IAA Dec/Jan 2017

DECEMBER 16/JANUARY 2017

www.iaasiaonline.com

MCI (P) 028/07/2016 | ISSN 0219/5615 | PPS 1561/06/2013 (022960)

CHANGING LOGISTICST WITH INDUSTRIAL IOT

S MUA E RPG54D

UNDERSTANDING CONTACTLESS VOLTAGE PROBE TECHNOLOGY PG42 OPTIMISING THE PROCESS WITH IOT

PG48

POWER SUPPLIES FOR MATERIAL HANDLING PG52 In this issue, get insights for 2017 with IAA’s annual Market Outlook!

ENQUIRY NO. 1060

A reliable end-to-end network physical layer infrastructure – from the enterprise to the edge.

IN-PANEL™ Connecting Machine to Plant Floor Architecture

IN-ROOM™ Connecting Enterprise and the Plant Floor

IN-FIELD™ Deploying Ethernet on Machine

IN-ROUTE™ Distributing Ethernet Throughout the Plant Floor

IN-FRASTRUCTURE™ Strengthening the Network from the Ground Up

Panduit 5 INfrastructure solutions adhere to network architectures such as CPwE, providing a reliable end-to-end network physical layer infrastructure – from the enterprise to the edge. Our integrated physical infrastructure building blocks, tools and design services simplify network deployment for better equipment optimization and broader risk management. Panduit is Simplifying Robust Industrial Network and IIoT Deployment by providing a reliable end-to-end network architecture – from the edge of the network to the enterprise and back.

Map Your Journey to IIoT Today

www.panduit.com/mapyourjourney ENQUIRY NO. 1062

ADVERTORIAL

OMRON ROBOTIC AUTOMATION SOLUTION

5

Flexible manufacturing enabled by a seamless Integration of Robots and Machine Control:

4

1

3

2

1

O

MRON’S UNIQUE COMBINATION of software and control architecture addresses the factory automation challenges from producing a high variety mix of products with short product lifecycles that require rapid production line changeovers.

The common controls, integrated software architecture and development environment meet current and future needs for ease of process design, flexible operation and predictable maintenance. The flexibility and agility

of our solutions is ideal for industries such as Food and Beverage, Automotive and Electronics.

Rapid changeover enabled by easy to use software – automatically generate code. Application specific solutions for Packaging, Assembly operations, pick and place and so on.

THE OMRON’S BENEFITS The new Omron Robotic Automation enhances the most demanding lines providing five main benefits:

2

3

Performance: Overall through-put is guaranteed by the synchronization of our SYSMAC Machine control with the new vision guided robots. Reduce cycle time by optimizing the synchronized control and in turn improves overall performance through high accuracy, high speed etc. through-put.

Flexible: Software assisted system generates automatically the new programming code. Quick start-up with ready to use application modules, to make reliable and secure productionline management.

Efficient: All the production data coming from robots, controllers, sensors are collected, shared and managed to optimize the productivity.

4

5

Simple: Shortening the startup and maintenance time by the integrated software environment that controls the line along with Omron one stop services.

Quick Delivery: One stop delivery help to reduce inventory and five warehouses ensures parts are provided in a short time.

Omron Robot Control Library allows parallel, SCARA and articulated robots manufactured by Omron Adept technologies to be controlled directly from the NJ/NX Machine Automation Controller by using the same instructions and programming method as the controller.

Function Blocks in this library enables robot control using ladder and ST which are the programming languages and for the NJ/NX CPU units, eliminating the need to learn a new robot programming language.

The NJ/NX CPU Unit integrates robot system control and data management.

COMPLETE AUTOMATION SOLUTION Complete Automation Solution for factory automation and machine control, Over 200,000 products and 80 years of designing and manufacturing automation solutions experience.

Omron Automation solution with product line of: Control: Automation Systems include Programmable Controllers that support machine control, and Network/Software products to support easy information exchange with host systems.

Robots: Robot arms, robot controllers, and vision systems for flexible production lines. E.g. SCARA Robots, Parallel Robots, Articulated Robots and controllers etc.

Vision: Vision Sensors, Machine Vision Systems analyze images to perform appearance inspections, character inspections, positioning, and defect inspections.

Motion: Servo motors and inverters ideal for positioning, speed and torque controls in various business machine control fields.

Safety: Safety Components are required for safety countermeasures in equipment and facilities. They are used for shutout detection of mechanical guards, checking intrusion into hazardous areas, and building safety circuits.

Sensing: OMRON Sensing Components detect, measure, analyze, and process v a r i o u s c h a n ge s t h a t o cc u r o n productions sites, such as changes in position, length, height, displacement, and appearance. They also contribute to predicting and preventing future events.

GLOBAL COLLABORATIVE NETWORK Machine Automation and Robotics expertise provided by an unique and global team, across forty over countries, 150 locations, 3000 application engineers.

We can evaluate all the aspects concerning the most demanding a p p l i c a t i o n s . Ro b o t i c s h a n d l i n g , Vision inspection, Motion and Safety functions can be simulated and tested in our robotics and automation centers supporting you around the world.

ENQUIRY NO. 1068

For more information, scan the QR code or visit www.omron-ap.com/solutions/robotics/

CONTENTS ISSUES & INSIGHTS

SOFTWARE & NETWORKS

28

Market Outlook 2017 The economic climate is uncertain but there are a varied array of opportunities ahead for businesses in the industrial automation space to leverage and take advantage of. Six companies give their few on their 2016 performance and where they see the opportunities going in 2017.

44

PROCESS CONTROL 32

Substantial Potential For Optimising Azimuth Control Yaw systems that allow wind turbines to track wind direction subject them to unnecessary mechanical stress and accelerated wear. B&R’s Peter Kronberger and Alois Holzleitner are convinced that a more sustainable approach is possible.

By Alexandra Fabitsch, B&R Automation

34

Innovation Goes Hand In Hand The British company Steeper has developed the bebionic myoelectric hand prosthesis, controlled by myoelectric signals generated from muscle contractions in the arm with the help of Faulhaber.

By Zsolt Pekker

38

PLM’s Evolving Role In The Internet Of Things PLM’s traditional services are undergoing an evolution as manufacturers move into Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things.

By Jonathan Chou

INSTRUMENTATION & MEASUREMENT 42

Contactless Voltage Probe Technology: Measuring Voltage Waveforms From Outside Signal Cables Technology for acquiring AC voltage waveforms in a manner that requires no contact with metal terminals will be discussed.

By Dr Koichi Yanagisawa, Hioki E.E. Corporation

Defining Pressure: What Is Pressure And Why Is It Critical To Process What is pressure, and how is it applied and measured? This question will be answered here. The article will also highlight how pressure sensors affect process environments and how they are applied in specific applications.

Contributed by Turck

ENERGY 46

Digitalisation Of The Manufacturing Process Industry 4.0 is a major part of the digitalisation process in the manufacturing sector, and increasingly so in the process and energy sectors.

IAA interviewed Lutz Seidenfaden, Head of Competence Center Asia, Festo, on a recent seminar they held as well as developments in Industry 4.0.

By Mark Johnston

48

Leveraging IoT To Optimise The Process IAA interviewed Anand Vishnubhotla, GM for advanced solutions (APAC), Honeywell Process Solutions on his company’s involvement in IoT and its implications for the process sector.

By Mark Johnston

Highly Advanced TFT-LCD Modules

by Mitsubishi Electric

For In-Flight Monitor

For Bank ATM

For Train Monitor

For GAS POS

For Camera Monitor

For Boat Monitor

For Drive-through

THE NEXT STEP IN THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIAL DISPLAYS

MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC ASIA PTE LTD

307 Alexandra Road, #05-01/02, Mitsubishi Electric Building, Singapore 159943 Phone: +65 6473-2308 Fax: +65 6473-8944 www.MitsubishiElectric.com.sg / semi.asean@asia.meap.com

ENQUIRY NO. 1002

Mitsubishi Electric color thin-film transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT-LCD) modules are produced utilizing advanced imaging and color reproduction technologies and come in a variety of sizes to match diversified needs. With applications including point of sale (POS) terminals, vending and ticketing machines, bank automatic teller machines (ATMs) and monitors in vehicles and boats, our TFT-LCD modules have become an essential part of society and people’s lives today. Features include excellent visibility, stylish design, simplicity of use and customer-focused product development.

CONTENTS SECTOR SPOTLIGHT

FEATURES

ON THE COVER Cover: Pepperl+Fuchs IndustrialAutomationAsia

DECEMBER 16/JANUARY 2017

www.iaasiaonline.com

MCI (P) 028/07/2016 | ISSN 0219/5615 | PPS 1561/06/2013 (022960)

DECEMBER 16/JANUARY 2017

Manufacturing Automation, Instrumentation & Process Controls

CHANGING LOGISTICS WITH INDUSTRIAL IOT

ST MUAD RE 4 PG5

Market Outlook | Motion Control | Product Lifecycle Management | Supply Chain & Logistics

UNDERSTANDING CONTACTLESS VOLTAGE PROBE TECHNOLOGY PG42 OPTIMISING THE PROCESS WITH IOT

PG48

www.iaasiaonline.com

POWER SUPPLIES FOR MATERIAL HANDLING PG52

In this issue, get insights for 2017 with IAA’s annual Market Outlook!

Cover-2.indd 1

7/12/16 8:55 am

INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION ASIA

is published 8 issues per year by

EASTERN TRADE MEDIA PTE LTD 12 Hoy Fatt Road, #03-01 Bryton House, Singapore 159506 Tel: (65) 6379 2888 Fax: (65) 6379 2886 Website: www.iaasiaonline.com Email: iaa@epl.com.sg

52

DC Power Supplies For Material Handling And Logistics Automation DC Power Supplies are an integral part of the material handling and logistics sector.

By Maximilian Hülsebusch, Puls (Germany)

60

SUBSCRIPTION RATES

All About Coatings Optical systems today rely heavily on suitable protective coatings for successful operation and performance.

Contributed by Edmund Optics

IAA is available to readers on subscription in Singapore at S$60.00 per annum. Subscription by airmail to readers in Malaysia is also at S$60.00 per annum; and Asia Pacific, America, Europe and other regions at S$100.

Refer to the subscription card in each issue for further details.

EVENTS

FOR MORE SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION Fax: (65) 6379 2806 Email: janicelee@epl.com.sg

61 NIDays 2016

62

Intuitive Design And Using The Cloud: Solid Edge University 2016

64

IMPORTANT NOTICE

Transformation With IoT: Industrial IoT World Partner Conference

54

Pepperl+Fuchs: Leading The Change In IIoT It is either change or be changed in the new world order. Pepperl+Fuchs decided neither.

Instead it will lead the change — playing an active role in the digitalisation of the industry.

By Eileen Chan

The circulation of this magazine is audited by BPA world wide.

The advertisers’ association recommend that advertisers should place their advertisements only in audited publications.

Copyright. Eastern Trade Media Pte Ltd. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced in any form or means – graphic, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, taping, etc – without the written consent of the publisher.

Opinions expressed by contributors and advertisers are not necessarily those of the publisher and editor.

Regulars 10 24 25 26

Industry News Profibus CAN In Automation Fieldbus Foundation

27 67 71 72A

EtherCAT Technology Group Products & Services Calendar of Events Product Enquiry Card

72

Refer to page FOR ADVERTISERS’ ENQUIRY NUMBER

HARDWARE + SOFTWARE + PEOPLE = 5G INSIGHTS

ENQUIRY NO. 0975

8 EDITOR’S NOTE

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

THE FUTURE MARKET FOR INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION It that time of the year where we reflect on the year gone by whilst looking for opportunities in the year ahead. According to a report from international market research company Technavio, the top three trends to influence the industrial automation control market from 2016 to 2020 will be cloud-based Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, increased use of analytics, and growing use of Programmable Automation Controllers (PACs).

The report also predicts these trends will result in an eight percent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) for the Asia-Pacific region, but the trends are likely to be seen globally.

The surge in the demand for chemical and petrochemical products from APAC is the primary growth driver for this market. The high adoption of automation control solutions across chemicals plants in China, Japan, South Korea, India, and Taiwan has been contributing to the growth of the market. For instance, during 2013, China accounted for more than one-third of the global chemicals trade.

The adoption of cloud-based SCADA is expected to boost the market growth during the 2016 to 2020 period. By making use of the internet, cloud-based SCADA is possible. This enables end-users to control and monitor sensors and transmitters remotely. By making use of cloud resources it is possible to reduce costs because of hardware savings. In addition, rather than needing to install or update software at the phyical location, it can instead be done via the cloud.

The PLC is one of the basic components of any control system, and constituted 33 percent of the market share during 2015. The humble PLC is still popular today for its low price, high flexibility, and low maintenance In a smart factory, the PLC would be a basic element. With industrial output increasing across the APAC region, the PLC is set to rise in importance.

In this issue we look at the 2017 industrial automation market, as well as the logistics sector, product lifecycle management, process instrumentation, and motion control efficiency.

