Automation World May 2022

MAY 2022 / www.AutomationWorld.com

32 AUTOMATION TRENDS IN HIGH-MIX, LOW-VOLUME MANUFACTURING Section

20 36 41 44 43

How OPC UA Creates Interoperability Integrated Automation Framework Produces Quality Wine Is Continuous Optimization of an Asset Possible?

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CONTENTS 3 AW MAY 2022

MAY 2022 | VOLUME 20 | NUMBER 5

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Why High-Mix, Low-Volume Manufacturers Are Adopting Flexible Automation

Growing demands for customization, increasing numbers of SKUs, and ongoing labor issues are leading HMLV manufacturers to adopt more easily configurable automation hardware and software.

How OPC UA Creates Interoperability and Gives Data Context

This second installment in a four-part series on key industrial network technologies explains why OPC UA continues to be recognized as the global interoperability method of choice for industrial automation technologies.

Integrated Automation Framework Helps Produce Consistent Quality Wines

Using a connected automation architecture anchored by Rockwell Automation’s FactoryTalk software enables Oxford Landing winemakers to specify process streams, crushing speeds and fermentation schedules, and monitor the operational status of the entire plant.

4/28/22 11:36 AM

4 CONTENTS AW MAY 2022

EDITORIAL

ONLINE 6

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 Victoria Sanchez Managing Editor vsanchez@pmmimediagroup.com / 571-612-3200 x9298 Jim Chrzan VP/Content and Brand Strategy jchrzan@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1470 Kim Overstreet Director, Emerging Brands Community koverstreet@pmmimediagroup.com James R. Koelsch, Lauren Paul, Jeanne Schweder and Beth Stackpole Contributing Writers

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

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS 8

Is Your Automation Technology Delivering on Expectations?

BATCH OF IDEAS 10

Copia Automation Brings Modern DevOps to Industrial Control

PRODUCTION POINTS 12

Robotics Growth Helps Fund New Research

PERSPECTIVES 14

ART & PRODUCTION

Insights on Industry’s Digital Transformation Leaders 4 Ways to Ensure Your Data Lake Doesn’t Become a Data Swamp

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

NEWS 18

Zebra Technologies Acquires Matrox’s Imaging Division Improving Automation’s Energy Efficiency with Neuromorphic Sensor Technology PMMI News PACK EXPO International 2022 Preview

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IT VIEW 44

Is Continuous Optimization of an Asset Possible? By Dr. Ananth Seshan

KEY INSIGHTS 46

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PODCAST SERIES How to Evaluate PLC Programming Languages

The differences among and preferences for Instruction List, Structured Text, Ladder Diagram, Function Block Diagram, and Sequential Function Chart PLC programming languages, as well as C and C+, are discussed with Doug Yerger of system integrator Grantek.

AUTOMATION WORLD TV Pharmaceutical Industry Applies Artificial Intelligence How pharmaceutical companies are using artificial intelligence to improve asset performance management and predictive maintenance to avoid batch loss and reduce maintenance and repair costs.

EDITORS’ INSIGHTS ON VIDEO Safeguarding Your ICS Against the Log4j Vulnerability with AutomationWorld

Although no information about industrial control systems being breached via Log4j has yet been made public, the threat exists.

AUTOMATION WORLD E-BOOK Roundup: Robotics and Artificial Intelligence

Best practices, case studies, & more on these key automation technologies.

SYSTEM INTEGRATOR BLOGS Why You Should Invest in a Training Program for Your Employees Common Questions on Cloud Deployments After Internet Disasters Don’t Fall Victim to Commissioning Gremlins: The Value of a Controls Expert What Happens When The Agile Culture Becomes a Trend?

Digital Transformations and the Role of the Integrator

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8 EDITORIAL AW MAY 2022

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS

Is Your Automation Technology Delivering on Expectations?

By David Greenfield

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

F

or the most part, the increased use of automation in industry has delivered exceptional advances in terms of productivity and profit.

This has been especially true for large company early adopters with the deep pockets to prove out the capabilities of these technologies. It’s also been true for most mid-tier companies that have been able to follow in the footsteps of the larger companies and implement their best practices without having to experiment as much.

But there is growing disagreement, and with it some confusion, as to which technologies can provide the most value based on how far along the digital transformation path a company may be.

Does it add value?

“Technology adoption, including automation, should always be in service to an organization’s business goals, whether that be increased capacity, right-first-time quality, speed to market, or another goal,” says Bryon Hayes, PE, director of smart manufacturing solutions at Grantek. “The first place to look for non-value-added technology would be for ‘white elephants,’ those technologies or systems for which the ongoing costs outweigh the benefits to the business. For example, if a new high-speed packaging line is always going down for maintenance or unplanned stoppages, the organization needs to evaluate whether the equipment and its automation is actually supporting its business goals.”

Todd E. Ebert, PE, senior application engineer at Rovisys notes that, in some cases, automation technologies can add costs to operations due to

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their complexity and inability to deliver on initial investment justifications.

“Capital projects adding new automation technology are justified with a business case and anticipated ROI (return on investment) prior to receiving funding approval. However, most are never measured against that business case after commissioning to determine if the ROI was met and continues to add value,” Ebert says. “The addition of value for automation projects can’t be determined unless the value metrics are carefully defined and are actually used to measure that value, ideally on a periodic basis.”

Causes

Based on his experience working with manufacturers and seeing technologies not delivering on expectations, Hayes points out that such issues are not necessarily connected to the technology.

These issues can also be caused by one business unit selecting the tool and the vendor without input from key stakeholders in other business units.

“I’ve seen IT departments purchase MES (manufacturing execution system) software without input from the production, maintenance, or quality groups,” he says. “When this happens, key requirements get overlooked and either the technology languishes unused, or the company spends a lot more money in change orders as the new stakeholders are brought onboard the project.”

Technology assessments

“I always suggest that the manufacturer start by preparing a user requirements specification (URS) that clearly defines the business goals and the explicit requirements of all stakeholders,” says Hayes. “I recommend that requirements be written using a SMART approach (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound) so that the URS can be used in technology curation and vendor selection, and that it is easy to return to the URS after the system is installed to compare the results against the requirements.”

With a set of business and manufacturing goals in place, the gap analysis is “pretty straightforward to define an automation and technology roadmap

that will create a master plan that systematically works towards those goals one solution or project at a time,” adds Ebert.

The success of automation is largely based on a technology’s ability to be implemented to meet a requirement. If the functional requirements are not properly defined by the end user, how will it meet or exceed expectations?

See the full article on determining the value of your technology.

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10 EDITORIAL AW MAY 2022

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS

Copia Automation Brings Modern DevOps to Industrial Control

By Stephanie Neil

sneil@automationworld.com Senior Editor

D

evOps, defined as the combination of software development and IT operations, has been used by engineers for more than 15 years as a way to increase an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services faster than traditional software development processes. Part of that process includes Git, an opensource tool used for code development (authored

by Linus Torvalds in 2005), which provides data integrity management and collaboration among multiple developers in a project.

These tools can help engineers develop products about 50% faster while improving overall quality.

Now, Copia Automation wants to bring this toolset to control system engineers.

“We are working on bringing modern source control to industrial automation,” said Copia founder and CEO Adam Gluck during a presentation at the Innovation Stage at PACK EXPO East in Philadelphia. “We bring standardized processes to reduce downtime and increase organizational efficiency for controls organizations.”

Founded in July of 2020, Copia has about 30 team members from the IT and OT space. “We believe Git is the future in the industrial space,” Gluck said, noting that it’s already ubiquitous in the IT space and nearly all industrial vendors will eventually move in this direction. “We are already seeing some Git integration from Codesys, Beckhoff, Siemens, and we think Rockwell will too.”

Historically, progress in this area has been held back by IEC languages, as controls engineering involves visual programming languages which don’t work well with Git. “What Copia does is build an

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ergonomic workflow on top of Git that works with visual programming paradigms,” Gluck said.

Git can reduce onboarding and training by 40% and alleviates some of the pain points associated with the development process, including lost or old code, maintaining multiple versions of files, working with outdated versions, the inability to share code, tracking who changed what, and scaling teams.

Git-based version control means files are stored locally and in a central repository and can easily be reverted back to the last working version, if needed. In addition, Copia works with any development environment, displays ladder logic in its desktop and web app, and renders the difference between versions graphically to allow end users to easily see what’s been added, deleted, or edited without having to sift through hundreds of lines of code. Copia also streamlines code reviews so viewers can see all the changes and merge them into a central code base when ready. Copia’s branching and merging capabilities mean teammates can work together without overriding code and the organization can easily add developers to the project to meet tight deadlines.

According to Gluck, organizations will want to adopt Git to deliver more quality products to market faster without stressing out the engineering team. He also shared some feedback from a few of Copia’s users, including Kamp Automation, a provider of customized automation systems for manufacturers. “Copia provides visibility to my entire team’s work and gives rich context into any change,” said Kamp controls engineering manager Nicholas Buchele. “It enables us to review PLC programs without downloading and opening the files in Studio 5000. It easily saves us two to three hours of work per engineer per week.”

John Sullivan, project director at engineering services company DMC, said, “Copia provides my senior controls team with roughly eight hours back a month in just code review practices.”

It is also easy to migrate to Git. The folder becomes a repository making it a simple copy and paste of files. “It’s straight forward and that’s important because you don’t want people to have to rip and replace. You can gently migrate into

this,” said Gluck. And you can always access Git histories, see review changes, and merge code as well as manage access privileges. “It is straight forward from a day-to-day operations engineering perspective, but then you get all of these benefits built in to the system.”

The benefits being: shorter project timelines, improved quality, reduced downtime, and the ability to share and scale. “We really believe this is the future of manufacturing,” Gluck said. “It’s common sense, it’s easy to adopt, it takes less than 10 minutes to get a team member going, and it ultimately drives quality.”

Copia’s branching and merging capabilities mean teammates can work together without overriding code and the organization can easily add developers to the project to meet tight deadlines.

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12 EDITORIAL AW MAY 2022

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS

Robotics Growth Helps Fund New Research

By David Miller

dmiller@pmmimediagroup.com Senior Technical Writer

As well as reaching new consumers, we see repeat business from manufacturers extending their use of cobots after seeing the impact of the technology.

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A

confluence of factors ranging from labor shortages and reshoring to greater demand for mass customization have led to a surge in the adoption of robotic technologies, with particularly high growth being seen for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and collaborative robots (cobots). AMRs have become increasingly popular in assembly and packaging operations where human labor is often lacking.

