A P P L I C AT I O N | G R E E N M A N U FA C T U R I N G
Edge Embedded and Edge Controller can also be equipped with energy and condition monitoring tools
Ensuring higher machine availability reduces downtime, ensuring higher productivity. Incorporating predictive maintenance ensures reduction in unplanned downtimes leading to reduced wastage of raw materials and products. Monitoring energy in different forms helps factories save energy and thus, reduce operation costs. For machine builders incorporating virtualisation means reducing the time to market for new machines and avoiding rework. This saves them time and effort, which eventually helps them avoid waste. Gathering data from machines and lines enables factories to analyse the performance in real-time, enabling them to avoid human errors in data entry with making decisions spontaneously. These are just a few examples of the various benefits technology brings to machines and factories.
Smarter yet cleaner This is a dilemma machines and factories face in making their operations smart yet be cleaner for the sake of the environment and health of life. Factories need to find a way not only to benefit from smart manufacturing concepts but also to care for the environment. B&R Industrial Automation takes both aspects seriously with providing next generation smart automation solutions to machines and factories yet helping them in their endeavour of reducing e-waste. It offers machine builders advanced automation technology and solutions for incorporating them in the new machines for becoming ready for the future and becoming innovative. In addition, it provides brownfield factories with solutions via edge architectures, which allows them to keep using the legacy systems yet be able to incorporate the new technologies. Thus, any factory using the edge architectures from B&R will be able to leverage benefits the new technologies bring in. With addition to edge architectures, factories reduce e-waste as well as become smart.
Edge architectures Factories are looking at ways to gather data from machines as
A&D India | Jun-Jul 2019
well as lines and send it to IT systems for analytics. With intelligence becoming more and more decentralised & a growing volume and variety of machine and line data becoming available for analytics, the need for edge computing is on the rise. Edge architectures help collect data from sensors, actuators, machines, lines and plants and move it to IT systems for analytics and longterm storage. Edge architectures make life easy for factory operators & plant owners by providing a variety of options tailored to their requirements. These are add-on systems keeping the existing OT infrastructure untouched, thus, eliminating the need of generating e-waste for adding new technology. Edge Connect allows them to gather data directly from sensors and actuators in the field, which can then be shared securely with any cloud platform using the open-source OPC UA protocol – making it the easiest way to collect data from the field. Edge Embedded provides basic intelligence, trends, reporting, data aggregation, and the possibility of viewing data locally on the shop floor before moving it to the cloud. With Edge Embedded, factories can divide computation between the cloud and on-site controllers. Edge Controller provides factories with comprehensive onsite analytics, business intelligence and machine learning – giving them full control of their data. Edge Embedded and Edge Controller can also be equipped with energy and condition monitoring tools. Edge architectures are the perfect way to begin the transformation toward the smart, connected factories of the future.
Reducing carbon footprint The industry understands the value and potential of digital transformation, which has opened the door for significant step change improvements. Edge architectures will continue to play a vital role in helping factories reduce their carbon footprint in their endeavour to become smart. B&R is a global automation provider with ground-breaking motion control, machine operation and control solutions for helping machine builders, factories and manufacturing units on their path of digitisation. �
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