MANAGING DIRECTOR Kenneth Tan EDITORIAL EDITOR Mark Andrew Johnston markandrewjohnston@epl.com.sg WRITER Jonathan Chou jonathanchou@epl.com.sg EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Sharifah Zainon sharifah@epl.com.sg CREATIVE GRAPHIC DESIGNER Zu Teo zuteo@epl.com.sg ADVERTISING SENIOR SALES MANAGER Derick Chia derickchia@epl.com.sg CIRCULATION CIRCULATION MANAGER Foo Boon How boonhow@epl.com.sg CIRCULATION EXECUTIVE Janice Lee janicelee@epl.com.sg CONTRIBUTORS ALEXANDRA FABITSCH, DAISUKE ARAI, EILEEN CHAN, KOICHI YANAGISAWA, MAXIMILIAN HÜLSEBUSCH, ZSOLT PEKKER

Mark Johnston Editor

Want to get the latest news and insights?

www.iaasiaonline.com

VISIT OUR OFFICIAL WEBSITE TO GET EXCLUSIVE CONTENT. LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF THE INDUSTRY AS WE SHARE THE LATEST NEWS AND UPDATES AVAILABLE!

Subscribe Today!

TURN TO PAGE 72 FOR MORE DETAILS!

Head Office & Mailing Address

Eastern Trade Media Pte Ltd

Join our Growing Community.

WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/IAASIA

12 Hoy Fatt Road, #03-01 Bryton House,

Singapore 159506 Tel: +65 6379 2888 Fax: +65 6379 2886 Email: iaa@epl.com.sg Web: iaasiaonline.com

HIGH DEMANDS. PRECISE DETECTION.

High-tech automation demands intelligent object detection. No matter how sophisticated your needs are, SICK photoelectric sensors offer reliable solutions for the broadest variety of applications. Detection of all objects in diverse ambient conditions is possible thanks to SIRICŽ, the SICK optical ASIC. Our sensors reach the highest level of reliability due to quality standards that exceed typical market standards, which in turn improves machine productivity. A broad variety of housing shapes and materials, detection technologies and connectors make them a perfect fi t for every machine design. We think that‘s intelligent. www.sick.com/precision

SICK Pte. Ltd. | 8 Admiralty Street | #04-09 Admirax | Singapore 757438 Tel : +65 67443732 | Fax : +65 67427782 | Email : sales.gsg@sick.com Indonesia | Malaysia | Philippines | Singapore | Thailand | Vietnam

ENQUIRY NO. 1063

IndustryNews QUICK BITES Xylem Acquires SingaporeBased Smart Water Analytics Company Visenti Xylem, a global water technology leader, announced that it has acquired Visenti, a Singaporebased smart water analytics company that provides a suite of advanced products and services to enable smart management of water networks.

DHL Express Bolsters Regional Trade With S$140 million South Asia Hub DHL Express has launched the S$140 million (US$101 million) DHL South Asia Hub, a 24-hour express hub facility located within Changi Airfreight Centre (CAC) at Singapore Changi Airport.

Keymile Expands Into The Asia Pacific Region Keymile has opened its Asia Pacific regional hub in Singapore as part of its commitment to its customers and partners. The goal is to look after customers and partners better from this local base.

Rockwell Automation Names New President For Asia Pacific Region Rockwell Automation has named Joseph Sousa president of its Asia Pacific region.

Datapipe Named Alibaba Cloud Global Managed Service Provider SINGAPORE Datapipe has been named a global Managed Service Provider (MSP) partner of Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group. Global organisations entering China and Chinese organisations venturing abroad can now rely on Datapipe’s expertise in designing, building, and managing best-practice Alibaba Cloud environments.

Under the partnership, Alibaba Cloud customers can look to Datapipe to plan, build and run their cloud environments to ensure fast, secure, and compliant global expansion strategies. Datapipe will provide migration, management, and security of Alibaba Cloud solutions for computing, storage, database, CDN, and big data.

China-based Joyful Journey Travel is the company’s first managed Alibaba Cloud client and is the first company to provide financial services to travelers in China. Joyful Journey Travel was looking to deploy a completely elastic infrastructure for their services to allow them to quickly and easily grow into new regions as they onboard more customers. Their biggest concern was security, specifically how to ensure their platform was robust enough to secure customer and financial data — a key criteria for any financial services organisation.

The company’s team worked with Joyful Journey Travel to develop a solution based on high-performing Alibaba Cloud services including Elastic Computer Service instances, AsparaDB for Relationship Database Systems and Alibaba’s Cloud based CDN.

Skylab And Tata Communications Partner To Unlock The Potential Of The Internet Of Things For Enterprises SINGAPORE Tata Communications, a provider of A New World of Communications and Skylab, a Singapore-based technology solutions provider, have announced a partnership to help more enterprises adopt the Internet of Things (IoT). Skylab provides advanced data harvesting, processing and delivery solutions to its customers over a scalable platform called Data Logistics Cloud (DLC). Skylab has chosen Tata Communications as its cloud partner to ensure high levels of flexibility and reliability for customers through Tata Communications’ IZO Cloud Enablement Platform and leading global network and partnerships.

The partnership comes on the heels of successful deployments of Skylab’s solutions in the region, notably for customer Sunseap’s solar farm projects across Southeast Asia.

Tata Communications’ IZO Cloud Enablement Platform aims to empower enterprises to connect and build their cloud, their way — be it private, public or hybrid.

It is supported by Tata Communications’ global infrastructure. Today, over 24 percent of the world’s internet routes travel over the company’s network.

Together we move the Together weworld move the world The Schaeffler Group is a leading global integrated automotive and The stands Schaeffler isquality, a leading global integrated automotive and industrial supplier. The company for theGroup highest outstanding industrial supplier. companyGroup standsmakes for the highest quality, outstanding technology and strong innovative ability.

TheThe Schaeffler technology and strong innovative ability. a decisive contribution to “mobility for tomorrow” with high-precisionThe Schaeffler Group makes a decisive contribution to “mobility for tomorrow” with high-precision components and systems in engine, transmission andischassis applications The Schaeffler Group leading global integrated automotive and components and systems ina engine, transmission and chassis applications as well as rolling and plain bearing solutions for a large number of industrial industrial supplier.

The company stands for the highest quality, outstanding as well as rolling of andmanufacturing plain bearing solutions for a large number of industrial applications. It has a worldwide network technology and strong innovative locations, ability. The Schaeffler Group makes applications.

It has a worldwide network of manufacturing locations, research and development facilities and sales companies at approximately a decisive contribution tofacilities “mobility forsales tomorrow” withat high-precision research and development and companies approximately 170 locations in 50 countries.components and systems in engine, transmission and chassis applications 170 locations in 50 countries. as well as rolling and plain bearing solutions for a large number of industrial applications. It has a worldwide network of manufacturing locations, research and development facilities and sales companies at approximately 170 locations in 50 countries.

Together we move the world

ENQUIRY NO. 0929

apore) Pte Ltd . 151 Lorong Chuan, #06-01, New Tech Park, Lobby A, Singapore 556741 . Tel: +65 6540 8600 . Fax: +65 6540 8668 . marketing_sg@schaeffler.com Regional HQ: Schaeffler (Singapore) Pte Ltd . 151 Lorong Chuan, #06-01, New Tech Park, Lobby A, Singapore 556741 . Tel: +65 6540 8600 . Fax: +65 6540 8668 . marketing_sg@schaeffler.com

a

Vietnam Malaysia Philippines Thailand Schaeffler Schaeffler Philippines Inc. Schaeffler (Thailand) Co., Ltd. Schaeffler IndonesiaBearings (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. Malaysia Philippines Thailand(Vietnam) Co., Ltd. Vietnam 5-2 Fiamma 5th Bearings Floor Optima Bldg. Sdn. Bhd. 388Schaeffler ExchangePhilippines Tower, 34thInc. Floor 6th Floor, TMS Building.Co., Ltd. PT.Wisma Schaeffer Bearings Indonesia Schaeffler (Malaysia) Schaeffler (Thailand) Schaeffler (Vietnam) Co., Ltd. Regional HQ: Schaeffler (Singapore) Pte 5-2 LtdWisma . 151 Lorong Chuan,Village #06-01, New TechUnit Park, LobbyOptima A, Singapore +65 6540 8600 . Fax: +65 6540 8668 marketing_sg@schaeffler.com No 20 Jalan 7A/62A Salcedo St. Legaspi 3403-3404 172 Hai Ba Trung Street, District 1.

Fiamma 5th Floor Bldg. 556741 . Tel: 388 Exchange Tower, 34th Floor 6th. Floor, TMS Building.

Lippo Kuningan Sukhumvit Klongtoey HoUnit Chi3403-3404 Minh City Bandar Menjalara Makati City 1229 172 Hai Ba Trung Street, District 1.

19th Floor Unit A & F No 20 Jalan 7A/62A SalcedoRoad, St. Legaspi Village 52200 Kuala Lumpur +63 2 7593583 Bangkok, Vietnam.

Jl. HR Rasuna Said Kav B - 12 BandarTel: Menjalara Makati10110 City 1229 Sukhumvit Road, Klongtoey Ho Chi Minh City Malaysia Fax: +63 2 7798703 Thailand Tel: +84 8 222 02 777 Jakarta 12920 52200 Kuala Lumpur Tel: +63 2 7593583 Bangkok, Vietnam.

Malaysia Philippines Thailand 10110 Vietnam Indonesia marketing_ph@schaeffler.com Tel:Fax: +662 697 0000 Fax: +84 8 222 02 776 Tel: +603 6275 06 20 +63 2 7798703 Thailand Tel: +84 8 222 02 777Co., Ltd. Tel: +62 21 29110280 Malaysia Schaeffler Philippines Inc. Schaeffler (Thailand) Co., Ltd. Schaeffler (Vietnam) PT. Schaeffer Bearings Indonesia Schaeffler Bearings (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. Fax:marketing_ph@schaeffler.com +662 697 0001 marketing_vn@schaeffler.com Fax: +603 6275 64 21 Tel: +662 697 0000 Fax: +84 8TMS 222Building.

02 776 Fax: +62 21 29110281 Tel: +603 6275 06 20 6th Floor, Lippo Kuningan 5-2 Wisma Fiamma 5th Floor Optima Bldg.

388 Exchange Tower, 34th Floor marketing_my@schaeffler.com marketing_th@schaeffler.com marketing_id@schaeffer.com Fax:20 +603 6275 64 21 Fax: 697 0001 marketing_vn@schaeffler.com 19th Floor Unit A & F No Jalan 7A/62A Salcedo St. Legaspi Village Unit +662 3403-3404 172 Hai Ba Trung Street, District 1. marketing_my@schaeffler.com marketing_th@schaeffler.com Jl. HR Rasuna Said Kav B - 12 Bandar Menjalara Makati City 1229 Sukhumvit Road, Klongtoey Ho Chi Minh City Tel: +63 2 7593583 Bangkok, 10110 Vietnam.

Jakarta 12920 52200 Kuala Lumpur Tel: +84 8 222 02 777 Tel: +62 21 29110280 Malaysia Fax: +63 2 7798703 Thailand Fax: +62 21 29110281 Tel: +603 6275 06 20 marketing_ph@schaeffler.com Tel: +662 697 0000 Fax: +84 8 222 02 776

12

INDUSTRY NEWS

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

DID YOU KNOW

China has quickly become the number two consumer of bottled water in the world Frost & Sullivan: Industries Of The Future To Be Significantly Impacted

By Digital Transformation

SINGAPORE Technology is expected to be the driving force across industries and this transformation will be the catalyst driving productivity, innovation, skill development and growth for the companies of today.

Digital disruption was the underlying theme at Frost & Sullivan’s annual Growth Innovation and Leadership (GIL) 2016: Asia Pacific global congress, which took place on October 13, 2016 at the Conrad Centennial Singapore.

Against a backdrop of digital transformation as a strategic imperative, Nitin Bhat, head of consulting, Asia Pacific and country head Singapore, Frost & Sullivan presented a keynote session aptly

titled ‘Future of the Future’. He discussed how social, technological, political and economic forces will influence the business and lifestyle patterns of society in the future.

He also added that despite how technological advancements are expected to significantly alter the future, issues and challenges such as human rights, globalisation and economic equality will still remain and it is our moral charge to address them.

W i t h te c h n o lo g y ex p e c te d to be a major disruptor for the jobs of today and the future, the subsequent sessions on Future of Jobs and Future of Business Models also discussed how organisations need evolve and adapt to the changing business landscape.

Other highlights of the summit included an interactive workshop on Employment Market Transformation and in-depth panel discussions on the Future of Asia and Future of Business Models.

Frost & Sullivan’s key analysts also shared their insights in selected topics presented including Future of Manufacturing; Future of Infrastructure and Future of Healthcare.

Xylem Acquires Singapore-Based Smart Water Analytics Company Visenti SINGAPORE Xylem, a global water technology leader, announced that it has acquired Visenti, a Singapore-based smart water analytics company that provides a suite of advanced products and services to enable smart management of water networks.

Visenti was launched out of the SMART research program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is focused on supporting water utilities in monitoring their infrastructure and optimising their operations through advanced analytics. Its solutions portfolio is highly complementary to Xylem’s offerings, and targets the growing challenge of nonrevenue water loss — treated drinking water that is lost due to leaks, theft or other causes. Visenti’s technologies include real-time leak detection, identification of pipe network assets at risk of failure, operational simulations, meter data analytics and water quality monitoring. Visenti effectively integrates advanced software and hardware to enable water utilities to reduce energy and water wastage in real-time without compromising water quality and hydraulic standards.

Xylem and Visenti entered into a strategic partnership in 2012 to develop smart optimisation of water networks by utilising energy-efficient technology and smart sensing platforms for large-scale deployment projects in Singapore and Hong Kong.