In these cases, robotic arms or other peripheral devices attached to the tops of mobile carts can assist in loading and unloading goods from production lines. Likewise, cobots have proven popular for machine tending applications in the high-mix, low-volume (HMLV) manufacturing space. Often, companies in the HMLV space are contract manufacturers who produce parts and components for larger industrial players, such as automotive manufacturers. As more of these large companies return to the U.S., HMLV manufacturers have seen a corresponding uptick in business, for which they do not always have the labor capacity to service.

To help address industry’s growing need for and interest in robots, the Advanced Robotics Manufacturing Institute (ARM) is funding two new robotics research projects at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s School of Engineering. ARM is funded by the U.S Department of Defense (DoD) and leverages an ecosystem of more than 330 consortium members and partners across industry, academia, and government to support research that makes robotics, autonomy, and artificial intelligence more accessible to U.S. manufacturers. According to ARM, the projects being funded at Rensselaer focus on modernization priorities set by the DoD that also serve to strengthen U.S. manufacturing and empower workers.

The first project is led by John Wen, head of the department of electrical, computer, and systems engineering at Rensselaer. Its goal is to create a “high-speed, high-precision curvilinear robot tool trajectory, based on a complex curved geometry using industrial robots with redundant degrees of freedom, to reduce or eliminate the

need for manual tuning.” This technology can be applied in robotic spraying and deposition applications, ARM says.

Glenn Saunders, senior research engineer for the manufacturing innovation center at Rensselaer, will lead the second project. According to ARM, it “aims to develop fundamental technologies for robotic handling of energetic materials (i.e., explosives and self-reactive materials). It will demonstrate safety systems, robotic manipulation strategies, and designs that are immediately applicable to manufacturing…devices and products that use energetics.”

Research teams from Schlumberger, Interface Technologies, and Fanuc America will also be partnering with Saunders for the project.

Further evidence of industry’s expanding interest in robotics can be seen in Universal Robots’ recent reporting of a record-breaking annual income of more than $300 million, up 41% from 2020. Commenting on the results, Kim Polvsen, president of Universal Robots, said, “Our growth is driven by several long-term trends, including workforce shortages and growing awareness of the contribution automation can make to productivity. As well as reaching new consumers, we see repeat business from manufacturers extending their use of cobots after seeing the impact of the technology.”

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14 PERSPECTIVES AW MAY 2022

Insights on Industry’s Digital Transformation Leaders

By David Miller, Senior Technical Writer

C

onnected industrial technologies that make use of artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics are becoming more prevalent and being used to address issues ranging from labor shortages and supply chain disruptions to climate change, according to ARC Advisory Group. Looking across the companies recognized in the report, ARC notes that no single indicator appears to be universally correlated with the companies’ digital transformation approach. However, certain factors do seem to be correlated with the success of digital transformation initiatives. Notably, the most successful companies have adopted digital technologies in response to specific external market signals, problems, or disruptions. When these narrow, well-defined issues motivated change, businesses saw far more positive results, according to ARC. Here are highlights from the ARC report on the strategic digital transformation approaches of the top 10 companies.

The top 10

Tesla: When Tesla seeks to automate a new internal process, it attempts to do so as effectively as possible from the start, rather than engaging in multiple, subsequent revisions. ARC explains, “Their business model is built on the tenet that the vehicles are more like interactive computers with wheels, leading to the creation of an intelligent data platform and connected ecosystem, enabling Tesla to learn from and serve its customers. This is an example of a company that is comfortable with digital transformation and adapts to business challenges with greater ease.”

Intel: Digital transformation initiatives focused on connectivity have allowed Intel to run its semiconductor manufacturing process 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Intel focuses primarily on connecting data insights with engineers who can solve specific problems, rather than merely maximizing data extraction. Digital twins and simulations also play a large role in optimizing factory output. In particular, Intel’s deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and predictive analytics at scale have decreased the company’s time to market, improved resource utilization, increased yields, and reduced costs.

BMW Group: BMW emphasizes its digital transformation on data analytics, intelligent logistics, and additive manufacturing—not just for prototyping, but mass production to create parts for

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customized vehicles. “By additively manufacturing metal and polymer parts at various points in the process chain and different sites across the global network, BMW has transformed its production processes,” ARC says.

Johnson and Johnson: The digital strategy at Johnson and Johnson includes cross-functional partnerships and development of a new culture around digital tools such as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in product development, additive manufacturing, IoT connectivity, and automated order fulfillment. The company primarily uses IoT connectivity to track and trace products throughout its entire supply chain—from suppliers to hospitals.

Having IoT access to information in real-time allows Johnson and Johnson’s quality assurance procedures to manage the temperature of vaccines or other medical substances, regardless of where they are located at any given moment.

3M: Currently, the company has connected 240 plants and distribution centers to monitor the flow of products. Previously, 3M allowed individual facilities to operate autonomously using a localized subsidiary structure. Its digital transformation efforts have allowed it to achieve greater alignment and standardization across its plants.

3M is also using an AI platform to develop and deploy applications related to predictive healthcare and supply chain analytics.

Eli Lilly: Safety and quality receive special notice in Eli Lily’s digital transformation. For instance, the company has reduced ergonomic risks to employees by deploying robots to lift heavy boxes. In addition, real-time analytics have replaced after-the-fact testing to improve the efficiency of the company’s quality assurance procedures.

Deere and Company: Digitalization has been used by John Deere to achieve more dynamic logistics and production planning, improve the visibility and accuracy of materials throughout its global supply chain, and deliver customized user instructions in real-time. The company has also increased its investment in 5G to aid in the greater adoption of edge computing, autonomous devices, real-time location systems, asset tracking, inventory management, wearables, and robotics.

Procter and Gamble: A multi-cloud data strategy and a “culture of data” to inform business decisions are at the core of Procter and Gamble’s

digitalization efforts. The company sees data and algorithms as key tools for constructively altering how it operates. Among the goals of Procter and Gamble’s digital transformation strategy are: Greater collaboration among employees; evolution of new products; improved production systems; supply chain and distribution optimization; and better customer relations.

Volkswagen: At Volkswagen, the use of robotics to replace human labor for ergonomically challenging assembly tasks has been a major focus. The company also uses computer vision to increase manufacturing efficiency at its factories. Vision sensors are used to gather optical data, which is then evaluated using AI technology capable of recognizing, processing, and analyzing images. According to Volkswagen, this has resulted in significant reductions in energy use.

Nestlé: The digital transformation strategy at Nestle is known as Vision2Life and has four priorities: Bring value to those who receive IT services; operate as a single global IT team with pockets of local expertise; interlock product management with business stakeholders; and make IT a technology differentiator. Technologies adopted by Nestle include analytics, AI, and e-business. In addition, all of the company’s factories are equipped with collaborative robots. Everyone from procurement, manufacturing, sales, and marketing are involved in the company’s digital transformation process, which is focused on increasing product innovation, capacity, and availability of goods while decreasing costs.

Intel focuses primarily on connecting data insights with engineers who can solve specific problems, rather than merely maximizing data extraction.

See ARC’s full Industrial Digital Transformation Top 25 report here.

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16 PERSPECTIVES AW MAY 2022

4 Ways to Ensure Your Data Lake Doesn’t Become a Data Swamp David Greenfield, Director of Content/Editor-in-Chief

I

f your company is involved in a full-fledged Smart Manufacturing, Industry 4.0, or other digital transformation initiative, you’ve likely encountered the term “data lake.” A data lake is essentially a place to store all the data collected from your operations. In a data lake, the data stored there can be structured or unstructured.

No prior processing is required for the data to be stored in a data lake.

Because all kinds of data can be stored in a data lake, these data storage sites hold high potential to provide guidance on matters you might not yet consider to be important. According to Amazon Web Services, having different data types stored in a central repository means that you can apply numerous types of analytics, such as SQL queries, Big Data analytics, full text search, real-time analytics, and machine learning to uncover new insights.

But, just like that junk drawer in your house was meant to store needed items that don’t quite fit elsewhere, it can easily become a catch-all depository for things you should have already thrown away. In a similar fashion, a data lake can become a data swamp.

Data lakes can also become data swamps when users need special development or technical skills to access and use the data, says Niki Driessen, chief architect at TrendMiner, a supplier of data analytics technology for the processing industries. “Currently, data lakes are becoming increasingly important to process industries that capture and store immense amounts of sensor-generated time-series data,” he explains. “To make data lakes work for time-series

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data, it is important to understand that [these kinds of] data cannot just be dumped into the lake with the expectation of extracting its value.”

To avoid having your data lake became a data swamp that obscures the value of your time-series data, Driessen advises taking the following steps: 1. Provide the required metadata. “There is no standard data lake tool or single platform that an organization can use to magically solve data lake issues such as data mapping and correlating,” says Driessen. “To ease data ingestion (for eventual analysis of time-series data), organizations must provide the required metadata—which includes data lineage, data structure, data age, and other metadata that provides common attributes or properties that link the data together.”

2. Connecting analytics to the data lake. Though no single standard exists to solve the data lake issues Driessen notes in the point above, there are common aspects of data storage packages from many different vendors that can help. One of these is a query abstraction layer. “This is a tool or component in an organization’s data lake that allows for writing standard SQL language queries against the data,” Driessen notes. “It also means that any tool that has support for standard ODBC or JDBC connectivity can be used to connect to the to the data lake.”

3. Data lake performance. Because data lakes typically use inexpensive block storage with a massive storage capacity, fast access to stored data is not guaranteed. This is a problem when working with advanced industrial analytics, as users expect the data to be where they need it and be able to

access it as fast as possible. It can be problematic for all an organization’s data to be “sitting in one huge file in the data lake, as this structure is highly inefficient for extracting data,” Driessen says. The good news is that such issues can be corrected with the use of columnar file formats, which allow users to read data columns that are only needed for a specific case. “Since the entire file would not have to be read, less data is loaded, resulting in faster response times,” he adds.

4. Data partitioning. Another practice recommended by Driessen to improve data lake performance is partitioning. Here, data is arranged in folder-like structures by key properties, time, or a combination of the two. Driessen says this practice splits all available data into much smaller files, allowing users to drill down to specific data sets without having to transfer as much data. This translates into less time required to process the data or query against it.

Learn how to make sense of the industrial analytics market.

