries like power generation and utilities, financial and banking services, consumer goods, and food & beverage. Additionally, the QMS market now includes technologies focused on occupational safety and environmental and sustainability issues, further expanding the reach of the quality assurance space.

Recommendations

Clearly, quality assurance is an integral and critical part of manufacturing, as well as many other industries and services. QMS, as a market, has evolved into systems and applications that cover a broad set of quality requirements, including compliance and audit management, corrective and preventive actions, defect tracking, risk management, and supply chain QA. Often overlooked and under-appreciated, QMS keeps the wheels of industry turning and the consuming public protected.

11/29/21 1:25 PM

INTEGRATOR VIEW 43 AW DECEMBER 2021

Best Practices for Integrating Plant F�oor Automation

By Michael De Boer Automation Manager, Interstates

T

o stay competitive, businesses must do more with less. While each industry has its particular drivers and solutions, manufacturing plants are reacting to the current climate by pivoting to just-in-time ordering (i.e., no longer stockpiling increasingly expensive commodities) and streamlining processes.

Integrating business systems with plant floor automation is proving to be an effective way to achieve these goals.

There are certainly trials ahead for manufacturing plants, but we’ve detailed a few best practices for integration that can help you make better business decisions during turbulent times.

Common challenges

These pressing problems are making it more and more apparent that integration is the way forward: • Supply Chains. In the last few months, shipping strains have impacted supply chains globally. Production can be negatively affected if you don’t know what you have for inventory or how long it will take to secure your vital materials or ingredients.

Integrating your plant automation with your business systems gives you a big-picture look at your entire business and how it’s performing, helping you make smarter decisions about ordering and production schedules. Integration provides better insight to the whole business unit—from workers on the plant floor to the sales team. Relatedly, keeping the right quantity of raw materials can be difficult when you’re utilizing just-in-time manufacturing. Instead of filling warehouses with raw materials and hoping the product will sell, businesses are having to focus on time to market, material arrival times, and supply

2112_IntegratorView.indd 43

chain logistics. Analyzing sales cycles and understanding how plants actually work are crucial to forecasting material needs.

Integration links these aspects and makes it easier for plant managers to keep the right amount of materials on hand.

• Consistency and Traceability. Tracking orders and production data without integration can create headaches. By linking business and plant floor components, you create a traceable path from production orders coming in with live production information recorded back to business systems. This process allows for quality control and maximum traceability.

• Worker Shortage. A more sensitive challenge is the lack of people resources.

The difficulty of finding good employees who are available to fill the open seats affects manufacturing plants nationwide.

To fill these gaps, companies can pursue more automation. Through integration, increased automation opens the door to connecting business technology with plant manufacturing.

Best practices that can help

Every business is feeling the impact of these challenges, but there are straightforward ways to weather the storm. The following tips can be used to get the most out of system integration projects at your plants.

• Find the experts. Companies that have found success either have internal experts who understand the technology and how each component ties together, or they look outside the company to find an expert who can help navigate integration for them. Consultants or systems integrators can be knowledgeable partners.

• Know what you have. To integrate your processes and equipment, you need to map out what you already have in place.

Quite often, systems integrators will uncover different systems and tools that a plant has but is unaware of. Performing an internal needs assessment beforehand can make the process of integrating much easier. This can be facilitated by a consultant or automation partner.

• Have a tangible goal. You need to start

with a goal you can achieve. Like the old saying about eating a whole elephant one bite at a time, pick something you can scope well, complete it, and then move on to the next goal. Too often, data initiatives involve too many people and get too big, getting clogged up with competing interests and different directions. Suddenly what could have been a $50k investment to get a proof of concept becomes a $1M project where 20 people are trying to make decisions. Keeping a tight rein on the scope will make your integration goals more achievable.

• Be ready to adjust. Understand that what you thought was going to be the answer might not be the reality. Often, you uncover hidden problems and inefficiencies through the process of integration.

You must be willing to accept whatever comes out of it; being flexible will help keep you on track and moving forward.

Larger companies with multiple production sites or facilities will likely find the most benefit from integration. They’ll be able to leverage efficiencies at one plant to improve processes at all of them. Integrating plant floor automation with business practices eases shipping logistics and helps companies achieve consistency across multiple sites.