M2M / IoT Solutions

series Contec Compiled the 40 Years of Experience into a New Series.

Integrated type

M2M controllers

Configurable type

Providing software to match the system being built • Data collection software "CONPROSYS Data Collection On-premises Software" • Support connecting with SCADA systems "OPC Server Software" • High-performance HMI software "ACTIVE TOUCH"

Singapore Office

ENQUIRY NO. 1061

+65 6459 1667

sales1@contec.sg

Blk 4010, Ang Mo Kio Ave 10, #07-01 Techplace 1 Singapore 569626 Contec Co., Ltd. (Headquarters) 3-9-31, Himesato, Nishiyodogawa-ku, Osaka 555-0025 JAPAN Tel: +81-6-6472-7130 Fax:+81-6-6475-1728

T h e To p M a n u f a c t u r e o f I n d u s t r i a l I / O D e v i c e s i n J a p a n

14

INDUSTRY NEWS

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Quann Launches Cyber Range In The Cloud

Featuring an Aurix microcontroller, ‘Sub1 Reloaded’ managed to solve a Rubik’s Cube within 637 milliseconds, the best time upon invention of the cube 30 years ago.

Infineon Chip Breaks World Record

By Solving Rubik’s Cube MUNICH, GERMANY The Rubik’s Cube was solved in just 637 thousandths of a second: At the ‘electronica’ trade fair, the machine ‘Sub1 Reloaded’ pulled off the feat with the help of microchips from Infineon. The microcontroller Aurix, said to be one of the world’s most powerful minicomputers, also contributed to the record-breaking effort: It is one of the essential elements that enable autonomous driving. For the Rubik’s Cube, it achieved the best time in the approximately 30 years that have passed since the Hungarian Ernő Rubik invented the cube. It takes a human at least 4.9 seconds to solve the puzzle. That is the best time recorded for a so-called ‘speedcuber’ listed in the Guinness World Records.

It takes a lot of computing power to solve such a highly complex puzzle with a machine. In the case of ‘Sub1 Reloaded’, the power for motor control was supplied by a microcontroller from Infineon’s Aurix family, similar to the one used in driver assistance systems.

Minimal reaction times play an even greater role in autonomous driving. A high data-processing rate is necessary to ensure real-time capabilities with clock frequencies of 200 MHz. As a result of this ability, a vehicle can safely

and reliably apply the brakes when it approaches a barrier.

‘Sub1 Reloaded’ contains a number of other microchips. Like most devices we use every day, they link the real and digital worlds. The attempt started with the press of a button. The shutters of the sensor cameras were removed. The machine then detected the position of the elements. These had been previously scrambled, in accordance with the special requirements of the World Cube Association. The computing chip, or the ‘brain’ of the machine, figured out the fastest solution and transmitted the necessary commands to the power semiconductors. These ‘muscles’ then activated six motors, one for each side of the cube, at record speed and then brought them to a halt — all within the fraction of a second.

Every Rubik’s cube can be unscrambled with just 20 movements.

A variety of algorithms can be used to solve the puzzle, the most well-known of which is the Fridrich Method. But the company’s constructor Albert Beer did not design his prodigy with the fewest moves in mind. Rather, he was intent on achieving the best time — he even allowed the ‘Sub1 Reloaded’ a few extra moves to reach this goal.

SINGAPORE Formerly e-Cop, Quann, a Singaporebased Managed Security Services Provider and a business unit of Singapore’s security organisation Certis CISCO, has announced the launch of its Cyber Range that leverages on capacity from the cloud. The Cyber Range will not only offer a handson environment to develop and equip enterprise security teams to deal with cyberwarfare, but also provide organisations with the ability to simulate cybersecurity scenarios across physical, cyber and Operational Technology (OT) domains. It will also provide enterprises with the capability to test and validate cybersecurity solutions, tools and processes pre-purchase and post-installation. This allows enterprises to undertake a more effective evaluation of solutions as well as determine the appropriate security posture.

Testing in a Cyber Range has traditionally been performed within the confines of a fixed, predesignated physical location. However, by leveraging the advantages of the cloud, customers will have the flexibility and scalability to rapidly create, configure and validate their bespoke virtual environments regardless of geographical location. They will also no longer need to build and operate a separate physical environment for testing. This will allow organisations to focus their time and resources on staying vigilant and protected against cyber threats.

Harting And Arrow Electronics Expand Partnership GERMANY The Harting Technology Group and Arrow Electronics expand their global partnership. A correlating agreement was signed at the trade fair ‘electronica’ in Munich, Germany.

Arrow Electronics has been a Harting distributor in North America for 22 years.

Over that time span, Arrow has grown to be one of the largest distributors of Harting products in North America, posting record sales in 2015 and 2016.

In order to carry this momentum forward, Harting and Arrow have agreed to expand their partnership to include EMEA and APAC.

DIN-RAIL POWER SUPPLIES

NEW NEW NEW

High End Innovation 95,2% 39mm

Efficiency – A New Record Width – A New Record

24V / 10A 85-264V CP10.241 Long lifetime, high MTBF, DC-OK signal, 12V and 48V models also available

CP-Series Simply Good High Reliability, 20-40% Lower in Price 24V / 5A & 10A 100-240V & 200-240V Basic Functionality combined with High Reliability and a DC-OK signal

PIANO-Series Tel.: +65 6684 2310 contact-sg@pulspower.com

ENQUIRY NO. 1045

www.pulspower.sg

16

INDUSTRY NEWS

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Independent Research Firm Names Veritas Technologies As A Leader Among Information Archiving Cloud Providers In 2016

DHL Express Bolsters Regional Trade With S$140 million South Asia Hub

SINGAPORE Veritas Technologies has announced it has been named by Forrester Research as a ‘Leader’ in The Forrester Wave: Information Archiving Cloud Providers, Q4 2016 for its Enterprise Vault.cloud Software as a Service (SaaS) archiving solution. The 2016 Information Archiving Wave evaluated 13 vendors on a broad range of criteria including cloud architecture, scalability, security capabilities, user and group management, compliance and eDiscovery, supervision, file access, and data sovereignty support.

In the report, Veritas Enterprise Vault.cloud was recognised as a solution that provides document archiving for Micosoft Office 365 and Microsoft Exchange messages, as well as ‘documents from sources such as onpremises SharePoint sites or cloud-based Box.’ The report also notes that ‘additional modules extend the core archiving capabilities, such as the Veritas AdvisorMail product for supervision capabilities, and document review is supported via Veritas eDiscovery.’

DID YOU KNOW

According to cloud automation vendor RightScale 82 percent of enterprises have a hybrid cloud strategy, up from 74 percent in 2014.

SINGAPORE DHL Express has launched the S$140 million (US$101 million) DHL South Asia Hub, a 24-hour express hub facility located within Changi Airfreight Centre (CAC) at Singapore Changi Airport. The 23,600 sqm facility is outfitted with the industry’s first fully automated express parcel sorting and processing system in South Asia, and is set to boost its operational capacity and efficiency — offering speedier deliveries for customers.

The new facility is 33 percent larger than the previous hub. Coupled with the enhanced operational efficiency, the new hub provides DHL with additional capacity. Besides allowing it to handle the growing shipment volumes, some export shipments can now be sent directly to the hub, bypassing the service centre. This streamlines its overall operations by reducing travel and shipment handling time. With the hub located within the CAC, a 24-hour Free Trade Zone managed by Changi Airport Group (CAG), it also improves the flow of goods between aircraft and the facility and allows consignments to be shipped or transshipped within an hour.

The increased efficiency is achieved from the improved sorting speed and accuracy of the automated system, multi-dimensional tunnel scanners that accelerate barcode reading, and automated X-ray machines that scan packages up to three times faster than previous systems. In addition, the facility is partially powered by solar energy, which supplies about 20 percent of the hub’s total energy consumption. These automation systems also enhance productivity, enabling employees to focus on higher value tasks such as risk mitigation to prevent potential shipment delays, issues management, and additional security inspection.

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

INDUSTRY NEWS

17

Pepperl+Fuchs Joins Forces With Mobile Explosion Protection Pioneer ecom Instruments MANNHEIM, GERMANY Pepperl+Fuchs has announced the takeover of ecom instruments.

The company domiciled at Assamstadt/Germany achieved their position as technology leaders by developing explosion proof cell phones, 4G smartphones and tablets. With this Pepperl+Fuchs complements the portfolio and the know-how in explosion protection with mobile solutions. pancreatic, gastrointestinal, colorectal and thyroid surgery, etc.) in China, and have implemented 9,313 and 7,220 cases so far respectively, occupying 40.6 percent and 31.5 percent of the total separately.

The market for mission-critical networks in Asia is growing rapidly. This growth requires increasing infrastructure, be it in the energy sector, at railway companies or in local government.

Keymile Expands Into The Asia Pacific Region SINGAPORE / HANOVER, GERMANY Keymile has opened its Asia Pacific regional hub in Singapore as part of its commitment to its customers and partners. The goal is to look after customers and partners better from this local base.

Keymile, a provider of solutions for mission-critical networks, is expanding its activities in the Asia Pacific region (APAC) with the new branch in Singapore, led by Dieter Klein as MD for Asia. The company will focus on entering new markets and to provide support to customers as well as regional sales and service partners locally who were previously looked after from Europe. This will also make processing public and private tenders from the Asian region easier.

The market for mission-critical networks in Asia is growing rapidly.

This growth requires increasing infrastructure, be it in the energy sector, at railway companies or in local government. With its existing product portfolio — in

particular its XMC20 hybrid multiservice access and transmission platform — the company offers everything customers in the APAC region need to migrate from traditional to IP technologies. This switch also creates strong demand for solutions like secure end-toend encryption in mission critical networks, another area the company specialises in. In addition, the new SECU1 security card offers secure transmission of mission critical data in MPLS-TP environments by using quantum physics.

Keymile Asia’s first steps will be to focus on sales, marketing and supporting existing partners. In the mid- to long-term the branch will also concentrate on tapping into new markets in other Asian countries.

The expansion will allow the company to benefit from the market expertise of local representatives and therefore put it in a position to enhance its portfolio, which in turn will lead to better positioning with regard to international competitors.

Rockwell Automation Names New President For Asia Pacific Region SINGAPORE Rockwell Automation has named Joseph Sousa president of its Asia Pacific region.

Mr Sousa, who recently served as president for Latin America, will be responsible for executing the company’s growth and performance strategy, and leading the commercial and selling organisation in China, India, South Pacific, Southeast Asia, South Korea and Japan. The Asia Pacific region contributed US$834.5 million in sales in fiscal 2015.

Mr Sousa joined Rockwell Automation in 1988, serving as a district manager, sales VP and regional president. He succeeds Tom O’Reilly, who will repatriate to the US as VP, global business development at Rockwell Automation. Mr O’Reilly has over 25 years of service with the company as a global business leader.

18

INDUSTRY NEWS

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Fairhair And BMC Survey Indicates Mainframes Provide Fast, Continuous Service That Zigbee Alliances Sign Partnership Drives Digital Business Initiatives SINGAPORE BMC has announced the Executives planning to grow Agreement To Facilitate results of its 11th annual Mainframe their investment see value in the Research Report, showing that digital mainframe for its availability, Smart Buildings business has measurable effects performance, and security strengths. on the demand for the mainframe to deliver fast, continuous service.

The survey — the industry’s largest mainframe survey with more than 1,200 executives’ and technical professionals’ perspectives included — also indicated that mainframes are a critical core IT platform supporting the volume and velocity of data and transactions being created by digital business.

With nearly 60 percent of companies seeing increased data and transaction volumes, and a growing number of databases, companies continue to select the mainframe as a key platform. The mainframe is designed to be a highly secure, superior data and transaction server, particularly as digital business adds unpredictability and volatility to workloads.

Respondents surveyed fall into three groups based on their mainframe investment strategies: 58 percent of companies surveyed are in the increasing group and looking to grow their investment and use of the mainframe.

23 percent indicate they will keep a steady amount of work on the mainframe.

Only 19 percent plan to reduce the usage of the platform.

These respondents often have growing revenues and are focused on modernisation and taking advantage of technologies such as Java, advanced automation, and lower-cost specialty mainframes.

Respondents who plan to remain steady, view mainframes as a secure and highly available engine for running their businesses, but are not looking to add new workloads.

Many companies surveyed are concentrated on addressing increasing demands, including the rapidly growing speed of application requirements, and higher levels of volatility and workload unpredictability. Mainframe o r g a n i s a t i o n s m a n a ge t h e s e challenges well through various strategies and innovative technologies.

Eighty-eight percent of companies in the increasing group indicate they run Java applications on the mainframe, primarily to address new digital requirements from customers.

In the year ahead, respondents also plan to take actions that help optimise their data, systems, and costs. Cost optimisation, compliance, a p p l i c a t i o n a v a i l a b i l i t y, a n d application modernisation were indicated as top priorities, which can be associated with the impact of digital business.

NEW JERSEY AND CALIFORNIA, US The Fairhair Alliance and the ZigBee Alliance have signed a liaison agreement to collaborate on driving higher levels of product interoperability and standards unification in smart commercial buildings. The two organisations will explore opportunities to combine their technical specifications and take advantage of the ZigBee Alliance’s extensive testing, certification and branding resources and expertise to simplify the development and deployment of lighting and building automation systems based on a common, IP-based network infrastructure.