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18 NEWS

AW MAY 2022

Zebra Technologies Acquires Matrox’s Imaging Division

By David Miller

Senior Technical Writer

W

ith its ability to help automate quality control, guide flexible pick-and-place systems, and simplify inventory tracking procedures, machine vision is of growing importance to industrial automation technology. By converting light captured via a smart camera into various types of digital image outputs, machine vision sensors provide a wealth of complex data that can allow automated systems to identify objects, navigate complex and changing workspaces, and analyze materials in a manner that was previously out of reach.

To expand its own machine vision offerings, Zebra Technologies—a company focused on data capture and automatic identification products—has acquired the imaging division of electronic company Matrox. Matrox, which also produces audio-video software and hardware for the broadcast market will retain this division.

Shortly before the acquisition, Zebra established a machine vision business unit with the intention of devoting more resources to its machine vision products.

"Through the introduction of more advanced, image-based sensing technologies and softwarebased visual analytics, Zebra can give customers greater visibility into the status of assets at the operational edge of their businesses to…operate more efficiently with increasingly automated, data-powered workflows, " said Donato Montanari, vice president and general manager of machine vision for Zebra.

Until the acquisition is finalized later this year, Montanari said Zebra will focus on tapping the expertise of Matrox’s machine vision engineers to improve future product releases rather than on rebranding Matrox technologies. More specifically, enhancements to Zebra’s automatic identification and data capture technologies, barcode and RFIDbased data capture devices, and indoor location tracking offerings will be achieved by adding more advanced machine vision hardware, software, and

services, such as 3D sensing and frame grabbers.

Zebra’s acquisition of Matrox’s imaging division follows its 2021 acquisition of machine vision software provider Adaptive Vision. That acquisition provided Zebra with access to enhanced machine learning and deep learning capabilities, improving the analytics capabilities of the company’s machine vision software.

"Zebra’s enterprise asset intelligence vision is for every asset and front-line worker on the edge to be visible, connected, and fully optimized," Montanari said. "Matrox Imaging will position Zebra to provide customers a broader spectrum of information about their assets, above and beyond identification. They will further our ability to enrich complex workflows with greater visibility, enabling the automation of repetitive tasks and answering a wider range of questions related to the inspection of assets such as build quality, consistency, proper quantities, and more."

Improving Automation’s Energy Efficiency with Neuromorphic Sensor Technology

By David Miller

Senior Technical Writer

W

hile the term industrial automation typically refers to machines with the ability to perform highly structured, pre-programmed tasks in place of human labor, the term industrial autonomy describes systems that are capable of adapting independently to diverse circumstances with minimal human intervention. For instance, an autonomous robot might be capable of learning to grip an unfamiliar object or navigate a new space without assistance from a human programmer. Artificial intelligence and machine learning provide the internal processing power necessary to enable this, but powerful external sensors are also needed to help robots and other automated technologies perceive and respond to their environments.

That’s why technologies such as “sensor fusion,” which grants a single sensor the ability to monitor multiple input types, are on the rise. These advanced

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sensor technologies are made possible by the exponential growth in computing capacity over the past several decades, which allowed more intelligence to be packed into smaller and smaller devices. However, the added processing power comes at a cost— namely, an increase in energy consumption.

To overcome this challenge, FraunhoferGesellshaft, a major European applied research organization, has launched NeurOSmart, a joint research initiative with the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems. The project aims to use neuromorphic electronics, which are modeled on the operations of the human brain, to use less energy. As part of this project, neuromorphic sensors will be installed in robotic systems for use in manufacturing environments with the goal of increasing their energy efficiency.

The data processing performed by neuromorphic sensors is “realized by a novel analog computer memory technology that is also capable of performing computational operations when data is newly acquired in the system,” explained Michael Mensing, a scientist and project leader at the

Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems.

“In practice, this is used to recognize objects and their behavior accurately and in real time. Until now, this mode of operation has required several separately developed components in computers and particularly energy-intensive communication between them.”

According to the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems, this new approach makes use of integrated electronics that allow for the parallel development of models for object recognition and classification that are specially adapted to individual sensors. This allows for a faster response time, increased data protection, and significant energy savings compared to current methods.

The NeurOSmart Initative has a project budget of 8 million Euros and will operate for four years, during which it will attempt to integrate its neuromorphic sensor electronics with a complex light detection and ranging (LiDAR) system.

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PACK EXPO International 2022 Preview New PACK EXPO features

By Sean Riley

Senior Director, Media and Industry Communications, PMMI

R

egistration is now open for the long awaited return of PACK EXPO International 2022 (Oct. 23-26; McCormick Place, Chicago), the most comprehensive packaging and processing show in the world in 2022. In response to the unprecedented demands on the industry, PACK EXPO International 2022 will offer more features than ever before, according to show producer PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies.

PACK EXPO International 2022 will showcase packaging-related devices, machinery, and software for more than 40 vertical markets. No other event this year will feature entire production line solutions and offer attendees everything needed to compete in a changing marketplace.

“There has been so much innovation in our industry that end users can’t afford to miss this opportunity to see the latest breakthroughs,” says Jim Pittas, president and CEO, PMMI.

The interactive PACK to the Future exhibit celebrates the role of packaging and processing through history and the impact it is poised to have on our future. The PACK to the Future stage will provide free industry-expert presentations on cutting-edge advancements.

PACK Match at PACK EXPO International debuts, providing attendees complimentary personalized, one-on-one guidance with PACK Match Advisors to connect attendees with the right suppliers.

The Emerging Brands Summit will launch at PACK EXPO International 2022 and will be a one-day event featuring educational content, tabletop exhibits and expert advisors. This new program is aimed at founders and leaders of startup manufacturing companies looking to scale their brand to larger production through facility build outs or outsourced relationships with contract manufacturers and packagers.

PACK Challenge is a brand-new packaging competition that brings high school teams together for

a head-to-head machine-building competition. The winning school will be awarded $5,000 with an additional $2,000 split between individual team members. Afterward, the teams will take the machines back to their school, providing future students the opportunity for hands-on experience.

The Processing Zone returns to PACK EXPO International in 2022 along with the Processing Innovation Stage focusing on the latest breakthroughs in processing. In today’s manufacturing environment, processing and packaging are integrated systems, making it critical to bring both operations under one roof.

The new Industry Speaks Stage features expert sessions from the PACK EXPO Partner Program, addressing the latest hot button topics and industry trends across multiple industry verticals.

To learn more and register, visit packexpointernational.com. Registration for the show is $30 until Sept. 30, after which it increases to $130.

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IT-OT Convergence Has Always Been The Path Forward Long before Industry 4.0 and cloud-connected architectures became possible, innovators championed PC-based technologies for industrial automation.

By Daymon Thompson, senior software product manager, Beckhoff USA

A

s Industry 4.0 and IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) concepts become real applications, an exciting conversation has developed centered on the integration of information technology (IT) with operations technology (OT). Large IT companies have actively promoted ideas like workload consolidation for businesses to optimize processes and be more competitive. Some of the largest players in automation technology (AT) are jumping on board.

Greater system openness, real-time deterministic control with many-core processors, the incorporation of web technologies and machine learning, among other advances, are all possible through applying popular technologies to industrial applications.

IT and OT convergence offers incredible benefits to machine control architectures today—just as it has for more than 30 years. While many suppliers are just beginning to integrate PC-based technology into industrial automation, it is nothing new. The history of IT-OT convergence in automation technology dates back to the early 1980s with the advent of the modern PC and those who saw its potential for industrial use. The adaptation of these ideas follows the diffusion of innovations theory, which describes how new technologies are adopted in order by the innovators (2.5%), early adopters (13.5%), early majority (34%), late majority (34%) and, finally, the laggards (16%).

PC-focused innovation in the 1980s

During this era, the larger technology world began to develop the personal computer (PC) and related technologies for widespread business and consumer use far beyond 1970s levels. This led to transformations in standard chip sets, board designs, and sophisticated operating systems. At that time, most industrial technology companies stayed away from the PC path. The PLC platforms of the time used proprietary chip sets, board designs and, in most cases, programming software. Traditional PLC technology for machine control evolved much slower than it should have due to an industry-wide aversion to change. As a result, the paths of hardware PLCs and consumer

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PCs would not begin to converge for decades.

While the majority of industrial vendors and manufacturers initially shunned IT technology on the plant floor, smaller start-up companies recognized that both technologies could coexist. Using proven industrial standards and computer science innovations, smaller AT companies began the convergence of IT and OT in manufacturing.

Early adopters of the 1990s

In the 1990s, both technologies continued to advance, with IT pioneers running laps around traditional OT. The popularity of Windows exploded, and it became ubiquitous in nearly every area of technology. By launching Visual Studio in 1997, Microsoft combined a number of programming languages in a single environment, which continues to evolve to this day. Industrial vendors that began implementing PC-based automation technologies in the previous decade saw significant gains in hardware and software performance that far outpaced traditional PLCs. The successful companies created new tools for deterministic, real-time control that could run on industrial PCs with standardized operating systems.

More automation vendors saw this opportunity and launched computer-based controls. However, these early adopters realized that developing their own software from scratch was quite costly. They started using off-the-shelf real-time operating systems, but often didn’t widely promote the solutions. Some notable crash-and-burns gave PC-based platforms a bad reputation during this time. However, many platforms were providing incredible results in the field, extending their lead in performance over traditional PLCs.

Early majority from 2000 onward

The turn of the millennium brought further developments in software and multi-core processors. Major IT players like Intel, IBM, and Microsoft actively expanded into OT. Likewise, a determined subset

of the automation space kept integrating IT with increased real-time capabilities.

Along with these automation and control advances, another major development involved networking. Industrial Ethernet protocols, such as EtherCAT, created significant performance improvements and a path forward from legacy fieldbuses. This is another example of IT and OT convergence, with Ethernet merging with fieldbus technology. EtherCAT eliminated the complexity and cost of switches and additional hardware while providing deterministic control with up to 65,535 devices per network. This resulted from the same PC-based control innovators who carefully considered the potential of industrial Ethernet—combining its openness and acceptance with the functionality of a fieldbus.

Today’s late majority

From automation software apps on smartphones to many-core Intel Xeon processors in controllers, IT-OT convergence continues to accelerate today. For example, contemporary HMIs now commonly rely on web technologies, and standards such as MQTT and JSON are being implemented in IIoT contexts.

Gigabit Ethernet technologies such as EtherCAT G are also becoming key as machines become more complex. The industry is also beginning to apply machine learning and other artificial intelligence technologies.