If you’re ready to get started, you need to find integration experts versed in your technology platforms. Many companies are using SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) or even Microsoft software, which is a good place to start. You should also connect with the people already handling your plant floor automation. Often, they have experience with these larger companies and know the business side and software. There are also many industry user groups out there who can help; in fact, there are so many resources for integration that choosing one can be daunting. Finding a systems integrator you trust is a great first step.

11/29/21 1:25 PM

44 ENTERPRISE VIEW AW DECEMBER 2021

Accelerating the Industrial Enterprise

By Brian May Managing Director, Industrial North America, Accenture

A

lthough the COVID-19 pandemic has been highly disruptive to industrial enterprises (IEs), projections for many industries indicate that things are beginning to turn around, which could set the stage for IEs to start shifting gears from rebounding from the pandemic to accelerating their growth.

Of course, accelerating growth isn’t easy.

It requires a deep understanding of emerging technologies and new customer requirements; a clear understanding of when to partner, when to invest, and when to acquire; and a focus on employee demands, as well as access to the right talent.

To gain insight into how IEs can accelerate their growth agendas, Accenture surveyed 1,150 industry executives globally—60% from IEs and 40% from non-IE companies—about their perspectives on and approaches to growth, exploring the attributes and behaviors of companies in several growth-related areas. Using these insights and lessons learned from IEs that are leading in growth, we developed a framework that companies can use to assess their own growth efforts—and build accelerated growth into the DNA of the business.

Specifically, we explored IEs’ activities in six groups of activities that Accenture has identified as being critical to accelerating growth: • Focusing. How well companies address significant challenges and opportunities in areas where they have the best chance to successfully compete consistently over the long term.

• Steering. How well companies balance and adjust their portfolio of projects to maximize the impact of staged funding and accelerate growth in three key activities: growing the core business via a shift to services; digitally transforming the core business to lift up efficiency gains; and reinvesting those gains to build new business.

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• Doing. How well companies execute to launch new software-driven and intelligent products and services that provide valuedriven experiences.

• Leading. How well companies set a clear ambition, use persuasive storytelling, and “walk the walk” to accelerate growth.

• Enabling. How well companies manage talent, technology and ecosystems to increase the pace of implementation for their growth visions.

• Being. How well companies foster a culture that fuels growth through supportive mindsets, behaviors, and ways of working.

These six practices are based on the process of creating “360-degree value”—i.e., not just profitable revenue growth, but progress in areas such as sustainability, diversity and inclusion, employee skills, and employee and customer experiences. All of these factors are becoming more critical to driving and sustaining growth.

Ultimately, working across all six practices helps embed a deep focus on growth into a company’s culture.

We assessed IEs’ behavior and success in each of those six practices, placing companies into one of four groups: Leaders, Aspirers, Mainstream, and Laggards. We found that, in general, IEs are focused on growth, but their growth targets measured along the six growth practices are not yet ambitious enough to shift gears and significantly accelerate their current plans.

Our research found that by improving their focus on these practices, IEs could, on average, increase annual revenue growth by 0.6 percentage points and increase their EBIT margins by 1.5 percentage points for each of the six practices— i.e., increasing overall revenue growth by more than 3.5 percentage points and overall EBIT margins by up to 9 percentage points.

Perhaps most important, the analysis proved that focusing on these six practices is efficient, as IE Leaders have performed better than other IEs, with revenue CAGR (compound annual growth rate) and EBIT margins in the last five years 13% and 68% higher, respectively, than those of Laggards.

A focus on growth needs to be instilled throughout the company and supported by a culture that favors calculated risk-taking, a 360-degree view of growth that explores new offerings and partnerships, and the discipline to identify high-potential growth opportunities

and re-invest profits in them. Growth needs to become a central tenet.

Taking the first steps

Looking across the six practice areas, the actions associated with growth provide some valuable guideposts for IEs. An analysis of Leaders’ behaviors shows a number of success factors for accelerating growth.

Leaders’ experience also underscores the fact that the six practices should be seen not as a set of standalone categories, but as an integrated, interwoven suite of activities that support one another. Working across all the practices will ultimately be key to embedding accelerated growth into the DNA of the company.

Unlocking accelerated growth will take time and actions on multiple fronts. To get started, however, IEs should focus on four activities: • Setting a holistic growth ambition. Define and communicate a clear ambition for accelerated growth and what it is expected to deliver.

• Assessing the company’s growth potential.

The six-practices model described here provide a framework for assessing a company’s growth potential, understanding its strengths and weaknesses in the activities that drive growth, and finding the areas that will have the greatest impact on growth.