“The building automation product ecosystem has been fragmented by proprietary, standalone solutions, which the Fairhair Alliance addresses through unification around an IP infrastructure that encompasses major interoperable product ecosystems such as that created by the ZigBee Alliance,” said Klaus Waechter, Steering Group member from Siemens, with the Fairhair Alliance.

“With this agreement, we deepen our relationship with the ZigBee Alliance by aligning the two organisations’ work on a key missing piece of the interoperability puzzle: IPv6-based technologies for building automation and lighting control systems, including middleware solutions for application services such as security, discovery and network management.”

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

INDUSTRY NEWS

19

PBA Group Signs Agreement With ABB To Increase Availability Of Robotics Automation Solution In Singapore

TRUMPF And Siemens Are Driving The Industrialisation Of Additive Manufacturing GERMANY Laser system manufacturer TRUMPF and Siemens have announced a new partnership to help industrialise laser metal fusion technology and make the additive manufacturing process for metal parts an integral part of the production process. The two companies — who announced their partnership at the formnext trade fair in Frankfurt — are pooling their strengths and working together to develop a software solution for the design and preparation of 3D printed metal parts. The aim is to integrate and streamline the entire powder-bed-based Laser Metal Fusion (LMF) process for TRUMPF printing machines into Siemens NX software. The offering will address part design and engineering for additive manufacturing as well as 3D print preparation with integrated TRUMPF build processor technology.

The solution will integrate the recently announced NX software technology for additive manufacturing with the TRUMPF build processor and be sold with TRUMPF TruPrint Laser Metal Fusion printers. The software offers a standardised user interface across the end-to-end additive manufacturing process. It addresses the entire digital process chain in a single, integrated associative software environment, eliminating the need to use separate standalone applications for part design and data preparation.

This software package, TruTops Print with NX, is designed to bring all the necessary functions together into one new solution for the additive manufacturing of laser metal fusion parts with TRUMPF printing machines.

SINGAPORE PBA Group (Precision Bearings and Automation) and ABB (Asea Brown Boveri) have signed a distributorship agreement allowing the two pares to help increase the availability and accessibility of robotic automation solutions in the market through system integrators.

The collaboration will also accelerate the development of robust robotics automation solutions which are tailored to address the industry’s pernent needs.

The cooperation will build on the efforts that the government has been making to increase productivity across all sectors through its Industry Transformation program. US$850 million have been committed to both the Automation Support Package and National Robotics Program to drive the nationwide adoption of robotic automation solutions.

PBA Group, a local automaton firm, is currently playing a leading role in bringing both robotic partners as well as System Integrators (SI) together to design smart systems for Singapore SMEs. The company supplies mechanical precision, automation and moon control components and have been lending their expertise to help other local firms adopt robotics and increase their productivity.

20

INDUSTRY NEWS

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Delta-Q Technologies Acquired By ZAPI

CyberArk Adds Credential Theft Blocking To Expand Privilege Protection At The Endpoint SINGAPORE CyberArk has announced new behavioral analytics to block and contain advanced threats targeting credential theft at the endpoint. CyberArk Viewfinity, with enhanced threat protection features, is now available as CyberArk Endpoint Privilege Manager.

CyberArk also released new research from CyberArk Labs that demonstrated security weaknesses in Windows operating systems that allow attackers with local administrator rights to steal and use encrypted service credentials to achieve lateral movement and full domain compromise. This research supports a recent FBI flash alert that recommends prioritising credential protection, including implementing least privilege and restricting local accounts, to limit a threat actor’s ability to gain highly privileged account access and move throughout a network.

CyberArk Endpoint Privilege Manager protects against advanced threats that exploit privileged credentials by interlocking three core capabilities: privilege management, application control and new targeted credential theft detection and blocking to stop and contain damaging attacks at the endpoint.

According to testing done by CyberArk Labs on more than 150,000 ransomware samples, the removal of local administrator rights, combined with application control and greylisting, was 100 percent effective in preventing this ransomware from encrypting files. Despite recognition that the removal of local administrator rights on the endpoint is an established best practice, a recent survey highlighted that an alarming 62 percent of organisations have not taken steps to remove them.

BURNABY, CANADA Delta-Q Technologies (Delta-Q), a leader in battery charging solutions for electric vehicles and industrial machines, and ZAPI S.p.A. (ZAPI), an Italy-based manufacturer of electronic speed controllers, electric motors, battery chargers and associated products for electric and hybrid vehicles, have announced that ZAPI has acquired all outstanding shares of Delta-Q, including those held by investor Tandem Expansion Fund. The transaction closed on November 30th, 2016.

“The acquisition of Delta-Q is a strong strategic fit for ZAPI Group, and will provide additional solutions that the combined customer base will benefit from,” said Giannino Zanichelli, President of ZAPI Group.

Dassault Systèmes And ASE Group Announce Cooperation Agreement To Support Innovation Processes Of Large Capital Infrastructure Projects SINGAPORE Dassault Systèmes has announced the signing of a global, three-year cooperation agreement at the Third International Conference on Nuclear Knowledge Management held at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

The agreement is designed to use each company’s core capabilities to deliver greater support for customers’ innovation processes in nuclear power, as well as other segments of the energy, process and utilities industry.

ASE will leverage Dassault Systèmes’ 3DExperience platform as part of its Multi-D Solution offering for large capital facilities design, construction and operations management in nuclear power and other key industrial segments. ASE’s Multi-D Solution combines Dassault Systèmes’ applications to optimise complex business processes and carry out detailed modeling of construction and installation processes based on multiple sources’ data, with ASE’s integration and consulting services featuring best practices, methodologies and engineering know-how for managing the construction and operations of capital infrastructure facilities.

Previously, Multi-D was implemented exclusively within ASE’s own projects. With this agreement, ASE can expand the business value brought by this combined solution to capital construction, production operations and maintenance projects in Russia and abroad on a project management consultancy basis.

ENQUIRY NO. 1069

22

INDUSTRY NEWS

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

DID YOU KNOW

Security is a top concern of for the Enterprise.

Bosch Security Systems And Sony Establish Partnership For Their Video Security Business GRASBRUNN, GERMANY / TOKYO, JAPAN Bosch Security Systems and Sony Corporation signed a contract to establish a business partnership to collaborate in the development of innovative products and solutions in the field of video security applications. Effective from the beginning of 2017, the two companies aim to combine their technological expertise to set new standards in high-resolution and low light video imaging. As part of the agreed partnership, Sony`s video security customers in all markets except Japan will be served and supported by the sales and marketing organisation of Bosch Security Systems. The partnership is subject to approval by the antitrust authorities.

Within the scope of the partnership, Sony will bring its expertise in video image quality and performance, while Bosch will add a set of robust video analytics at the edge to interpret data as well as innovative technologies to achieve highly efficient bitrates and minimum storage requirements.

Connected home (Internet of Things) security device shipments are forecast to grow from 41 million units shipped in 2014 to 709 million units in 2019.

Y3 Technologies Signs MOU With Singapore Management University and Chongqing University To Boost Logistics Ecosystem In China SINGAPORE Y3 Technologies has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Chongqing University of China (CQU), China’s leading national university, and Singapore Management University (SMU), Singapore’s leading business management university to strengthen the transportation and logistics industry in Chongqing.

Under the MOU, the three entities will work together to develop a roadmap to establish a Big Data Laboratory in Chongqing dedicated to research, application development and innovation in the logistics industry, as well as craft specialised programmes to equip Chongqing University’s students with the right skill sets to align with the growing needs of the industry.

This collaboration is timely, and aligns with the two country’s Chongqing Connectivity Initiative (CCI), focused on enhancing strategic cooperation, growing academic

interactions and strengthening technology capabilities.

To nurture the talent pool in Chongqing, all three parties will contribute in the following areas: Chongqing University of China will invite Y3 Technologies’ professionals and SMU Faculty as guest professors to provide immersive industry-based research, training and mentorship to its students.

Y3 Technologies will leverage on its supply chain thought leadership to identify areas of industry research, as well as to share its industry expertise with CQU students and offer bright students the opportunity to be part of the team at Y3 Technologies.

S i n g a p o re M a n a ge m e n t U n i ve rs i t y w i l l co n d u c t exclusive knowledge sessions for CQU faculty and students while also offering internship and Masters/PhD programmes opportunity to their outstanding students.

Source for the latest high-end manufacturing products / solutions from 400 global solution providers Network with 12,500 trade professionals Keep updated with emerging technologies such as additive manufacturing (3D Printing) and robotics solutions Explore new possibilities at the Capabilities Hub, Optics & Photonics Innovation Hub and Semiconductor Innovation Centre Gain knowledge on IoT in aerospace, inventory & supply chain development in MRO and success stories from aerospace manufacturing at SG Aerospace Connect Discover more about Industry 4.0, automation & additive manufacturing at the Smart Manufacturing Asia conference

Pre-register your visit now at www.mta-asia.com Incorporating

Organised by

Worldwide Associate Tel : +65 6233 6638 Fax : +65 6233 6633 Email : mta@sesallworld.com

Endorsed Tel : +44 207 840 2134 Fax : +44 207 840 2119 Email : mta@oesallworld.com

Supported by

Held in

ENQUIRY NO. 1065

Held Alongside

INDUSTRY UPDATES

SYMPOSIUM ON THE TOPIC OF ETHERNET IN PROCESS AUTOMATION

At a joint symposium, Profibus & Profinet International (PI) and NAMUR e.V. discussed the use of Ethernet in the process industry.

The goal of the event was to evaluate, coordinate and prioritise the requirements placed on an Ethernet communication system for process automation. The results of the discussions by experienced specialists from system and device manufacturers and expert users in this field were compiled in a position paper of the NAMUR Working Group 2.6 ‘Fieldbus’ (convened by Sven Seintsch of Bilfinger), which will serve as the basis for the development of a next-generation digital communication system for use at process plants. Previous experience with existing fieldbus systems and future required features are taken into account here.

GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8101

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

MEETING USER REQUIREMENTS In every phase of a plant’s life cycle, digital bus systems meet important user requirements while significantly outmatching analogue communication in terms of quality, cost and speed. A glance at modern, large-scale process industry plants, however, shows that this is not always the case from our present point of view. The reason for this is the high degree of complexity experienced by the user. The next generation is intended to simplify the handling of digital communication at a broad range of different process automation plants (ie: facilitate ease of use), while at the same time defining the technological requirements for topics associated with Industry 4.0.

Michael Pelz (Clariant Plastics&Coatings), head of Namur Working Area 2, ‘Automation Systems for Processes and Plants,’ summarised the benefits of this activity: “Close cooperation between manufacturer

24 industrial automation asia | February / March 2015

and user organisations beginning at the early phase of a new technology unleashes great synergy potential.

This provides the best opportunity for introducing a new technology, both costeffectively in production by the supplier and efficiently at the plants of the user.”

Dr Peter Wenzel, MD of PI, sees “special challenges for digital and networked communication structures” in the specific characteristics of the process industry, such as long plant service lives and accordingly longterm use of process control and field device technology, complex devices and high requirements on security and availability. He continued: “This is why the successful introduction of an Ethernet-based communication system requires early coordination o f re q u i re m e n t s w i t h u s e rs . T h e experts at PI are happy to engage in this task and are looking forward to intensive and fruitful cooperation with NAMUR experts.”

Newsdesk

Credit: Gayane / Shutterstock.com

PROGRAM FOR ICC 2017 RELEASED

The event will take place in the historical city of Nuremberg, Germany.

CIA 402 PROFILES UPDATED CiA, the international CAN users’ and manufacturers’ group, has released a new version of the CiA 402-2 CANopen profile for drives and motion controllers. This part of the document series specifies the operation modes and the parameters in detail. The updated version 4.1 is based on the IEC 61800-7-201 standard. The improvements include some editorial improvements and mainly corrections of errors, which are unfortunately in the IEC standard. It is intended to introduce the changes into the IEC standard as early as possible.

The program of the 16th international CAN Conference (iCC) comprises 25 presentations. The two-day event will take place in Nuremberg (Germany) in March 2017 (7th and 8th). The iCC program committee has reviewed and selected the submitted abstract. The detailed program is published on the organisers website (www.can-cia. org). The topics include CAN semiconductors, time synchronisation, CAN FD, CAN system design, CANopen, security on CAN, and CAN applications.

The two keynote speeches deal with a personal CiA review and an outlook as well as the role of CAN in the age of (Industrial) Ethernet and (Industrial) IoT. The conference is also the 25th anniversary event of the CAN in Automation (CiA) users’ and manufacturers’ group. It takes place in the historical Town Hall of Nuremberg. Due to limited space the organiser recommends to register as early as possible. A tabletop exhibition accompanies the conference sponsored by ESD. Since 1994, the iCC is the occasion for meeting and networking with CANpeople, for discussing future developments and showing the latest products.

In addition, the nonprofit association has released CiA 402-6.

This part describes the PDO mapping for CANopen FD. It comprises several sets of predefined PDOs. One is for single servo drives and stepper motors, another for single-axis frequency inverters, and a third one for multi-axes devices. In particular, PDO set for multiple-axes allows controlling simultaneously up to motors with one message. The specification also introduces the Valid PDO Mapping Entries parameters for TPDOs and RPDOs. “The CiA 402 series is the most implemented drive profile,” explained Holger Zelwanger, MD, CiA. “The Part 6 is the first CANopen profile making use of the longer payload in CAN FD messages.