Fortunately, the reluctance of manufacturers to implement PC-based technologies continues to evaporate as they see the benefits of IT technologies in industry. The decades of IT-OT advances have shown that any IT principle carried over to OT products must be deterministic, reliable, available for many years and implemented efficiently. Done correctly, IT-OT integration produces results far better than what traditional platforms can accomplish.

For more information:www.beckhoff.com/IoT

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Effective Instrument Commissioning for Seamless Project Startups Finishing a major automation project on time and on budget depends on putting the best digital tools in the hands of highly skilled people.

By Ryan Williams, national product manager for solutions and service, Endress+Hauser USA

O

ver the last several decades, process instrumentation has become far more accurate and versatile, but can be more complex to configure. As a case in point, consider a basic process pressure measurement: • A mechanical gauge had a range, a class, and perhaps an accessory; • Early electronic transmitters (1970s) had half-a-dozen settings; and • Later electronic transmitters (1990s) added more internal processing, which meant more settings.

Today’s transmitters are extremely powerful with internal electronics to process the basic reading, deliver additional variables, perform internal diagnostics, monitor other process conditions, self-calibrate, retain historical performance data, monitor power quality, and more. Most recently, the growth of IIoT capabilities adds even more sophistication.

As an example, an Endress+Hauser Proline Coriolis flowmeter can detect a wide variety of process conditions beyond the normal set of variables. Every type of transmitter can’t do every function, but a full configuration can often require verification of 100 or more settings.

Multiply this by the hundreds and potentially thousands of instruments and smart devices involved in a process unit upgrade, new process unit, or a greenfield facility, and it becomes clear why producer companies doing such projects often hire a primary system provider (SP). It also explains why SPs hire integration specialist and partner with instrumentation technicians to do advanced commissioning. With the right digital tools, it is much easier and faster to do this detailed work accurately and efficiently.

Stages of a project

A large-scale project typically consists of three

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major sections: Plant design and engineering; installation and commissioning; and operations and maintenance.

It’s the middle where problems can develop because the design work must be realized in an actual installation and made to operate correctly so the plant can start up on time. The risk is huge since a plant that’s not running when it should be is piling up extra costs and not generating income.

The SP is usually responsible for the automation and instrumentation parts of the project. Its function, in broad terms, is to oversee the actual building contractors while creating the software programs and networks to support process automation. This includes the PLC, DCS, as well as the various networks, HMIs, field device I/O, instrumentation, loops, and so forth. There are typically multiple subcontractors performing all these tasks and the SP has to keep everything moving and coordinated.

There is also the need to keep everything documented, as virtually every act, no matter how trivial, from tightening bolts on a pipe flange to verifying a control loop, must be specified and recorded. Yet, even this far into the 21st century, for many SPs and subcontractors, these are still manual procedures recorded on paper forms and entered in some management system after the fact. Fortunately, there are now digital tools to meet this challenge.

Step-by-step process

To start the project off on the right foot, all the information related to the project must be consolidated and transferred to a digital commissioning management platform, such as Netilion.

This includes all the device lists, data sheets, work instructions, drawings, and other documents supporting the scope of work. This management platform serves both the site commissioning managers

Figure 1: Commissioning instruments requires deep understanding of functionality and the practices of multiple manufacturers.

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and the individual technicians.

For the manager, it is the mechanism used to maintain real-time tracking of overall progress and completed phases. For the technicians, it is the primary and authoritative guide for work processes and execution details. Since it is digital, it is also dynamic. If a change is handed down by the SP, for example the range on PT-143 needs to be changed from 0-100 PSI to 0-130 PSI, the instruction can be changed instantly if the task has not yet been done, or it can instruct the technician to go back and make the revision. Since the information is updated constantly, there is effectively no lag time.

Work done in the field is where training and skill are critical. It’s one thing to have a work order to commission a flowmeter, but doing it quickly, efficiently, and intelligently is another. A technician must interpret the instructions and determine how to set many unspecified parameters based on the function of the instrument in the larger process context. Most of the main parameters are spelled out in the work order, but others may not be, and the technician must determine which must be specifically configured versus what can be left in the default setting.

before powering-up the device.

Once verified, the actual configuration takes place. Based on the type of device, configuration can involve a variety of actions, such as: • Bump motors to verify rotation; • Run valves through their full stroke; • Check instrument response to simulated process variables; • Confirm correct scaling at the HMI; • Confirm VFD settings; and • Make final adjustments to configurations.

It is also necessary to ensure each device functions properly in its process context: • Verify interlocks; • Testing for batch phase, sequence, and logic; • Monitor water or other runs; and • Complete commissioning.

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an easy task since everything has been gathered and kept in a consistent format, ready to transfer to the SP’s and client’s servers.

It’s critical for companies to understand that commissioning services are too critical to accept the default choice without exploring other options.

With the right choice, it is possible to have a successful project with all critical deliverables provided, including: • Real-time visibility and insights into work progress, obstacles, and completion; • Efficient project setup with automatic data sheets, tag lists, and templates for effective work planning; • Collaborative and dynamic digital guides for work process execution; and • Intuitive and easy-to-use digital management platform for all technicians and supervisors.

Now the unit is ready for startup and final hand-over. At this point, the importance of the digital management platform, like Netilion, becomes especially clear. Delivering documentation with the full detailed history of the project is

Typical deliverables

The scope of the instrumentation commissioning team’s responsibilities varies by project requirements. When a project is comprehensive, the team will begin during the planning phase, helping set commissioning strategy and scheduling. This can extend into final equipment selection based on the piping and instrumentation diagrams and process information. Throughout this phase, the team will gather loop sheets, motor schematics, spec sheets, checklists, and move them all into the digital management platform.

Once on site, the commissioning technicians must verify the work done by the piping and electrical contractors.

Inspection confirms that the right device has been installed, it matches specifications, and has been connected correctly

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Figure 2: Endress+Hauser’s Netilion platform combines digital services and system components for lifecycle management, maintenance, and support of instruments and analyzers.

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Connecting Cloud-Based Quality Control to the Edge Intrinsics Imaging’s AI-powered vision system uses edge I/O to integrate cloud analytics into process controls.

By Josh Eastburn, director of technical marketing, Opto 22

M

achine vision systems can reduce timeconsuming manual inspection. However, these systems require specialized programming and maintenance, which can make them difficult to implement. California-based Intrinsics Imaging solves this problem through its analytics-as-a-service software, called Heijunka Vision. It provides a library of image processing and machine learning algorithms running in the cloud that work with any IP camera to perform intelligent defect detection.

Typically, Heijunka integrates with SCADA systems to create analytics dashboards, alarms, and quality control actions. But when Intrinsics was approached by a customer hoping to integrate Heijunka directly into process controls, it looked to Opto 22’s groov RIO edge I/O for a way to connect the cloud to the edge.

Securing a path to the edge

Heijunka Vision finds defects in coatings, underlayment, color consistency, product wrapping, and even pallet counts. It can also continuously inspect in-process materials to ensure that specifications, such as dimensions, smoothness, straightness, and color, are met.

For this application, Heijunka would be looking at two production lines moving discrete boards at high speed.

• The primary line cuts large sheets of raw material to size. Cut sheets would need to be inspected for excess moisture as well as dents, debris, and scratches as small as a grain of rice. The customer runs hundreds of different product types through this conveyor, each being cut to a different size and configuration.

• The second line would be responsible for monitoring the quality of the milling process, specifically looking for chipping along the edges.

2205_IIOT.indd 24

Unlike most Heijunka applications, the customer also wanted a pass/fail I/O signal that it could integrate directly into the PLCs handling material rejection. By bypassing the SCADA and providing a direct path to PLC action, the customer hoped to simplify integration and reduce latency.

Besides needing a device that could tolerate an industrial environment and integrate with Heijunka’s existing software stack, the company also required minimal latency. From the time a given video capture was sent to Heijunka, the customer would have a roughly five-second window in which to detect and reject a problematic part. Therefore, Heijunka would need to return a pass or fail indication that consistently fell within that window of opportunity.

Finding the missing piece

For this application, Heijunka would be hosted on AWS and publish MQTT messages to a hosted broker. That broker would be bridged to an onpremises broker in the customer’s facility, allowing the cloud and edge networks to exchange data behind the scenes. This architecture proved to be

the key factor in choosing groov RIO for the final piece of Intrinsics’ solution.

“The customer found [an edge I/O device that used MQTT, and it] made me realize that an MQTT device could work for what we were doing,” says Eric Cheng, Heijunka’s chief technology officer. “I started searching around and came across [groov RIO.]” Groov RIO had the industrial build Cheng needed and was compatible with his software stack. “Groov RIO was on the same wavelength as us: built-in MQTT, Linux-based, web interface, and it just seemed more modern than [some other devices] that still require Windows 7 executables for configuration,” he says. “I didn’t want to have those kinds of dependencies.”

The groov RIO MM1 module (GRVR7-MM1001-10) provides eight channels of universal I/O with support for more than a dozen software-selectable signal types. I/O data can be shared via MQTT, REST, VPN, or traditional protocols like Modbus/TCP. Given the nature of their request, Heijunka’s

Each of the defects in the plot above indicates a product that triggered a reject signal in Heijunka that then made its way to the groov RIO modules via MQTT. Source: Intrinsics Imaging

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customer was also interested in the cybersecurity of the proposed architecture and appreciated that groov RIO could secure communications with user authentication, a local firewall, and TLS encryption using X.509 certificates.

Putting the cloud in control

Intrinsics built an isolated network to connect IP cameras and groov RIO modules to the on-premises MQTT broker. A separate network connects that broker to the internet for video streaming to Heijunka Vision and data exchange with the hosted MQTT broker, both running on AWS. Each groov RIO module makes an encrypted connection to the local broker, which has only port 8883 open—the standard port for MQTT TLS connections. Bridging between the two MQTT brokers also provides security, with the local broker acting as a firewall for the OT side of the system while still allowing groov RIO data to be exchanged with Heijunka in the cloud. “The goal is to keep the RIOs inaccessible from the outside,” says Cheng.

To satisfy another customer request, each production line uses two groov RIO modules with each configured to provide eight discrete inputs.

Production line PLCs encode the product ID for the specific part being examined by Heijunka as a 16-bit integer and send each bit to one of the inputs on the RIO pair. A Node-Red flow in each RIO module publishes its eight input channels as MQTT topics, which Heijunka combines to decode the product ID and select the appropriate set of algorithms for that product type.