• Finding efficiencies to fuel growth and reinvest the gains. This should include automation and digital technology-driven improvements in the back office and shop floor; efforts to make employees more efficient; and the active sharing of knowledge and learning across the company.

• Incubating the new approaches to growth. IEs can start small and nurture efforts across the six practices, constantly iterating based on progress and market feedback, and eventually scale the new approach across the enterprise. This requires taking an integrated approach that fosters cross-entity collaboration and a diverse culture.

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ADVERTISER INDEX 45 AW DECEMBER 2021

COMPANY

TELEPHONE

WEBSITE

ARC Advisory Group

781.471.1000

www.arcweb.com/events/arc-industry-forum-orlando

7

Automation Direct

800.633.0405

www.automationdirect.com/stridelinx

2

CIMON

800.300.9916

www.CIMON.com

3

Contemporary Controls

630.963.7070

www.ccontrols.com/machine

Digi-Key Electronics

800.344.4539

www.digikey.com/automation

Galco Industrial Electronics

888.526.0909

www.Galco.om

Hammond Manufacturing

716.630.7030

www.hammond.com

Inductive Automation

800.266.0909

demo.ia.io/automation

MAVERICK Technologies

888.917.9109

www.mavtechglobal.com/goos-automation-world

47

Opto 22

800.321.6786

www.Opto22.com

47

www.packexpoeast.com/packready

11

www.tesensors.com/XXSonic

17

PACK EXPO East

Telemecanique Sensors

800.435.2121

PAGE

31

4

8-7

23

Cover-1

Automation World ® (ISSN # 15531244, USPS 22435) is a registered trademark of PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies. Automation World ® is published 14x a year by PMMI with its publishing office, PMMI Media Group, located at 401 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1700, Chicago, IL 60611; 312.222.1010; Fax: 312.222.1310. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL, and additional mailing offices. Copyright 2021 by PMMI. All rights reserved. Materials in this publication must not be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Applications for a free subscription may be made online at www.packworld.com/subscribe. Paid subscription rates per year are $105 in the U.S., $147 Canada and Mexico by surface mail; $250 Europe, South America. $325 Far East and Australia by air mail.

To subscribe or manage your subscription to Automation World, visit AutomationWorld.com/subscribe. Free digital edition available to qualified individuals outside the United States. POSTMASTER; Send address changes to Automation World®, 401 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 1700, Chicago, IL 60611. PRINTED IN USA by Quad Graphics. The opinions expressed in articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of PMMI. Comments, questions and letters to the editor are welcome and can be sent to: editors@automationworld.com. We make a portion of our mailing list available to reputable firms. If you would prefer that we don’t include your name, please write us at the Chicago, IL address. Volume 19, Number 12.

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11/30/21 9:06 AM

46 KEY INSIGHTS AW DECEMBER 2021

The end-to-end, integrated MES software controls production and manufacturing systems, matches the production processes to the delivery chain, and closes the gap between business systems and process control systems. Materials management and operating data acquisition are both integrated in the software.

Jeanne Schweder on the digitalization of production operations at Spitz. awgo.to/1286

But before you head out to collect all the data you can from your equipment, there are many important questions to ask; the first of which should be: What would those equipment data, if they were available to you in real time, enable you to do?

David Greenfield on making legacy equipment connections work. awgo.to/1287

To optimize the CIP and SIP processes, the system should allow a procedure author to design, implement, test, and deploy procedures without requiring engineering resources.

This enables procedures to continuously be improved and optimized or adapt to changing requirements.

Randy Otto of ECS Solutions on the benefits of flexible and modular CIP and SIP automation. awgo.to/1288

The need to recalibrate the supply chain as the direct-to-consumer model grows to mass scale requires new kinds of platforms and partnerships. To that end, key priorities moving forward include an efficient and responsive last mile and anticipating recycling, refurbishment, and return flows. That means maximizing the use of technology and automation to gain more flexibility and agility.

Stephanie Neil on the ways e-commerce is impacting robotics technology decisions. awgo.to/1280

By 2019, Volvo had added more than 2,000 users and deployed Windchill in 13 factories. By the end of 2021, Volvo estimates that Windchill will be used by more than 3,000 users across 15 of its sites. According to the company, the results have been substantial—a 70% efficiency gain in the quality of work instructions, a 30% reduction in data entry errors, and a 30% improvement in change management handling.

David Miller on Volvo’s use of digital thread technology. awgo.to/1289

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