This improves the system design and allows to use CAN also in challenging motion control applications.”

GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8102

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

KROHNE ANNOUNCES VARIABLE AREA FLOWMETERS EQUIPPED WITH FOUNDATION FIELDBUS Krohne has announced the H250 Variable Area Flowmeter with M40 Indicator, which combines proven flow measurement with the latest communication capabilities like Foundation Fieldbus. The H250/ M40 is ideal for flow measurement applications in the oil and gas industries when costs and reliability are a factor.

With a flanged size range from 1⁄2 in. to 6 in., the flowmeters can handle all of the unique specification requirements and documentation of the oil and gas industry. The H250 combined with the M40 Indicator is ideal for measuring corrosion, scale, or hydrate-inhibitors, demulsifiers, methanol, MEG, fuel gas, and nitrogen.

The flowmeter’s sturdy all-metal design ensures high resistance to pressure, temperature, and media, and stands up to the extreme application and environmental conditions found in the oil and gas industry. The product’s construction allows end users a free choice of intrinsically safe or flameproof design. The M40 Indicator allows for simple, low-cost installation, and is capable of measuring and displaying without an auxiliary power supply.

The H250/M40 gives end users the broadest choice of outputs and display options of any competing product, and is available with an optional protective coating of the measuring tube and/or housing for offshore applications.

GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8103

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

LARGEST MARKET SHARE FOR FIELDBUS COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL — GLOBAL FORECAST TO 2022 According to the new market research report on industrial communication, this market is expected to be worth US$130.33 billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 12.36 percent between 2016 and 2022. The growth of the industrial communication market can be attributed to the increasing demand for industrial communication in electronics and automotive manufacturing applications. The market for industrial communication technology is expected to grow because of the increased requirements for sharing information database, enhancing energy efficiency, increasing safety, and reducing downtime.

The growing adoption of IIoT plays a significant role in the growth of the industrial communication market. The growing machine-to-machine communication is also driving the growth of the industrial communication market. However, the adoption of different standards by different equipment manufacturers hinders the data collection and information generating process for the industrial communication market.

FIELDBUS COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL HOLDS THE LARGEST SHARE This report covers Fieldbus, industrial Ethernet, and wireless communication protocol used in industrial communication. Fieldbus still holds the largest share of the industrial communication market in major process industries, and has a strong base in developing regions such as India and China with its ability to integrate with wireless devices across multiple networks and significantly help in improving the overall plant performance, environmental safety, and efficiency.

INDUSTRIAL COMMUNICATION MARKET IN APAC EXPECTED TO GROW AT THE HIGHEST RATE This report covers regions including North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World (RoW). The market in APAC is expected to grow at a high CAGR between 2016 and 2022. The major reason for the growth of the industrial communication market in APAC is that it is one of the largest producers of consumer electronics in the world, which is boosting the use of advanced automation in these industries which, in turn, uses industrial communication systems. APAC is also the major automotive production hub in the world, which boosts the market for industrial communication in automotive manufacturing applications.

Asia ETHERCAT MEASUREMENT TECHNOLOGY MODULES the full utilisation of EtherCAT features, among other reasons: • Fast Sampling rates of up to 50,000 samples per second, depending on the interface • Precision timing Precise synchronisation < 1 μs • Precision values Measurement accuracy of better than 100 ppm at 23°C • Proactive Integrated connection and functional diagnostics in individual modules

Beckhoff presented its new device series for high-end measurement technology at SPS IPC Drives 2016. Ultraprecise, fast and robust measurement technology modules will become an even more integrated part of PC-based control solutions. The new EtherCAT measurement technology modules can be directly integrated into the modular EtherCAT communication system and combined with the portfolio of more than 500 other EtherCAT Terminals. New metal housings optimise shielding and cooling in measurement technology applications.

At the same time, the durable housings provide enhanced flexibility at the interface level, such as for LEMO or BNC plug connectors or for the established cage clamps as a quickly c u s to m i s a b le s t a n d a rd s o l u t i o n .

Measurement accuracy of 100 ppm at 23 deg C, precise synchronisation of < 1 μs, and the high sampling rate of up to 50,000 samples per second guarantee

high-quality data acquisition.

High-precision measurement technology reduces the use of raw materials and energy in machines and plants while forming the basis for condition monitoring and predictive maintenance. With the new EtherCAT measurement technology modules, high-end measuring devices and traditional automation technology can be combined into one universal system. For this purpose, Beckhoff offers a comprehensive I/O system that supports all common sensor types, and TwinCAT as a central software platform for engineering and control.

The metal enclosures of the new measurement modules feature a flexible connector front-end for all standard measurement technology interfaces, and permit straight-forward integration into all typical measurement technology environments. The new generation of measurement technology hardware ensures high-quality measurement data, owing to

The measurement technology series complements the existing range of measurement terminals. At product launch, the offering includes 11 modules with different interfaces and input circuitry. These can cover, for example, voltage measurement of 20 mV…30 V, current measurement of ±20 mA, IEPE, thermocouples, RTD (PT100/1000), or strain gauge/load cells with full, half or quarter bridge with internal extension or potentiometer.

The measuring ranges of the input channels can be flexibly parameterised, both electrically and on the software side. Additional properties include integrated distributed clocks as well as the ‘ExtendedRange’ feature, which provides users with the full technical measuring range, that is, up to 107 percent of the specified nominal measuring range can be achieved, depending on the measuring range in question.

The EtherCAT measurement technology modules are optionally available with a factory calibration certificate.

GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8104

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

28 ISSUES & INSIGHTS ARTICLE TAG

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Market Outlook, Trends, Economy

MARKET OUTLOOK 2017 The economic climate is uncertain but there are a varied array of opportunities ahead for businesses in the industrial automation space to leverage and take advantage of. Six companies give their few on their 2016 performance and where they see the opportunities going into 2017.

IGUS

STEPHEN MORENO SIMPSON, MD (ASEAN)

BINDER CONNECTOR ACHIM KLETT, CEO (SEA)

After a remarkable growth in 2016 which exceeded our expectations we are expecting a lower growth for 2017 which nevertheless will be result in reasonable sales volume. The main contributors to that development came from India and Japan. India came up with the proportionally biggest growth. On the other hand we expected more sales orders from South Korea and Taiwan. These markets still bear larger opportunities and we are looking forward to a more intense market penetration.

For 2017 we are looking forward to generating growth in markets like the Middle East, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. There we are looking forward to a much stronger presence than before.

As the market responsibilities of Binder Connector South East Asia comprise India, Middles East South East Asia as well as the APAC region, the year 2017 will be a year full of challenges and lots of opportunities to take care of.

GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8201

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

The Year 2016 has brought various challenges to the region. Uncertainties in some energetic markets, slower growth in China, scandals surrounding Malaysia and South Korea and limited investment in some of our key industries, eg: Offshore and shipbuilding, just to name a few.

For igus in Asia, our availability from local stock, flexibility to customise parts in small lot sizes coupled with a highly motivated and engaging cross functional team has been the key to managing growth. That no company will survive with only a few customers we learned a long time ago. Thus selling with no minimum order quantities, for the complete range of motion plastics products to all industries has allowed us to increase our customer base beyond 200,000 worldwide.

As indicated before, the local availability of our products across Asia was crucial for our revenue growth. Speed, online configuration and live time improvements played an important part to accelerate our targets. Today, many of our customers come to us for our technical advice and hand carry the parts from our attached warehouse directly to their production line. They cannot even wait for our usual next day delivery anymore.

As a technology partner, we see that our customers show more interest than in the past for innovative solutions that allow them to increase the value of their fabrications or activities.

Pricing will not be the decisive factor anymore as it was in the past. The primary concern will be quality, availability and reliability of a product and the value that their final products could create along the value chain.

Delivering our smart plastics products with predictable lifetime and better performance than older technologies which are currently used in some industries is our main target and growth driver moving forward.

Smart automation & productivity increase will be our main opportunities for 2017 and the coming years, as any technological company success will be linked to how they adapt & what they offer to Industry 4.0.

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

ISSUES & INSIGHTS 29

NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS ERIC STARKLOFF, EXECUTIVE VP, NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS

We have reported earnings through Q3 so far this year. We have one more quarter left in 2016. Our business through the first three quarters globally was up slightly up. It was a year were the overall industrial economy globally was not that strong. Some of the sectors that we serve were relatively weak compared to other years. However, if you compare us to our pears, most of those companies were down in 2016. I feel we did well despite the challenges.

The APAC region continues to do well.

It is a growing region. APAC grew 23 percent in Q3, so it is a growing area for us. Most of the weakness has primarily been in the America’s and to a lesser extent Europe.

We feel the industrial economy is starting to pick up with a stronger tailwind heading into 2017.

In regards to trends we see it coming from a couple of different areas, namely wireless and industrial IoT. In regards to wireless we see a lot of continued business opportunity and growth. There is a lot of development around 5G standards, for example, which helps to drive our business. The broad category of industrial IoT has also been a growth area, which includes smart factories, more sensing, and more condition monitoring.

2017 will be a year were the industrial IoT will start to become much more real and 5G will go to trials. These two technologies will start to become real in 2017 in regards to deployment and impact.

PANDUIT

EUGENE YEO, DIRECTOR (ASIA PACIFIC) We are seeing an increase in enquiries and interest in IoT. Many customers and partners wants to know what IoT means to them. This has also resulted in Panduit’s business growing in 2016. An area of our business that is showing potential is our business relating to industrial automation and industrial networks. They have seen significant growth year-on-year (yoy) since the formation of the team in 2015.

To reap the full benefits of IoT and Industry 4.0, manufacturers and industrial producers need to realise that this will be a journey they have to start now, to gain the benefits progressively over time as IoT and other enabling technologies comes on stream and become accessible. Like with past industrialisation efforts which we have experienced years ago, we have to start charting out this new journey to build and upgrade operational infrastructure that will be ready to take advantage of what IoT or industry 4.0 will bring now and in the future. Not only for improved productivity, operational and workforce optimisation/efficiency but perhaps even more important is the company’s ability to compete in responding to market and consumer changes.

The ones that can use this technology to capitalise and anticipate quickly to consumer behaviour and trends will certainly be ahead.

At Panduit, we are a manufacturer ourselves and our operational team are already embarking on this journey. We are seeing more and more of our customers moving in the same direction and many enquiries asking for our solution that can help them with IoT. Panduit and our partners are advising customers to take necessary care to assess their operational environment and do not take unnecessary risk due to a lack of industrial and ruggedise networking products. We hope over time more and more companies will be aware of the issue to ensure reliable IoT implementations. We encourage customers to put in place adequate assessment methodologies and documented specifications for their new and improvement investments.

This is also enabling the growth of cloud based solutions leading to DC growth. Cyber security and network security will need to be addressed as well.

Many governments and countries are following the lead and leveraging from IoT and industry 4.0 to come up with their own initiatives. This is one effort, and an important one to reinvigorate their economy and to put their industries ahead of others.

In 2017, Panduit wishes to partner our customers in this journey and help offer and unlock the IoT potential to reap sustainable value and development.

30

ISSUES & INSIGHTS

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

ROCKWELL AUTOMATION

TANG POI TOONG, MARKETING DIRECTOR (SEA) 2016 has been a mixed year for Rockwell Automation due to uncertainties in various vertical markets, especially natural resources. The oil and gas segment, particularly the upstream component, is experiencing volatility, where prices have tumbled and remain unstable. Hence, we diversified and are investing more resources in midstream and downstream.

In contrast, the consumer sector performed better than we had anticipated — thanks to the expanding middle class and its positive, long-term economic indicators that are fuelling consumer spending. Likewise, infrastructure projects, spurred by government investments, also helped boost industries including metals, cement, water and wastewater, as well as transportation.

Overall, we are confident that Southeast Asia will experience growth in the longer term and Rockwell Automation is committed to this region. We have a new president of Asia Pacific, Joe Sousa, and a new regional director of Southeast Asia, Pierre Teszner, who are making sure we invest in the right facilities and human resources to meet regional demand.

Rockwell Automation views three global challenges that will drive the competitive industrial environment in 2017. First, the rise of the middle class in emerging economies means producers must compete by building first-rate consumer manufacturing plants that outperform both local and global manufacturers. Second, there is tremendous pressure to fill the skills gap with technology-savvy workers to replace retiring employees. Finally, globalisation forces us and our customers to constantly contend with the world’s bestin-class companies that have footprints in many markets.

From the smart manufacturing standpoint, the declining cost of connectivity between the plant floor, field devices and the enterprise is driving unprecedented productivity across multiple networks converged over Ethernet. To support our customers in their journey towards becoming Connected Enterprises, Rockwell Automation utilises a three-pronged approach: understanding customers’ requirements to maximise competitive advantage; combining technology innovation and expertise to minimise risks; and simplifying customers’ business experiences to improve industrial productivity.

Rockwell Automation will continue to bring The Connected Enterprise to life for our customers — by facilitating the convergence of plant-floor Operations Technology (OT) and business-level IT — so they can enjoy improved time to market, lowered total cost of ownership, enhanced asset utilisation, minimised enterprise risk, and advanced workforce efficiency.