The groov RIO modules also use Node-Red to subscribe to quality indicators, which Heijunka publishes to the MQTT broker. One of the relay outputs in each pair of modules is used to indicate the pass/fail decision returned by Heijunka for a given part. The production PLCs watch these outputs and use them to trigger a physical rejection of the product if needed.

Since Heijunka performs all the heavy computation and product identification, the groov RIO modules can run the same logic without regard for the product type, creating a clean interface between cloud and edge networks.

Fast, automated quality control

With the full system in place, Intrinsics confirmed a round trip time, from measurement to result, of less than two seconds. At this point, the customer

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has been automatically rejecting defects for several months and plans to introduce Heijunka in the rest of its facilities.

“I’m impressed with how fast it is even though we are taking two or three steps,” says Cheng.

“Most of that latency is due to transmitting video over the network.”

Intrinsics’ customer is using Heijunka to save on labor costs and increase quality with an overall goal of avoiding material returns. The customer can review system performance through Heijunka’s built-in trending, monitor historical trends in defect rates, and diagnose the root cause of elevated defect levels. Each defect that appears in Heijunka indicates a product that triggered a reject signal, which then made its way to the groov RIO modules via MQTT. “We were under the gun to do this quickly,”

25

says Cheng, “but we got it figured out in less than a month. Now we can provide a direct physical interface to low-level automation systems. Using the RIOs allowed us to own more of the last mile between cloud software and physical action and allowed the customer to speak the language they were most comfortable with. That allowed a cleaner separation between our software expertise and their hardware expertise.”

With groov RIO, Heijunka can now be adapted to many more applications, supporting both hardware and software interfaces, whichever produces the best performance.

For more on Intrinsics Imaging, visit www. intrinsicsimaging.com.

Opto 22’s groov RIO MM1 module (GRV-R7-MM1001-10) provides eight channels of universal I/O that can be shared securely via MQTT, REST, VPN, or traditional protocols.

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Answering the Top 7 Questions About Profinet We get a lot of questions here at PI North America from end users, distributors, system integrators, and device vendors.

Here are our answers to the questions we get asked most.

By Michael Bowne, executive director, PI North America

I

sn’t Profinet a Siemens product?

No, Profinet isn’t ‘just Siemens,’ as many questioners ask. Yes, Siemens is a strong supporter and adopter of the Profinet technology. As are many other automation device vendors. Profinet is an open standard defined in the IEC and the technology is not owned by any single company.

Development on the Profinet standard—along with all other technologies under the Profibus and Profinet International (PI) umbrella—is performed by working groups staffed by volunteers from many different companies.

Is Profinet a closed network?

Profinet is not a closed network. Profibus, as a serial fieldbus for example, was a closed network.

By closing the network, Profibus was able to ensure determinism. Despite being an Ethernet-based protocol, the choice was made early-on to keep a Profinet network open. With the widespread adoption of Ethernet and now Industry 4.0, today we are able to appreciate what a wise decision that has become. Profinet utilizes standard unmodified Ethernet, meaning any Ethernet-based protocol can utilize the infrastructure. Inherent Profinet mechanisms ensure the determinism required for industrial automation.

Does Profinet require special hardware?

Since Profinet is based on standard unmodified Ethernet, no special cables or switches are required. However, using the same cables and switches built for office environments on a factory floor is a recipe for trouble. Profinet cabling is merely Ethernet cabling that is shielded and ruggedized against tough conditions. We recommend end users install man-

2205_IIOT.indd 26

aged, purpose-built switches in their networks.

These offer ruggedized hardware and advanced features helpful to running and maintaining an industrial Ethernet network.

Isn’t Profinet very complicated?

If you have ever set up a Profibus network, then setting up a Profinet network is basically the same. If anything, it is likely easier than Profibus since you do not have to worry about network segmentation, signal repeaters, or termination resistors. Profinet is just Ethernet.

With Profinet there are no dipswitches to set, you simply assign a name to the device you are installing. The controller assigns the IP address.

Configuration and parameterization of devices proceeds as it always has.

Is it true that Profinet traffic is not routable?

It is true that most Profinet traffic is not routable. This is by design. Profinet utilizes UDP/IP and TCP/IP where it makes sense.

And skips them where it doesn’t. Automation traffic is often little pieces of data. It is bits and bytes exchanged quickly and deterministically between controllers and devices. The use cases for routing these little pieces of data across the Internet are uncommon, if non-existant. There are other protocols better suited at moving information as such, for example OPC UA. Conversely, protocols with large packet sizes, and reliance on UDP/IP or TCP/IP, are not optimized for moving automation traffic deterministically on the factory floor. For installations that do require some basic routing in their Profinet networks, devices exist to seamlessly couple different subnets together.

Is Profinet secure?

That fact that most Profinet traffic is not routable is an inherent security measure. For a nefarious actor to manipulate Profinet traffic, they would need to do so from inside your network. If a hacker is already in your network, then you likely have bigger problems to worry about. Profinet Security Classes are in place to deal with aspects of authenticity, integrity, and confidentiality. End users can choose the level of security appropriate for their installation. In general, network security should be approached holistically with a defense-in-depth strategy.

Is Profinet ‘old’ technology?

Profinet is based on Ethernet, which was invented in the 1970s and has come a long way since then. It certainly seems like wireless is taking over as the primary way to move data in the consumer world, particularly with the upcoming versions of 5G cellular. While most Profinet installations utilize Ethernet, many also seamlessly employ Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and, eventually, 5G. Ethernet works very well for its purpose and has improved along the way. This appears to be true for the future as well. Today, industrial Ethernet bandwidth can scale from 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps and beyond.

Soon, Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) stands to make Ethernet robust for even the most heavily loaded networks.

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Advantages of a Smart MQTT Broker Understanding how a smart MQTT broker provides ways to aggregate data streams, keep them consistent, and distribute them securely across a complex network to ensure the success of Internet of Things projects of any size or complexity.

By Xavier Mesrobian, vice president of sales and marketing, Skkynet Cloud Systems Inc.

M

QTT is becoming a popular protocol for Industrial IoT (Internet of Things) data.

Developed for connecting remote devices to a central server, it is lightweight, efficient, and secure. However, IoT implementations are growing larger and more complex, and demand is increasing for OT/IT connectivity. MQTT is now being called on to aggregate and send diverse collections of data values over increasingly complex network topologies.

To meet these challenges MQTT must get smarter. As a transport protocol, MQTT specifies that messages are simply carried—not read—like a letter in the post. But that doesn’t have to be the case. What would happen if the letter carrier could read the mail? In other words, what if we gave an MQTT broker the ability to parse the messages it carries? It would be able to handle messages more intelligently and include some information on the status of the data source or quality of the connection.

Data collection

A smart broker should be able to collect data in an intelligent way. For example, on large systems data can come from a wide variety of MQTT devices, each with its own message

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format. A broker that parses messages could convert these to a common message representation and make that available to all clients.

Other data sources might include non-MQTT protocols such as OPC UA, Modbus, DDE, and others. A smart broker with protocol conversion capabilities could act as a gateway for this data to any MQTT client or cloud service.

Data consistency

In real-time industrial systems, data consistency from source to consumer is vital. Data that’s stale or out of correct time sequence can lead to incorrect decisions. Any disconnects or network irregularities must be known.

Data can become inconsistent in several ways.

If messages arrive at an MQTT broker faster than they can be delivered, some may be dropped. Or data from multiple message streams may get sent to a client out of sequence. Also, if a data source goes offline, the client may not know whether an unchanged value is current or stale.

A smart broker can ensure data consistency by queueing incoming data in an intelligent way, passing on only the latest values. It can also parse timestamps on messages from different data streams to sequence them properly, as well

as pass along data and connection quality information with each value update.

Data security

Security is critical when accessing data from a production system. The MQTT push architecture that connects outbound through firewalls is quite secure, but many corporate security policies require isolating OT systems using a DMZ. This is problematic for MQTT since messages must be passed via two or more servers, while MQTT quality of service guarantees are only valid for a single sender-receiver hop. As a result, data at the end of a multi-hop daisy chain can become unreliable.

A smart broker that parses messages and converts protocols can solve this problem by using a tunnel. The device producing the MQTT data would connect to one instance of the smart broker. The message data, along with quality and timestamp information, gets tunnelled via a secure, TCP-enabled protocol to a second instance of the smart broker. That instance would convert the data back into MQTT, with values, timestamps, and quality codes intact.

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Managing Network Security on Your Plant Floor A safe and secure network is paramount to ensuring a company’s ability to thrive in today’s digital age. Simply making the change from an unmanaged switch to a lean managed industrial switch could be the key to saving you from a cyber-attack.

By Charlie Norz, product manager, automation, Wago Corp.

Wago’s family of lean managed switches offer the tools of industrial networking without the office IT application overhead.

T

here is no doubt that network security for manufacturers is a top priority now more than ever. Controls engineers are constantly looking for ways to stave off cyber-attacks and put programs in place to help reduce security risks. The risks at the OT (operations technology) level are continually changing and keeping up with protecting a company’s operational technical infrastructure may seem time consuming and costly. However, there are ways to ensure the safety of a company’s products, property, and processes in a concise and cost-effective way.

On the most basic level, one of the ways to ensure security against outside hackers is making sure that the proper industrial Ethernet switches are being used. Some companies are happy with just the essential levels of networking, opting for low-cost options. This will provide the bare necessities to run plant floor operations, usually in the

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form of an industrial unmanaged switch. These switches are an excellent option for networks with a control panel used for a plug-and-play option that has a fixed configuration. This approach eliminates any work on the IT end requiring encryptions, prioritizing channels or creating a set of segregated devices to manage traffic and data.

The downside of unmanaged switches is that they do not provide any security functions.

Companies with larger networks may want more than the basic functions of an unmanaged switch. With just a slight increase in cost, the effectiveness of a lean managed switch can give controls engineers on the plant floor the peace of mind they need when running their systems. Lean managed switches can be configured to a company’s specifications, monitor settings, turn off unused ports, set up and manage encryptions, and help protect the network

and data from active threats. VLANs can also be installed to reduce security risks and help increase network performance.

Wago’s family of industrial Ethernet lean managed switches are designed to meet security and redundancy requirements, while being easy enough to maintain by plant floor technicians.

Wago focused on creating an intuitive interface for these switches, which include a diagnostic dashboard allows for quick system troubleshooting— even if users have no IT knowledge. With each port configured for specific connections, transmission errors can be detected along with any improper connections or active threats. These switches are available with either eight or 16 ports with two extra SFP slots for connecting fiber optic cable for longer connections.