UNIVERSAL ROBOTS SHERMINE GOTFREDSEN, GM, UNIVERSAL ROBOTS, APAC (EXCL. CHINA & INDIA)

On the global level Universal Robots (UR) continues to experience high growth, particularly in the APAC region. We have exceeded what we set out to achieve in 2016. It has been a very good year for us in APAC. We have expanded our footprint into Vietnam and the Philippines and we are seeing strong growth in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. In Singapore, the government is pushing for more productivity and automation, which benefits us. We are working with some government agencies to help raise awareness and educate the market more on automation and collaborative robots (cobots).

In 2017 the APAC region will be split into two regions, namely, Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia. Northeast Asia will cover Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The management team will sit in the Japan office. In Singapore, we will continue to grow the market in Southeast Asia, now consisting of six countries, as well as Oceania.

2017 is going to be an exciting year. We will need to work very hard, particularly when we only have Southeast Asia and Oceania to cover. We cover a lot of underdeveloped markets in this region, in regards to automation and robotics. In that sense it is going to be challenging to raise awareness and to encourage adoption at the same level we have been growing to date. Having said that we believe that some of the new initiatives and activities that we are pushing out for next year will have a great impact on adoption.

On the flipside of doing business in underdeveloped markets there is are a lot of opportunities for growth and to develop the market. It is going to be a very exciting year that will require a lot of hard work to realise the region’s full potential.

YOUR ONE-STOP PORTAL TO THE VOICES OF THE INDUSTRY AS WE SHARE

THE LATEST NEWS AND UPDATES AVAILABLE!

EBOOK

Take IAAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exclusive content on-the-go.

Convenience at your fingertips.

SOFTWARE AND NETWORKS

Covers topics such as IoT, Smart Manufacturing, and Industrial Cabling.

CONNECTING THE WORLD WITH

IAASIAONLINE.COM

ENERGY

Focused on the production and distribution of energy from traditional and non-traditional sources.

INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT With an exponential increase in data, new measurement techniques and methods need to be developed.

PROCESS CONTROL

New methods of production and control will put the process control sector in the spotlight for innovation.

READ THE LATEST ISSUE OF INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION ASIA AT

IAASIAONLINE.COM

32 PROCESS CONTROL ARTICLE TAG

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Optimisation, Motion Control, Sustainability

Substantial Potential For

OPTIMISING AZIMUTH CONTROL Yaw systems that allow wind turbines to track wind direction subject them to unnecessary mechanical stress and accelerated wear. B&R’s Peter Kronberger and Alois Holzleitner are convinced that a more sustainable approach is possible.

BY ALEXANDRA FABITSCH, B&R AUTOMATION

Q: YAW SYSTEMS ROTATE TURBINES INTO THE WIND IN ORDER TO MAXIMISE ENERGY YIELD. PETER, YOU HAVE CALLED CONVENTIONAL APPROACHES OUTDATED. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT? PETER KRONBERGER (PK): The head,

GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8301

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

or nacelle, of a wind turbine is typically rotated by four to eight motors. This is known as a yaw system, and the process is called azimuth control. The motors are typically controlled by a soft starter or a frequency inverter.

With the head of an offshore wind t u r b i n e o f te n we i g h i n g ove r 5 0 0 tonnes, the yaw system is subjected to substantial mechanical wear, which inevitably leads to downtime and costly service.

Additional mechanical stress comes from the hydraulic brake that holds the nacelle. This brake is only partially disengaged during yaw adjustment to prevent uncontrolled movements in crosswinds.

Q: WHAT ALTERNATIVES WOULD YOU SUGGEST? PK: Intelligent servo drives offer substantial potential for optimising azimuth control. Advanced torque control, for instance, can reduce the levels of torque experienced by mechanical components. Then you

Peter Kronberger, Global Technology Manager – Energy, B&R

PROCESS CONTROL

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

Q: ARE THERE SERVO DRIVES THAT CAN HANDLE THE HARSH OFFSHORE CONDITIONS? ALOIS HOLZLEITNER (AH): Absolutely.

Alois Holzleitner, Technical Manager – Motion, B&R

have backlash compensation, which prevents the impacts that otherwise occur between gear teeth when the turbine changes direction. When you have the problem of wear under control, you are able to re-adjust the nacelle more often. That means a boost in both availability and yield.

Our new ACOPOS P3 servo drive is exceptionally rugged. Variants are available to control from one to three axes, and they are all designed to handle the environmental conditions found in a wind turbine. They have been tested for continuous vibrations up to 1 g, and the circuit boards are fully coated to ensure flawless operation even in humid, salty air. Servo drives have some other very important advantages, though.

Q: WHAT ARE THESE ADVANTAGES? AH: Servo drives can provide very helpful feedback about the system, which can be used not only for azimuth control, but also for remote diagnostics. Temperature and current values as well as error logs are stored automatically and can be read remotely. Among other benefits, this allows for optimised maintenance. And let us not

33

forget the aspect of safety. The P3 variant featuring the company’s safety technology provides safe torque and position values up to PL e. If you utilise this information, you no longer need the cable twist sensor that is used in a conventional system.

Q: HOW COMPLICATED IS THE PROCESS OF CONVERTING TO A SERVO SOLUTION? PK: It is much easier than you might expect. All the components are offthe-shelf products. Essentially, all you need to do is replace the soft starter or frequency inverter with a servo drive for the required number of axes. With relatively little effort, you get a big payoff in terms of yield and availability.

LEFT PAGE, TOP YAW SYSTEMS ROTATE TURBINES INTO THE WIND IN ORDER TO MAXIMISE ENERGY YIELD. THIS GENERALLY RESULTS IN INCREASED MECHANICAL WEAR, BUT AN INTELLIGENT SERVO DRIVE CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE.

CS 50

THE WORLD‘S SMALLEST VISION SENSOR AS EASY TO USE AS A SENSOR. Perfectly designed for working distances of up to 1 meter, the CS 50 offers the very best performance for completeness checks, rotation verifications, presence checks and much more. ¡ Up to 300% faster Performance compared to the existing vision sensors. A process speed with up to 2,500 component inspections per minute is possible. ¡ Click-Zoom & Liquid Lens Autofocus ¡ 1.4 GB of free memory for practically an unlimited amount of jobs ¡ Standard interfaces on board ¡ di-soric LINK for PLC-compliant communication

Contact us . Phone: +65 / 66 34 38 43 . info.sg@di-soric.com

www.di-soric.com

ENQUIRY NO. 1067

¡ 5 mighty tools carry out various tasks

34 PROCESS CONTROL ARTICLE TAG

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Motion Control, Sensing, Prosthesis

Innovation Goes

HAND IN HAND

The British company Steeper has developed the bebionic myoelectric hand prosthesis, controlled by myoelectric signals generated from muscle contractions in the arm with the help of Faulhaber.

BY ZSOLT PEKKER

T

IE SHOELACES, FOLD BED LINEN, tear open a bag of crisps - the list of things that are difficult to do with one hand goes on and on. People with a Congenital amputation or who have lost a hand through an accident or illness are confronted with such obstacles every day. To make daily life easier, the British company Steeper developed the bebionic myoelectric hand prosthesis.

It is controlled by myoelectric signals generated from muscle contractions in the arm and can perform multiple different grip patterns selected by the user.

GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8302

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

The most recent innovation brings to the market the small bebionic hand suitable for women, men of a smaller stature or teenagers. Faulhaber’s high power density motors ensure that the prosthesis can grip smoothly, quickly and firmly and retain the grip force without relaxing.

Functional prostheses are known to most of us only in science fiction films which give the artificial extremities superhuman strength. By contrast, bionic hand prostheses do not make the wearer a superhero in real life. But they can make many things possible for them which are normal for most people.

Nicky Ashwell, the first user of the small bebionic hand is delighted to finally be able to ride a bike: “I never tried it before because I was afraid of falling off the bike on uneven surfaces or putting my back under the wrong kind of strain.”

INTUITIVE MOVEMENT The bebionic myoelectric prosthesis weighs between 400 and 600 grams and is about as heavy as a natural hand. It is controlled using the tiny electric signals in the body. These are generated when a muscle contracts and can be detected with electrodes on the skin - the same way as an ECG in heart diagnostics.

Two electrodes are integrated into the prosthesis socket, which detect the myo electric signal and are forward them to the control electronics. These signals are amplified and used to activate the five small electric motors (one for each digit), which move the fingers and thumb causing the hand to open and close .

As a result, the strength of the muscle contraction controls the speed and the gripping force: a weak signal generates a

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

slow movement, a strong signal generates a quick movement.

The muscles which are used to open and close the hand prosthesis are actually responsible for the movement of the wrist in a natural hand. Its wearer must learn that it now has a different function. “The human brain is unbelievably adaptable.

After a short amount of time, people perform the movement intuitively like how car drivers step on the brake when they want to stop,” said Ted Varley, technical director at Steeper.

ADDITIONAL MOTORS FOR MORE CONTROL The first myoelectric hand came onto the market at the start of the 1980s.

They were driven by a single motor and only had a simple gripping mechanism: thumb, index and middle fingers could be closed for a pincer grip. Ring and small fingers were only available for cosmetic reasons and had no gripping force. This concept was fundamentally changed for the bebionic around 10 years ago. “We determined that people accept lower gripping force per finger if they get more flexibility,” explained Ted Varley. To control the individual fingers, each finger on the bebionic hand is equipped with its own electric motor. The four motors for the fingers

are located in the palm of the hand, the fifth located in the thumb itself.

Encoders are integrated into the motors which precisely detect the position of the finger at any time.

Thanks to individual control, the fingers can be arranged into a total of 14 different grip patterns. The key grip, which moves the thumb up and down with the fingers flexed enables you to hold flat items such as plates, keys or bank cards. The hook grip enables heavy loads of up to 25 kilograms to be carried, and in the case of the outstretched index finger the use of keyboards and remote controls is permitted. With the power grip, the thumb is in the opposite position and all fingers close until they encounter resistance. This is used to clasp irregularly shaped objects such as wine glasses. “This position looks much more natural than a pincer grip and provides a much more stable grip when all fingers are used,” stressed Mr Varley.

To change between the individual grip patterns, the bebionic wearer also uses the arm muscles. If another ‘open’ signal is given when the hand is already open, the prosthesis changes into the next mode.

An additional signal is provided by the thumb which is either moved to the side of the fingers or can be moved into the opposite position. Different grip patterns

PROCESS CONTROL 35

THE HUMAN BRAIN IS UNBELIEVABLY ADAPTABLE. AFTER A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME, PEOPLE PERFORM THE MOVEMENT INTUITIVELY LIKE HOW CAR DRIVERS STEP ON THE BRAKE WHEN THEY WANT TO STOP,” SAID TED VARLEY, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR AT STEEPER.

are available depending on which thumb position is chosen. Thereby, the hand owner can decide for themselves which of the 14 possible grip types they want to use and in which order they are requested and using software they can program the prosthesis individually.

INCREASED SELF-ESTEEM The bionic hand makes many everyday activities easier. “Actually, it is often the small things which become easier with the prosthesis. To sum up, it leads to a clearly improved quality of life,” explained Ted Varley. Furthermore, the artificial hand also has a big psychological effect: “Many users report that their feeling of self-esteem is increased with the use of a bebionic hand with the high-tech prosthesis attracting interest and fascination.”

In this context, the attractive design of the prosthesis also plays an important role with the use of aluminium and stainless steel resulting in an appealing design. Furthermore, the exterior design has also been adapted as closely as possible to the natural appearance.

36

PROCESS CONTROL

“Our approach was rather unusual in prosthetics with the development of the third generation of bebionic: We first developed the housing and then searched for solutions such as how the individual components could be integrated,” emphasised Mr Varley.

“Five years ago, this would not have been possible for the small hand - the technology was not advanced enough.”

Also, the DC-micromotors of series 1024 SR that were predestined for this application were still in the development phase when Steeper turned to Faulhaber with this project in 2013.

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

The project teams on both sides then expedited the development of the motor series and hand prosthesis at the same time. Regular meetings of the Steeper and Faulhaber development teams took place in the UK and Switzerland together with and facilitated by Electro Mechanical Systems (EMS), the exclusive distribution partner of Faulhaber in Great Britain. This intensive cooperation resulted in a motor with an exceptional power-volume ratio for the fingers and a bespoke actuator for the thumb bringing this extensive development cooperation to a successful conclusion.

NEEDED PERFORMANCE The new DC-micromotor of series 1024 SR is genuinely best in class and the most powerful for its size in the market. With a diameter of 10 mm and a length of 24 mm, it delivers a stall torque rating of 4.6 mNm. Furthermore, it offers high torque across the entire speed range resulting from the flat speed/torque curve. The strong performance, among others, is made possible by the development of a new coil design which contains 60 percent more copper than its predecessor and has been combined with a powerful rare-earth magnet. In order to make the movement as

DC-Micromotor 1024 SR series Ø 10 mm, length 24 mm Output torque 1.3 mNm

PROCESS CONTROL 37

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

A New Roof That Does The Business The technicians at revotec energy GmbH from Leonberg installed 576 individual modules onto the Faulhaber GmbH roof on a surface of 928 square meters. That is about the size of three and a half tennis courts. The modules are elevated on the flat roof at an incline of 10 degrees and thereby cannot be seen from below. One half of the modules is aligned to the east (92 degrees) the other half to the west (272 degrees). Unlike before, east-west alignment is preferred to south-facing alignment, because experience has shown that the yield is better with this arrangement.

Since the flat roof of one of the buildings at Faulhaber was due for renovation, it seemed logical to find a forward-looking solution which also included climate protection. Over 88,300 kilograms of CO2 emissions can be cut every year with the new photovoltaic system. Furthermore, the system’s interface modules are designed in such a way that a possible extension onto the adjacent roof can be connected up. A monitor in the company’s reception area informs employees and guests about the system’s current performance data and the amount of electricity that has been fed in since commissioning.

ENQUIRY NO. 1064

quiet as possible, the artificial hand uses planetary gearheads based on series 10/1 in customised versions which do not contain any plastic.

“A significant challenge was the development of the linear drive system which had to be integrated into the thumb”, said Tiziano Bordonzotti, sales manager at Faulhaber Minimotor. Thanks to high-precision 4 points contact bearing from Faulhaber subsidiary, Micro Precision Systems (MPS), specialists in very high precision bearings and micro systems, it was possible to make the drive system significantly shorter compared to the competition. The unique characteristics of the 4 point contact bearing mean that even with a smaller dimension than alternative bearing systems it still withstands the required high axial load in this application. The complete thumb actuator remains within a total length of less than 49mm and can withstand an axial force of up to 300 N. Mr Varley is excited by the result of the collaboration: “The small bebionic hand is the most lifelike myoelectric hand prosthesis on the market and it would not have been possible to realise this project without the close cooperation of the project team of Faulhaber.”

38 SOFTWARE & NETWORKS ARTICLE TAG

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

IoT, PLM, Industry 4.0

PLM’s Evolving Role In

THE INTERNET OF THINGS PLM’s traditional services are undergoing an evolution as manufacturers move into Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things.

BY JONATHAN CHOU

GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8401

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

I

NITIALLY INTRODUCED in the aerospace and automotive sectors connecting CAD with engineering and manufacturing requirements in order to speed up product development cycles as well as managing quality and cost, PLM is now a ‘strategic business approach to solving the problem of managing the complete set of product definition information,’ as defined by CIMdata.

The market for PLM across various industrial sectors has thus seen growth, and global demand is predicted to grow from US$40.26 billion in 2014 to US$75.87 billion in 2022, with a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.1 percent, according to according to Transparency Market Research.

The largest end-users of PLM were in aerospace and defense in 2015, accounting approximately for 23 percent of the total market share.

Geographically, the Middle East and Africa region is the fastest growing segment, with a CAGR of 14.7 percent.

North America remains the largest and most mature region, accounting for a third of market share.

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

PLM COMING INTO PLAY Increased product complexity and the globalisation of the world’s economy forces manufacturers to design, build and maintain their products anywhere, all the while remaining competitively priced.

‘Products’ in question can vary from large, complex aircraft to seemingly innocuous objects such as toys. Different industrial sectors have used PLM to effect; long-lived assets such as telecommunications or civil engineering projects like bridges all require information management across the product lifecycle.

While information management is a huge aspect of PLM, the system is more than just managing CAD and productrelated data. Research firm Tech-Clarity states that it is a “software-enabled strategy to improve processes to conceptualise, design, develop, and manage products — to drive higher levels of product profitability.”

FOR THE BOTTOM LINE When executed correctly, product lifecycle management has seen benefits like reduced time-to-market, reduced prototyping costs, reduced waste, and savings through the integration of engineering workflows.

Due to the growing need for safety features in automobiles, the automotive sector is experiencing continued growth in demand for PLM solutions in the market at a CAGR of nine percent, according to Technavio.

Analysts also estimated the Asia Pacific region to exhibit the highest market growth rate from 2016 to 2019. While

accounting for only 24 percent of the market, rapid growth of the automotive industry in China is a critical factor in APAC’s rapid expansion rate.

PLM solution providers are also branching out into process manufacturing.

For instance, the pharmaceutical industry is under constant pressure to hasten drug design, shorten time-to-market, and lower operational costs, all while complying with stringent government regulations.

German engineering group Siemens, having identified the process industry as a potential growth opportunity, recently assigned a profit margin of eight to 12 percent into its process Industries and drives division, indicating the market’s strong potential for growth.

The company also recently acquired Mentor Graphics for around US$4.5 billion, and the German engineering company expects the Ontario-based industrial software developer to contribute significantly to the PLM software business of the Siemens Digital Factory division.

TAKING IT TO THE CLOUD When production is managed globally, workflow processes becomes much more complex due to operational challenges from working across different time

SOFTWARE & NETWORKS 39

zones, cultures, systems, processes and organisations.

The solution to the problems of reach and accessibility for participants in global product development networks a n d s u p p l y c h a i n s l i e s i n c lo u d computing. Additionally, cloud-based solutions also support integration of analytics solutions, and generally have lower investment commitments.

The need for cloud-based PLM services that interconnect across countries has been projected to develop at a much faster pace of 17.7 percent CAGR for 2015-2022 compared to their traditional counterparts, according to Transparency Market Research.

ENABLING INDUSTRY 4.0 AND IOT The advent of Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT) will also give rise to new ways in which PLM services evolve. A whitepaper published by NTT Data on the vision of PLM in the age of Industry 4.0 and IoT speculates four major upcoming industry trends: • The development of smart products • The planning of smart factories • The integration and digital networking of processes • The designing of new business models, in particular new service offers

40

SOFTWARE & NETWORKS

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

THE DYNAMIC, 3D DIGITAL TWIN OF SINGAPORE WILL NOT ONLY TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE PHYSICAL ASPECT OF THINGS, BUT ALSO ITS BIOLOGICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL ASPECTS. NTT Data further posits that in an Industry 4.0 scenario, the aim is to have “an end-to-end digital chain from product development, production planning, production and logistics, right through to the service”.

According to Prof Dr-Ing Martin Enger from the University of Kaiserslautern, engineering processes for IoT and IoS are based on collaboration, integration and interdisciplinary developments.

The integration of component models poses various challenges, however.

When systems, production, logistics and service need to be integrated in addition to product models, a lack of standards and universal cross-company semantics becomes apparent.

As such, standards for universal semantics and improved tool support are an imperative need for the Industry 4.0 platform.

The international association ProSTEP iViP headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany, is working on the development of open, vendor-neutral PLM standards such as STEP, ensuring the interoperability and quality of software solutions for the product creation process.

Dr-Ing Enger also identified certain new IT technologies that would be used in the future:

• In-Memory-Databases and Grid Computing • Cloud Computing • Big Data • Repository-Supported Customising • New Methods of Interaction and Presentation (Usability) So the question remains: How can PLM enable manufacturers to embrace Industry 4.0 and IoT?

DIGITAL MODELS With the abovementioned technologies in mind, industry experts have found it possible to enable simulations of entire business models, total costs, or even cities.

Preparations for the ‘digital twin’ are already well underway. Dassault Systèmes has invested over US$1.5 billion over the past three years, acquiring companies such as Accelrys, CST, RTT and Archividéo.

The French PLM and CAD company’s acquisitions highlights its approach to the digital twin. Modelling, simulation, visualisation, data management, supply chain management and process integration are all needed across the company’s targeted market that spans 12 different industries, from aerospace to mining to human sciences to urban planning.

The company is also in the midst of a pioneer project to develop Virtual Singapore, which is part of a five-year US$51 million research and development programme that sees the National Research Foundation (Singapore), the Singapore Land Authority and Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore as joint partners.

Users will be able to create visual m o de l s a n d re a l istic l a r ge - sc a le simulations of the city-state. The project is slated to be complete by 2017.

PRODUCTS GET SMART Through IoT, products are interconnected with each other and the Internet, combining technological advances in IT (processor performance, big data and cloud computing) with trends from the information society (power of the individual, knowledge-driven society, being ‘always-on’).

For manufacturers, this means that mechatronic systems need to be developed in order to convert conventional products into ‘smart’ ones.

While systems engineering provides methods for developing and safeguarding for these kinds of systems, manufacturers also need to invest in the cloud for the networking of smart products,

SOFTWARE & NETWORKS 41

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

particularly in the secure link-up and development of special cloud services for expanded product functions.

The role of PLM in developing ‘smart’ products will entail the initial management of the product data and controls processes, such as requirements management, change management and approval.

However, an integrated system still needs to be developed for apps and user interfaces for smart products, cloud services, business models with a focus on services, and big data solutions for analysing data findings.

predictive analytics.

The partnership will see Nutonian use its predictive analytics functionality to analyse historic data sets within Fusion Connect, and automatically create equations that describe the past, and thereby hopefully predict the future.

The feature can be automated so that, for example, if the operating conditions change within a piece of equipment running on a factory floor, it will update the predictive algorithm.

Projekt1 27.04.16 08:47 Seite 1

THE ONLY CONSTANT While the core of PLM lies in the creation and central management of all product data and the technology used to access this information and knowledge, the means of use are constantly evolving.

With increasing pressure to lower costs, improving quality and shortening timeto-market, PLM’s constantly expanding services could prove to be a robust tool for global manufacturers to reap the full benefits of the Industry 4.0 and the IoT.

SMART FACTORIES A distinct feature of smart factories in the Industry 4.0 scenario would be autonomous, networked systems that can directly influence their environment with sensors and actuators. These CyberPhysical Systems (CPS) can offer high flexibility and small batch sizes for customer products.

According to Marketsandmarkets, the smart factory market size will be projected to reach US$74.8 billion by 2020, with a CAGR of 10.4 percent between 2016 and 2020. This is driven by factors such as the increasingly wider adoption of IOT and technological advancements in M2M communication in the industrial sector, along with the focus on saving energy & improving process efficiency.

PLM will play a role in the smart factory by offering traditional methods and tools for digital manufacturing, from factory planning to robot control. New systems will be required for the development and safeguarding of CPS, however.

With huge volumes of data, collecting data is not a problem. Gleaning insights from the large swathes of data and coming up with real-time productive decisions is the next challenge. Such an outcome could potentially save manufacturers time and money in recalls, repairs and lost business.

Autodesk recently announced a partnership between their Fusion Connect IoT product and Nutonian, which that specialises in artificial intelligence, machine learning and

ENQUIRY NO. 1059

ALGORITHMIC ACTION

42 INSTRUMENTATION & MEASUREMENT ARTICLE TAG

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Contactless Measurement, Voltage Probe, Signal Cables

Contactless Voltage Probe Technology:

MEASURING VOLTAGE WAVEFORMS FROM OUTSIDE SIGNAL CABLES Technology for acquiring AC voltage waveforms in a manner that requires no contact with metal terminals will be discussed.

BY DR KOICHI YANAGISAWA, HIOKI E.E. CORPORATION

E

NGINEERS ARE OFTEN called upon to measure pulse signals used to control industrial robots and output waveforms from automotive sensors using oscilloscopes and data recorders. Examining disturbances at the edges of waveforms to ascertain signs of impending failure or investigate the causes of issues is essential in maintaining and managing such devices.

However, connecting voltage probes to the signal terminals being measured often proves to be an exercise in frustration because the devices in question use high-density connectors and cable ends that are buried deep inside the hardware, making it a tricky proposition to establish reliable electrical contact.

The ability to obtain a voltage waveform from outside the cable — as is possible with many current sensors — would resolve most of these issues. To make possible this type of measurement, a revolutionary technology for acquiring voltage waveforms and levels with a high degree of precision, without regard to cable diameter or insulating material, would be ideal.

TECHNICAL ISSUES AND THEIR RESOLUTION Imagine placing the tip of an oscilloscope probe that has a high impedance, for GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8501

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

Figure 1: Block diagram

Figure 2: Frequency characteristics

example 100MΩ, close to the insulation of a voltage signal cable. As you do so, you should be able to obtain a signal waveform that differentiates the source voltage waveform, albeit in an unstable manner. This voltage signal is being captured via capacitive coupling, facilitated by an equivalent capacitor that forms between the conductor inside the insulated cable and the metal terminal on the tip of the probe. To obtain the voltage waveform that you desire, you need to pass the differentiated signal waveform that you have acquired through an integrator. Doing so would also allow you to suppress external noise.

H o w e v e r, t h e v o l t a g e l e v e l s characterising a waveform acquired in this manner remain undefined because the magnitude of the capacitive coupling that forms varies as the cable’s diameter and insulation change. Furthermore, that magnitude also changes over time due to environmental factors such as temperature and humidity, posing other challenges. That fluctuations in capacitive coupling are significantly influenced not only by the voltage level, but also by the frequency only makes it more difficult to acquire a stable voltage waveform.

To resolve these issues, we took the approach of generating a signal that is the

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

and the reference potential, causing the current flowing to the detection electrode to approach zero.

EXAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS

Figure 3: Appearance of Contactless Voltage probe.

same as the measured voltage waveform inside the probe and then canceling out the coupling capacitance. When the probe is kept at the same potential as the conductor inside the insulated cable that is being measured, no current flows to the capacitive-coupled conductor, regardless of the magnitude of the coupling capacitance.

In short, it is as if the equivalent capacitor has been eliminated. Moreover, since the probe’s potential is the same as that of the cable conductor, we can measure the voltage without needing to establish contact with any metal terminals, simply by measuring the probe’s potential with a suitable instrument.

Fig. 1 provides a block diagram of a non-contact voltage probe. The probe’s detection electrode undergoes capacitive coupling with the cable conductor.