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Why High-Mix, Low-Volume Manufacturers Are Adopting Flexible Automation Growing demands for customization, increasing numbers of SKUs, and ongoing labor issues are leading HMLV manufacturers to adopt more easily configurable automation hardware and software.

By David Miller, Senior Technical Writer

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igh-mix, low-volume (HMLV) manufacturing refers to industrial operations that produce many different products or components in relatively small quantities. These companies all engage in a make-to-order production strategy based on sporadic and often changing demand from their customers. Beyond these general characteristics, there is no one-size-fitsall definition of an HMLV manufacturer, as they could perform: medical device assembly for highly specific, high-price pieces of equipment; component or part manufacturing for larger industrial companies that produce their own finished goods, such as machine builders or automotive companies; or be a contract packager in spaces such as food and beverage that must meet the demands of mass customization by packing out many different stock keeping units (SKUs).

By specializing in specific domains, HMLV manufacturers can operate most efficiently.

Moreover, because many HMLV manufacturers are subcontractors, the reshoring of manufacturing operations has benefited them. Particularly in industries such as automotive and medical device manufacturing, there is growing interest in working with suppliers who are as geographically close as possible—not only to shorten lead times, but to avoid supply chain disruptions and maintain better oversight of quality.

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To better address their customers’ often changing requirements, many HMLV manufacturers are adopting increasing amounts of automation. The issue for HMLV manufacturers is that traditional, fixed automation products are either too expensive or don’t satisfy their needs.

For those in the HMLV space, flexibility, modularity, a compact footprint, and mobility are paramount. Enabled by increasing onboard software intelligence, lighter-weight and more responsive hardware, and the proliferation of low-code/nocode code applications, several major automation suppliers are moving to fill this gap in the market for HMLV manufacturers.

Flexible material handling

Helping HMLV manufacturers address the proliferation of SKUs in food and beverage packaging are flexible conveyance technologies that allow manufacturers to manage various product combinations and packaging formats on one line without the need for mechanical changeovers.

An example of this technology is Beckhoff’s Extended Transport System (XTS). The XTS is made up of reconfigurable motor modules assembled into a continuous track, which can be circular, rectangular, or follow a complex, curved geometry, based on the needs of the application. Individual movers affixed to the track can brake, acceler-

ate, and adjust their speed independently of one another. The movers can also form groups capable of merging, diverging, or stopping together at varying speeds, and are synchronized with other assets such as traditional conveyors to ensure harmonious operation.

According to Jeff Johnson, product manager for mechatronics at Beckhoff, the XTS’s configurable track saves significant floor space, which is important for manufacturers attempting to process a higher mix of products without expanding the size of their facilities.

The XTS also allows for software-based changeovers. With this capability, an application involving the filling of different size bags with nuts or candy, for example, can be accomplished by using grippers on two movers to grip the bags on opposite ends. By gripping bags with an independent XTS mover on each side of the bag, differently sized bags can be filled on the same line by varying the amount of space between the individual movers.

As an example of how XTS can be used to address specific HMLV packaging applications, Johnson mentioned work Beckhoff did last year with Brenton, a machinery OEM. Brenton needed to make a cartoner for a pizza packaging application that could quickly switch from packaging pizzas in boxes to shrink-wrapping them in plastic. At the time, the machine Breton’s customer

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By varying the space between independent movers, Beckhoff’s XTS can allow differently sized bags to be filled on the same line without the need for mechanical changeover.

was using required a 30-minute changeover to handle the different packaging types. Using XTS, Breton was able to design a new machine that allowed them to combine three machines into one pitchless machine that could handle random in-feeding of frozen pizzas in different shapes, orientations, and SKUs. This new XTS-based machine can handle 41 different SKUs and up to 27 cases per minute. Changeover time has been reduced to five minutes, and the equipment footprint has been reduced by 50%.

Collaborative robots

When it comes to job shops—small industrial subcontractors that use CNC equipment and other machining techniques to produce parts and components for larger companies—collaborative robots (cobots) are increasingly becoming a go-to technology. In contrast to food and beverage packaging operations, these businesses are not necessarily interested in producing multiple products in the same workcell. Instead they prefer to keep production running more continuously without the need for extensive manual supervision.

In addition to the growing customer demands job shops face with greater product customization, they are also encountering increased cost pressures due to rising raw material prices. Because of this, they must simultaneously expand their capacity, optimize production, and increase efficiency.

However, this can be challenging given the nature

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of their business model. For one, the unpredictable nature of make-to-order production means that typical methods of planning, which require some degree of regularity, are not possible. And fixed automation technologies designed to handle standardized, unchanging processes are of little use for CNC based manufacturing. On top of all of this, labor shortages make it difficult or impossible for these companies to expand their staff. As a result, the only way for them to increase their capacity is by asking employees to work overtime, which further raises costs and does little to solve the long-term issues.

According to Joe Campbell, senior manager for strategic marketing and applications development at Universal Robots, cobots that assist in machine tending have proven effective at navigating this scenario for several reasons. First and foremost, they are available at a lower price point than traditional automation technologies, placing them within the grasp of smaller companies that may not be able to take on a large upfront capital expenditure. Beyond that, the low weight of cobots (less than 100 pounds) means they can be placed on mobile carts or manually carried from one CNC machine to the next depending on the production demands and number of available employees on a given day. Furthermore, increases in onboard intelligence allow Universal Robots’ cobots to be more easily configured without specialized programming and engineering skillsets

that small HMLV manufacturers lack.

All-Axis Machining, one of Universal Robots’ customers, was able to significantly grow its production capacity by adopting cobots to tend the CNC machines overnight.

Campbell said All-Axis Machining was really suffering because they couldn’t keep up with their customer demand, so the owner doubled down and bought more cobots. “That allowed him to spread out his man-power across multiple shifts, and even have some entirely unmanned shifts,” he says. “In the evenings, he would wheel a cobot up to the machine, set it up with 500 or 100 blank parts, start the automated process, and then just go home.”

Downloadable applications

As software innovations enhance and expand the capabilities of the various types of hardware used

by HMLV manufacturers, online application marketplaces such as Bosch Rexroth’s ctrlX Store have begun to play an increasingly important role in reducing the time needed to deploy advanced automation applications.

By making an ecosystem of turnkey automation applications available, the CtrlX Store can reduce the challenges associated with the configuration, programming, and design required to set up a new line or build out automation applications for tasks such as winding and sealing, says Rob McArdle, vice president and general manager of assembly technology at Bosch Rexroth. The CtrlX plat-

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form allows applications to be programmed in a variety of languages including C++ and Java, as well as low-code methodologies such as Google's Blockly visual programming environment. Not only does this make the deployment of automation applications faster, but it reduces the barrier to entry for smaller companies who may not have strong digital or software expertise on staff.

“A lot of third parties are vying to develop applications [for CtrlX], and it’s going to be a game-changer when it comes to customers programming their machines with our controls.

They don’t have to start from scratch every time they want to do a conveyance line, sealing, or folding application,” McArdle says. “In the past, if someone developed code for a machine and then left the company, no one knew what the heck he wrote, how to change it, or how to build off it. With [the CtrlX Store], anyone can go in, see what was done, download the latest and greatest version, and make changes. They won’t have to rewrite it from scratch.”

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A UR10e cobot from Universal Robots tends a Haas VF-2SS vertical machining center. Source: Fusion OEM

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AND GIVES DATA CONTEXT This second installment in a four-part series on key industrial network technologies explains why OPC UA continues to be recognized as the global interoperability method of choice for industrial automation technologies.

By James R. Koelsch, Automation World Contributing Writer

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O

PC UA (Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture) has certainly broadened its horizons since its dawn in 2008. “Every major automation vendor now has OPC client/server built into its industrial control systems,” says Mike Clark, director of the OPC Foundation North America, the consortium responsible for managing the platform-independent, service-oriented architecture. It is used in nearly every industry vertical, from oil and gas to pharmaceuticals to automotive.

“OPC UA has built up significant momentum and has become a popular interface for higherlevel communications between controllers, even controllers from different vendors,” says Robert Trask, P.E., North American representative at the EtherCAT Technology Group. More users are relying on this data communications method as an interface between clients and servers, as well as among servers, to streamline the exchange of real-time data, monitoring of alarms and events, and access to historical data.

Clark attributes this proliferation of OPC UA to secure, repeatable data modeling. “OPC uses data modeling to scale semantically identical messages across the entire manufacturing enterprise—all the way up to the cloud,” he says. “You don’t need to translate, map, or manipulate data as it traverses the automation pyramid. From sensor to cloud, those data models are preserved [in OPC UA].”

The need for this kind of modeling has grown as industrial automation technologies become increasingly smarter and capable of generating

Fieldbus organizations like the EtherCAT Technology Group acknowledge the value of OPC UA and see it as a complementary standard in industrial control networking.

Courtesy: EtherCAT Technology Group

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data at ever-faster rates. The continual evolution of technology has created demand for communication technologies designed to transfer data in a contextualized way. “As the de facto standard for data transfer in the automation industry, OPC UA is uniquely positioned to do that, without adding complexity, since it’s already present in most plants today,” says Claudio Fayad, vice president of technology for DeltaV at Emerson.

A complementary tool

Another reason for the growing popularity of OPC UA is its position in the control hierarchy.

“OPC UA is located above fieldbus systems and is thus fieldbus neutral,” notes Trask. “It’s considered to be a binding element between fieldbus technologies and is therefore supported by all the major fieldbus organizations.”

The OPC Foundation does not view OPC UA as a technology competing with other industrial communication methods. “You can’t compare OPC UA to a fieldbus or something like MQTT

(message queuing telemetry transport),” says Trask. “It has a different focus—it’s more of a tool to organize an architecture.”

For this reason, Emerson’s Fayad thinks that OPC UA will continue to gain momentum. “Other protocols have their specific uses and needs,” he explains, “but they don’t have the end-to-end applicability of OPC UA. Foundation Fieldbus, along with other industrial protocols, can be great to connect field devices and automation equipment in the plant. However, it lacks the ability to connect with cloud solutions. And IT protocols like MQTT lack the ability to scale all the way down to field devices.”

OPC UA can bridge this gap through its publish/subscribe specifications. These specifications (added in 2018) are an example of how OPC UA provides the flexibility to adapt to networking trends while maintaining the interoperability its known for, according to Daymon Thompson, U.S. software product manager at Beckhoff Automation. “OPC publish/subscribe offers great

new topology options,” he says. “One of those is the ability to transport OPC data over the MQTT protocol.” Using a message broker, rather than a client/server architecture, this simplifies the transmission of OPC traffic to web-based applications and cloud services and mitigates the potential for interruption of field device operations.

“In the early days of IIoT, engineers often wondered whether they should use OPC or MQTT as the transport,” recalls Thompson. “This really isn’t the question, at least not any longer. OPC gives the necessary namespace and unified-type system that case communications don’t provide.”

Besides supporting MQTT, OPC UA’s publish/ subscribe also allows the transmission of data via UDP (user datagram protocol), a communications protocol often used for low-latency connections between internet applications.

OPC UA origins

The story of OPC UA begins in 1996, before the days of unified architecture—back when OPC was

Industrial controllers, such as Emerson’s DeltaV, are using OPC UA, allowing users to share IIoT data and take advantage of cloud-based analytics, remote monitoring, and third-party technologies.

Courtesy: Emerson

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still the acronym for OLE (object linking and embedding) for process control. At that time, OPC defined an interface that allowed automation devices using PLC-specific protocols, such as Modbus and Profibus, to share information with humanmachine interfaces (HMIs) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems.

The interface permitted the exchange of data formatted in common formats: current data access (OPC DA), alarm and event messaging (OPC AE), and history data access (OPC HDA). “There were other specifications more for niches, but these three were the most widely adopted,” says Tom Burke, director of global standards at the CCLink Partner Association and former president of the OPC Foundation. Today, these specifications are known collectively as OPC Classic.

Before the OPC Classic formats came on the scene, automation vendors had to develop custom drivers to establish communications between their controllers and other devices. “Vendors also had the additional costs of updating and supporting their drivers,” recalls David Boeldt, product manager for controls at Bosch Rexroth. When OPC DA 2.0 came along, however, it eliminated

this expense by providing a standard interface between the controls and HMIs. Unfortunately, OPC DA and the other OPC Classic formats were wedded to Microsoft technology. Besides OLE, the underlying technologies included component object model (COM) and distributed component object model (DCOM).

Not only was configuring and managing DCOM difficult, but OPC was primarily suited to Windows-based platforms. “This limited OPC’s adoption,” notes Burke.

By the early 2000s, the technological landscape had changed. Automation vendors were incorporating Ethernet communications into their products. Burke adds, “Embedded computing platforms became prevalent, as did new operating systems.” Hence, the need for interoperability intensified further.

In response, the OPC Foundation developed its unified architecture and released OPC UA in 2008. “The shift from OPC’s original OLE-based technology to the unified architecture was monumental,” observes Thompson at Beckhoff Automation. “It allowed OPC technology to break free from the large constraints of the original OPC.”

This result was a platform-independent, service-oriented architecture that puts the functionality of the OPC Classic specifications into a scalable and extensible framework. “OPC UA works with multiple operating systems, supports the configuration of complex data structures, and provides for advancements in security,” says Bosch Rexroth’s Boeldt.

The unified architecture had two important technical ramifications. First, it switched OPC from being a tag-based system to being a modelbased system. “Instead of looking at device tags, UA looks at an information model,” explains Clark at the OPC Foundation. “So, you’re getting not only a value from a device, but also the metadata that accompanies that value.”

The second ramification is that security was included from the very beginning, rather than added as an afterthought. In addition to encrypting data, OPC UA has two levels of authentication. The first is user authentication, which takes place at the application level. “There, the server can verify the identity of each client that is trying to communicate—ensuring that unapproved devices or users cannot establish a connection,”

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explains Garret Schmidt, senior product manager for communications interfaces at Phoenix Contact. Once a secure connection is established, the applications themselves are then authenticated to permit them to exchange data.

From sensors to the cloud

OPC UA reached another milestone in its life in 2018, when the OPC Foundation launched its Field Level Communications (FLC) initiative.

Here, the goal is to extend UPC UA into the field level by developing the OPC UA framework for Field eXchange (OPC UA FX). The result will be a uniform backbone for transmitting information from sensors to the cloud using an MQTT broker.

The OPC Foundation released the first of the necessary FLC-related specifications in late 2020. This initial release focuses on controllerto-controller communications to exchange process data and configuration data using OPC UA client/server and publish/subscribe extensions in combination with peer-to-peer connections and basic diagnostics. Not only do these initial specifications permit the building of prototypes, they also lay the foundation for the development of specification enhancements for controller-todevice and device-to-device use cases.

The working groups at OPC Foundation are tackling such technical issues as determinism, motion, instruments, and functional safety. One of these groups is also collaborating with the Mechanical Engineering Industry Association in Europe to develop an OPC UA information model for communications for robotics. Another collaborative effort underway since May 2020 is OPC’s Motion Working Group. This group has been working with ODVA and Sercos International on an architecture and common information model for motion devices such as controllers, drives, encoders, and power supplies. “This new motion technology will be initially published as OPC UA Motion, with subsequent updates to the Sercos technology and ODVA’s CIP (common industrial protocol) Motion technology for EtherNet/ IP,” says Dr. Al Beydoun, president and executive director of ODVA (a global trade and standard development organization whose members are industrial automation device suppliers).

The work ODVA is currently focusing on with the OPC Foundation is the CIP Motion companion specification, which will map CIP objects to the appropriate OPC UA information models and profiles, and vice-versa. Once developed, the specification will be used to reduce the effort necessary to extract data and the proper context and semantics (i.e., meaning) from CIP devices for trend analyses in higher-level systems.

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OPC UA CAN ADAPT TO NETWORKING TRENDS WHILE MAINTAINING THE INTEROPERABILITY ITS KNOWN FOR.

Preserving the past

Companion specifications for mapping existing protocols like CIP Motion not only build in flexibility and interoperability, but also clear a path for modernization without replacing existing automation.

There are good reasons for continuing to use existing protocols and interfaces with OPC UA. “For example, some applications require very high, deterministic performance,” says Burke.

He points to Mitsubishi Electric’s CC-Link IE TSN (time-sensitive networking) as an example of a protocol that suits such applications yet communicates using the OPC UA interface.

“Layered solutions can still access information from these control networks with OPC UA for analytics,” he adds.

Another example is Profinet. A companion specification for this protocol describes a standardized OPC UA object model that allows Profinet devices—made by a variety of manufacturers—to transfer data to higher-level systems.

“Standardization makes information collection significantly easier, regardless of the device man-

ufacturer,” says Michael Bowne, executive director of PI North America.

The companion specification allows users to exploit the complementary relationship that exists between Profinet and OPC UA to streamline the transformation of data into information.

“Each protocol is purpose-built for a particular task—one that each performs well,” says Bowne.

The symbiotic relationship between OPC UA and existing protocols can be seen in its relationship with Profinet. For example, Profinet offers the precision and determinism necessary to transfer bits and bytes of data quickly and reliably among controllers and devices. Meanwhile, OPC UA contributes machine-readable information models, built-in security, flexible architectures, and rich semantics necessary for moving contextualized information to and from higher-level systems to support industry’s digital transformation.

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Integrated Automation Framework Helps Produce Consistent Quality Wines Using a connected automation architecture anchored by Rockwell Automation’s FactoryTalk software enables Oxford Landing winemakers to specify process streams, crushing speeds, and fermentation schedules, as well as monitor the operational status of the entire plant.

By Jeanne Schweder, Contributing Writer

Oxford Landing Estate Winery in Australia’s Borossa Valley.

Source: Rockwell Automation

M

aking wine has always required a mixture of art and science. While the characteristics of the grapes can vary greatly from year to year with seasonal changes in temperature, rainfall, and other environmental factors, consumers today expect bottle-to-bottle consistency. Achieving that requires superior technical control over every aspect of the winemaking process, from cultivation and fermentation to blending and bottling.

One of the most advanced process control systems in the industry can be found at the Oxford Landing Estate Winery on the northern edge of Australia’s Barossa Valley. The operation is part of Yalumba, Australia’s oldest family-owned winery and one of the country’s largest wine exporters.

With 650 acres under vine, Oxford Landing’s winemakers micro-manage them as separate eco-

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systems in 130 five-acre blocks, enabling each block of grapes to be given exactly what it needs to achieve optimum flavor. Techniques such as detailed pruning, canopy management, and crop thinning provide the winery with ultimate control in expressing the individuality of each block.

That level of control continues through harvesting and processing. The block system enables Oxford Landing to harvest small batches of the fruit as soon as they ripen. This timing is particularly crucial since the grapes need to be processed within a critical window of time when the acid and sugar content are at premium levels.

A micro-managed process

According to John Ide, winery operations manager at Yalumba, “The aim for the Oxford Landing win-

ery was an environmentally friendly plant incorporating the latest in winemaking technology, plus a new and unique process stream methodology. The objective was to achieve greater management of the process and the product.”

A sophisticated automation and control system provided by Rockwell Automation has enabled the winery to achieve a continuous production flow and the capacity to process 40,000 tons per hour. The system controls the numerous process streams, while allowing the winemakers to exert their influence and apply their experience to achieve the desired result.

The primary user interface for the system is a virtualized server supported by two virtualized clients and six onsite clients, each running FactoryTalk View SE. Winemakers and operators use this superviso-

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ry-level HMI to specify process streams, crushing speeds, and fermentation schedules, as well as monitor the operational status of the entire plant.

Other components in the process automation system, which are connected by an EtherNet/ IP network, include: ControlLogix programmable automation controllers (PACs), which provide sequential, process, and drives control, as well as controlling refrigeration temperatures at all stages in the process; PowerFlex 700 drives to control screw feeders, compressors, crushers, pumps, presses and agitators, as well as the dosing of yeasts for fermentation; PanelView HMIs; FactoryTalk EnergyMatrix to monitor energy use site-wide; and FactoryTalk ViewPoint for historical trending and real-time data for decision-making and monitoring. ControlNet and DeviceNet for device-level communications are also deployed in the process.

From a programming point of view, Rockwell Automation’s Integrated Architecture provides a common development environment for all applications using the mobility and virtualization of the FactoryTalk system. This allows data tags created in one application to be immediately available to all applications across the integrated architecture system.

The ability to share data tags considerably reduces software development time, with one tag database available to both SCADA and PLC programmers.

“We can see trends in real time, and we can backtrack to specific batches as required,” Ide says.

“Troubleshooting is also easy. For example, we can delve right down into the drives remotely, changing programming and configuration and perform pretty much anything. That's the advantage of a fully integrated system which has a consistent look and feel across the board.”

12 degrees Celsius for white and heat or cool to 25 degrees Celsius for red.

To produce white wine, the juice is extracted from the skin and seeds and clarified prior to fermentation; conversely, red wine is fermented along with the skins in the fermentation vessel. For both styles of wine, the juice is drained and kept separate from the second stream or “pressings” of extracted product through subsequent processing and storage. After wines are fermented, they are then clarified and blended into the final product before filtration and bottling.

Maintenance operators at Yalumba’s original

Angaston site can keep a close watch on trends at Oxford Landing Estate using either FactoryTalk ViewPoint or the virtual clients. Operators also have a clear view across entire lines and production processes via terminals and plant-floor HMI. “Having everything on a common visualization platform was an attractive part of the package,” adds Ide. This system is integrated with Yalumba's proprietary wine management system, which is a noncommercial database of all vintages for the purpose of batch tracking for label integrity.

Optimizing conditions

The Oxford Landing Estate Winery was commissioned in 2005 and has been able to meet market requirements and product quality requirements since the beginning. The secret, says Ide, are the automated process streams that ensure the grapes are fermented under optimum conditions given the high-volume throughput. It is particularly critical at all times to control the fermentation rate and minimize oxidation, both of which are highly dependent on temperature.

From the moment the grape skins are broken during harvesting, it's important to move the product quickly through the crushing stage and into the controlled environments of the fermentation tanks.

Each process stream begins at one of three hopper/crusher bays, where loads of grapes are converted into “must”—a mix of juice, skin, and seeds.

The must is then pumped through one of three must chillers to reduce the temperature to around

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Grapes enter a hopper/crusher bay at the winery.

Source: Rockwell Automation

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NEW PRODUCTS 43 AW MAY 2022

AI Vision System

AdLink, adlinktech.com The new 4-channel GigE Nvidia Jetson Xavier NX-based Edge AI Vision Inference System, EOS-JNX, features smart PoE (Power over Ethernet) and PoE loss detection, dedicated GigE bandwidth, and 100m GigE cable nondrop frame capture. The EOS-JNX series is a compact, reliable, integrated vision system designed for PoE camera-based applications with high image quality. The AdLink Edge Vision Analytics software development kit provides five manufacturing scenarios and AI software partner-friendly integration architecture for future-proof AI-based vision applications across industrial safety, food and beverage, and smart manufacturing industries.

EtherNet/IP to DNP 3.0 Master Gateway

ProSoft, prosoft-technology.com The ProLinx EtherNet/IP to DNP 3.0 master gateway creates a connection between devices on an EtherNet/IP network and DNP slave devices. This stand-alone DIN-rail mounted protocol gateway provides one Ethernet port and one serial port. The EtherNet/IP protocol driver supports the explicit messaging implementation of the protocol. User-configurable as both a client and a server, the EtherNet/ IP port can be used as a data transfer tool. The DNP 3.0 Master protocol driver supports master implementations of the protocol on one port, which is fully configurable. These gateways can be used in industries ranging from discrete manufacturing and oil and gas to electrical power and food processing.

Isolated Voltage Probe

Saelig, saelig.com The Saker-MV ISOVP probe enables high-voltage isolated measurements via fiber optic cables. Optical fiber isolation provides high-voltage safety and increased signal integrity due to absence of induced interference from external fields. This also allows for much higher common mode rejection compared to conventional differential probes. The probe head can be remotely put in standby, or even powered off, for increased user safety and battery power savings. This means the user does not need to reach into potentially hazardous, high-voltage areas to turn off the equipment when measurements are not needed. Up to 15m of fiber cable can be fitted between the probe head and receiver. The probe head uses standard 1.5V AA batteries, with LEDs to indicate low battery conditions.

On-Machine Drives

Rockwell Automation, rockwellautomation.com Rockwell Automation has announced the release of a new line of Allen-Bradley Armor PowerFlex AC variable frequency drives for industrial motor control applications. The on-machine drives provide for quick installation, simple commissioning, and predictive maintenance, the company says. The Armor PowerFlex drives move controls and hardware out of a cabinet and onto the machine. This can help industrial companies simplify machine designs and minimize costs, as well as time to deploy. The drives are also designed for harsh environments, where reducing installation time and cost are most critical. The smart drives include an embedded EtherNet/IP dual-port switch, which provides fast collection of real-time data. The drives also monitor component life, allowing users to predict and schedule component replacements to help avoid costly unplanned downtime.

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4/28/22 9:19 AM

44 IT VIEW AW MAY 2022

Is Continuous Optimization of an Asset Possible?

By Dr. Ananth Seshan CEO, 5G Automatika Ltd.

U

nplanned downtime is still one of the predominant costs in a manufacturing operation despite the advances available in predictive and condition-based maintenance technologies.

Even though the focus of proactive maintenance has been to catch symptoms of failure early, infer the probable causes from the symptoms, and take proactive actions to prevent the failure, only limited success has been achieved compared to the previous generation of predictive maintenance approaches.

This is mainly due to the treatment of the asset in question as a “black box.” Without the knowledge of the internal state of the asset and state transitions that take place between the sub-processes of the asset during operation, it is not possible to exhaustively infer the real cause and/or potential for a failure. In the past, even if a failure was avoided because a symptom was treated via predictive maintenance, the actual cause was not addressed.

The reality is that an asset will fail unexpectedly when some failure-inducing condition in its past operational behavior has gone undetected.

That’s why detection of sub-optimality is required not only to avoid unexpected failures, but also to achieve superior performance.

This is where the idea of continuous asset optimization enters the picture. With the advent of Industry 4.0 technologies, it is now possible to reasonably strive towards dynamically achieving asset optimality given the current capability to generate meaningful and contextual information on asset performance in real time.

Traditional Big Data analytics apply deep learning for strategic optimization to enable decisions that will have a significant impact in a month, six months, or a year. This requires a plethora of past data to identify hidden patterns of asset performance. Continuous asset optimization differs in that it can achieve asset optimization in

2205_ITView.indd 44

MESA Foundry Twin: An abstracted framework for a digital twin in a foundry. For more info, visit: awgo.to/1410 a relatively immediate future time frame, such as the remaining period in a shift, the next shift, or the next day. And it can do this without the need for a significant amount of historical data, making it more tactical and operational. This realtime approach to asset optimization also ensures that the behavior of each component/sub-process associated with every critical asset is understood within its wider operational context. By modelling (based on first principles physics) the interaction between the behaviors of components of a process/asset, future behaviors can be predicted and optimized using artificial intelligence techniques and operating costs can be significantly reduced.

Such continuous and practical optimality in assets can be achieved in a standard and systematic manner via digital twins. Digital twins have been around for almost a decade now, but their applications have evolved since their first definitions.

The Digital Twin framework shown comprises four layers: operations, performance, optimization, and prediction. The operations layer con-

nects to the assets in the plant and collects real time data from the assets and sub-processes. The performance layer computes the performance of the assets from the collected data. The optimization layer applies the data from the operations layer and the key performance indicators computed in the performance layer to models of specific sub-processes of the assets. The individual optimizations computed by the model are then fed as inputs to a predictive layer which reconciles the sub-process optimizations to arrive at an overall asset/process optimization. Communication between the layers happens opportunistically and dynamically to ensure that the assets are continuously optimized. That’s how a significant component of the digital twin can be achieved using a minimalist network infrastructure, edge computing, IoT hardware, and intelligent firmware/ application software, keeping overall implementation costs within affordable levels.

4/28/22 9:16 AM

ADVERTISER INDEX 45 AW MAY 2022

COMPANY

WEBSITE

PAGE

Automation Direct

www.automationdirect.com/t-slotted-rails

Beckhoff Automation

www.beckhoff.com

Digi-Key Electronics

www.digikey.com/automation

Endress + Hauser USA

www.us.endress.com/fundamental

17

Fabco-Air

www.fabco-air.com

39

Festo Corporation

www.festo.us

Hammond Manufacturing

www.hammondmfg.com

35

Heidenhain

www.heidenhain.us

15

Inductive Automation

www.inductiveautomation.com

Opto 22

https://op22.co/rioemu

47

PACK EXPO International 2022

www.packexpointernational.com

29

PI North America

us.profinet.com/go-digital

21

PMMI ProSource

www.ProSource.org

31

MAVERICK Technologies

www.mavtechglobal.com

48

Skkynet Cloud Systems Inc

www.skkynet.com

27

Telemecanique Sensors

www.tesensors.com/XCMW

19

Wago Corporation

www.wago.us/iiot

13

2 11 5

9

7

Rockwell Automation for

Automation World ® (ISSN # 15531244, USPS 22435) is a registered trademark of PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies.

Automation World ® is published 12 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 2022 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 AutomationWorld.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 20, Number 5.

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4/28/22 12:17 PM

46 KEY INSIGHTS AW MAY 2022

To assess the existence of non-value-added technologies in your operations, look for technologies or systems whose ongoing costs outweigh the benefits to the business. For example, if a new high-speed packaging line is always going down for maintenance or unplanned stoppages, the organization needs to evaluate whether the equipment and its automation are still supporting business goals.

David Greenfield on determining whether your automation technology is still delivering on expectations.

Git can reduce onboarding and training by 40% and alleviates some of the pain points associated with the development process, including lost or old code, maintaining multiple versions of files, working with outdated versions, the inability to share code, tracking who changed what, and scaling teams.

Stephanie Neil on brining modern dev-ops to industrial control.

The goals of digital transformation initiatives are moving from a core focus on improving production efficiency to include the establishment of more resilient and responsive business models. This shift comes in response to external pressures such as material shortages and expectations from governments and customers for businesses to become more environmentally sustainable across their entire supply chain.

David Miller on industry’s digital transformation leaders.

Since the introduction of the term programmable automation controllers (PACs) in the 1990s, technology suppliers have used it to distinguish their advanced controllers from their simpler PLCs, although the boundaries have blurred and the terms are often used interchangeably. PLCs and PACs serve the same approximate purpose, but PLCs are typically specified for basic discrete control, and PACs are used when complex features or infrastructures are required.

Lauren Gibbons Paul on making sense of industrial controller options.

Excellent trainers will guide trainees through exercises while helping them rely on company and group standards to complete problems.

One of the most important approaches in this part of training is to not mark something as wrong if the exercise is successful but not completed according to the correct standard. Instead, trainers should show alternate solutions that comply with your standards.

Will Aja of Panacea Technologies on the value of training.

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