The potential difference between the electrode and the reference potential is then detected using an integrating transimpedance amplifier (I-TIA) in the potential differential detection block, which has a power supply that is independent of the external circuitry.

The detected potential difference signal is transmitted in an insulated manner out of the potential difference detection block, subjected to signal amplitude and phase correction, and applied to the potential difference detection block’s reference potential via a voltage generation amplifier. As a result, this circuit design serves to minimise the potential difference between the cable

The probe’s design embodies a negative feedback circuit. Given suitable loop gain, it allows contactless voltage detection that is not affected by fluctuations in coupling capacitance. Furthermore, as a result of its use of negative feedback, the circuit delivers very flat frequency characteristics, from low to high frequencies. In fact, the non-contact voltage probe (Fig. 3) has a frequency band that exhibits -3 dB characteristics from 1 Hz to 100 kHz (Fig. 2).

The voltage dynamic range of this sensor probe is 14 Vpp, making it suitable for use with most machinery control signal levels. Fig. 4 illustrates an acquired pulse waveform with a duty ratio of 30:70. The waveform was acquired by applying a 5 Vpp signal to an insulated cable (with an outer diameter of 1.8 mm, including 0.3 mm of polyvinyl chloride insulation) using a waveform generator. Fig. 4(A) illustrates the waveform acquired at 100 Hz, and Fig. 4(B) at 10 kHz. At 100 Hz, the voltage

Figure 4(A): Waveform Comparison (100kHz)

INSTRUMENTATION & MEASUREMENT

43

probe reproduces the original signal with a high degree of faithfulness.

Although not shown, the signal is similarly reproducible at 1 kHz. While there is slight rounding of the edges at 10 kHz, the waveform exhibits little delay and is sufficiently faithful to the source waveform to permit use of the probe in applications involving communications signals such as those used by LIN-bus systems in vehicles.

SUMMARY AND FUTURE PROSPECTS This ar ticle has summarised the technology to realise a non-contact voltage waveform probe. Although the work it describes envisioned maintenance applications involving device control signals and sensor signals, the technology is likely to also prove effective as a tool for reverse-engineering hardware that lacks detailed technology drawings and specifications.

F u t u re d i re c t i o n s fo r re l a te d technological development include development of high-speed non-contact voltage waveform probes for capturing communications signals and development of probes for acquiring DC voltages.

Figure 4(B): Waveform Comparison (10kHz)

44 INSTRUMENTATION & MEASUREMENT ARTICLE TAG

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Pressure, Process Control, Sensors

Defining Pressure:

WHAT IS PRESSURE AND WHY IS IT CRITICAL TO PROCESS What is pressure, and how is it applied and measured? This question will be answered here. The article will also highlight how pressure sensors affect process environments and how they are applied in specific applications.

CONTRIBUTED BY TURCK

I

N ITS MOST BASIC FORM, pressure is defined as the amount of force being applied to an area. As this force is distributed over a specific area, a change in movement of the defined area is occurring. It is important to remember that a force is just an occurrence that is causing an object to move, either accelerating or decelerating. The amount of movement from that object is based upon the amount of force.

Pressure is very unique in that it is not subjected to a direction, but by the force acting on an area in a perpendicular Motion.

Because of this action, movement by the area is created (this is sometimes referred to as a deflection). The amount of this deflection can then be measured to provide a representation of the amount of pressure being applied. As the need for this information grew, manufacturers created a device that is designed to deliver this measurement: the pressure sensor.

GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8502

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

APPLYING PRESSURE At all times there is pressure being applied in all directions around us. For example, as we are standing, there is pressure being applied to the area beneath our feet, which is caused by multiple forces.

The weight of our body, combined with gravity, creates a perpendicular force to the area directly below. This force then creates the area below to move more than it did before the force was applied. An individual may not notice the movement because of the composition of the area, but it is occurring.

This same theory can be applied in a level application. If a tank is filled with liquid, the same downward force is being applied to the bottom of the tank. The amount of liquid weight, along with gravity, is creating a deflection to the bottom of the tank. With some quick calculations, the amount of liquid in the tank can be determined simply by measuring the pressure at the bottom of the tank. This can be a very critical piece of information for the application.

Typically, pressure measurements are taken to identify the amount of pressure being applied. While doing the same measurement, the loss of pressure can also be recorded. Since the pressure

measurement is primarily concerned with the amount of force on an area, the deflection of the area can vary in both a positive and negative direction.

A different application that has a critical constant pressure applied can instantly indicate the pressure loss because the deflection of the measured area is now less than it was previously.

Applied pressure does not always have to be analysed from a zero point. The way that pressure is interpreted and manipulated is solely dependent on the person who is measuring it, but the concept of pressure on the area will not change.

PRESSURE AND PROCESS So why is pressure important? In everyday activities, pressure may not be a concern whatsoever, however, in a process environment, pressure is a key component to keeping a system functional.

The level application discussed previously can be a critical one when considered in a different way. For example, if the tank represents a water tower that stores a cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s supply of water and the level of water inside the tower drops below a certain point, the city could be without a water supply. Since this is a crucial component to the city, a pressure

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

sensor may be used to measure the level inside of the tower and a process is put in place to regulate the level based upon the requirements and usage by the city.

Pressure is not just subjected to the type of media either. While the level application was measuring water, any form of media can be measured if the correct tools are used. Typical applications that require a pressure measurement include the air (or other gases) inside of a system, fluids inside of a hydraulic line, liquids inside of a pipe and many more. While the media and applications may vary, the key component is the pressure sensor used to measure the amount of force being applied to the area.

When discussing pressure from a sensor standpoint, the area that is being measured is part of the sensor. While there is pressure being applied in all directions, the sensor is only measuring the force that is being applied directly to it. Since pressure does not have to be

uniform in all directions, the pressure measured will be similar throughout the system, but does not represent the system as a whole. There are exclusions to this, however, this principle holds true in most cases.

Processes, whether in daily life or the industrial world, act as a way to control an outcome. These processes depend on information and actions (inputs and outputs). Pressure measurement is an input that can help guide which actions are needed in order to produce the desired outcome.

For example, tools in a manufacturing facility require a certain amount of air pressure to operate successfully; without sufficient air pressure, operation halts. To ensure this requirement is consistently met, a pressure sensor resides on the air line to the production floor. If the air pressure drops below the predetermined level, a process has been developed to start the air compressor to increase the pressure back to the recommended level. This process keeps the manufacturing operation moving and avoids costly down time by continuously monitoring the pressure.

INSTRUMENTATION & MEASUREMENT

45

WHY IS PRESSURE IMPORTANT? IN EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES, PRESSURE MAY NOT BE A CONCERN WHATSOEVER, HOWEVER, IN A PROCESS ENVIRONMENT, PRESSURE IS A KEY COMPONENT TO KEEPING A SYSTEM FUNCTIONAL. CONCLUSION Processes can happen frequently, or infrequently, as defined by the user for each application. Pressure measurement is one form of information needed to develop a process in order to reach a desired outcome.

Although pressure is not limited to a specific media, location or application, it is a constant occurrence that can be measured and processed accordingly.

This information is not only critical for maintaining a process, but also to ensure the longevity of a system.

46 ENERGY ARTICLE TAG

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia Manufacturing, IoT, Industry 4.0

DIGITALISATION OF THE

MANUFACTURING PROCESS Industry 4.0 is a major part of the digitalisation process in the manufacturing sector, and increasingly so in the process and energy sectors. IAA interviewed Lutz Seidenfaden, Head of Competence Center Asia, Festo, on a recent seminar they held as well as developments in Industry 4.0.

BY MARK JOHNSTON

GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8601

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

W

I T H T H E S U P P O RT o f t h e Workforce Development Agency ( W DA ), Fe sto o r ga n ise d a training series, which included a half-day seminar, on Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 is changing the manufacturing landscape with its persistent digitalisation of the factory and the production process.

Q: You just completed a training series,

which included a half-day seminar, with the support of the Workforce Development Agency (WDA). Tell me more about this conference and its objectives, and provide more detail on your relationship with the WDA? Lutz Seidenfaden (LS): The objective of the seminar cum panel discussion is to provide participants the knowledge on the need to be ready for Industry 4.0 or

be left behind. Also, they can gain insight on how one company has embraced Industry 4.0 and the steps they are taking to incorporate it into their factory.

Q: How is Festo contributing to

educating and training the engineers of tomorrow in regards to Industry 4.0 (eg: training schemes, learning factory, etc)?

LS: The company has embarked on a series of training programmes on Industry 4.0. There were two five-day courses held in October. The difference in our training programmes is that we are very practical-oriented and the participants will experience hands-on practical sessions with our CyberPhysical Factory which incorporates Industry 4.0 technologies.

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

Q: What is your vision for the typical modern factory in 10 years’ time?

LS: The factory of the future will be resilient. Smar t components and production lines will be able to adapt themselves flexibly according to the production need. Software and IT will play a big role as an enabling factor.

Production equipment will program itself, not by the worker.

Laborious tasks will be taken over more and more by machine and human robot interaction will become state-ofthe-art. Workers will still play a vital role but it will be a different one. The main focus on human tasks will be designing the production equipment and supervising and maintaining daily operations. Due to the more complex environment for this a higher qualification profile than today is needed.

Q: We are living in a time of mass disruption with increasing levels of democratisation across many sectors, not least the manufacturing sector, what technologies do you see having the biggest impact on tomorrow’s factory and how is Festo preparing for this radical change in production?

LS: Biggest impact on manufacturing industry currently has digitisation as an

ENERGY

47

universal enabling factor/driver for other production technologies such as robotics.

Festo started the bionic learning network with universities and industry partners many years ago as a development platform with the goal to drive innovation in automation. This ensures Festo is abreast of technological developments — from manufacturing concepts via series products, up to software and control or regulation technology.

Q: In regards to your training schemes,

what pedagogy do you use, and how do you see this pedagogy changing over the next decade, particularly with the introduction of new methods and technologies for education and training, for instance, the use of Virtual and Augmented Reality?

LS: For training schemes, we feel that the training has to be a mix between software and hardware. The participants will have to be exposed to the two and see how they are interlinked.

It is important that they are exposed to the hardware which is why Festo emphasises on practical work in our training. In f uture, I am sure that there will be more use of virtual and augmented reality.

WHAT ARE THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT SKILLS THE ENGINEERS OF TOMORROW WILL REQUIRE IF THEY ARE TO BE SUCCESSFUL? 1. Knowledge on communication and connectivity between IT and Machines 2. Digitalisation 3. Concept of versatile production: control, visualisation, setting the parameters, routing of orders

THE FACTORY OF THE FUTURE WILL BE RESILIENT. SMART COMPONENTS AND PRODUCTION LINES WILL BE ABLE TO ADAPT THEMSELVES FLEXIBLY ACCORDING TO THE PRODUCTION NEED.

48 ENERGY ARTICLE TAG

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia IoT, Process Control, Optimisation

Leveraging IoT to

OPTIMISE THE PROCESS IAA interviewed Anand Vishnubhotla, GM for advanced solutions (APAC), Honeywell Process Solutions on his company’s involvement in IoT and its implications for the process sector.

BY MARK JOHNSTON

A

NAND VISHNUBHOTLA is the GM for advanced solutions in APAC for Honeywell Process Solutions.

Advanced solutions is the company’s software business within process solutions. Well known for industrial automation, the company is lesser known for its large software business.

GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8602

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

TRANSFORMING THE PROCESS SECTOR WITH IOT Industrial IoT is considered by many to be a digital transformation of the

manufacturing sector. “There is a huge transformation happening if you look at the customer base and IoT World,” said Anand Vishnubhotla, GM, Advanced Solutions (APAC), Honeywell Process Solutions. “The next evolution of that is the transformation of the process industry,” he continued. Whilst IoT is transforming whole industries, the manufacturing sector where IoT has traditionally found its footing is far from complete. There is still a lot of work to be done. This is not so much an issue with

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

technology but more about awareness, and confidence in trying a new way of doing things. This is why, despite IoT’s clear advantage towards productivity, it is still not wholey accepted.

“You have to know that process plants are categorised by a lot of capital assets.

These assets are worth multi million, sometimes billions of dollars. They cannot replace these assets overnight,” said Mr Vishnubhotla.

Because of this the engineers take advantage of the legacy equipment and reduce downtime and increase reliability.

How do they do that in the current cost competitive environment? They cannot solve that by putting a lot of resources on it. They need to take advantage of technology to solve the problem.

WHERE DOES INNOVATION HAPPEN WITH IOT A lot of the innovation is centred around the data collected. “Understanding and processing this data is how we make good use out of it to lower costs and increase productivity”. As such. data management is very important. Firstly, it is important to make sure all the data being collected by an array of sensors is correct and without any significant errors.

It is important therefore that there is a way to manage that data. “We do what we call edge analytics and only supply what is relevant to the analytics platform.” That is where the challenge lies.

“We feel the real important thing to solve for our customers is what we do with that data. If you flood all that upwards, it is not going to solve the problem. It will be data overload. We feel edge analytics, where you can take the data, quickly compute it, and keep what is relevant, but move what is irrelevant up so that you can do much more learning and fine tuning. That is one area that is very important,” said Mr Vishnubhotla.

NON-TRADITIONAL IOT APPLICATIONS “We feel process predictive maintenance, not asset is the best way forward.” The process industry is very complex. There is a lot of chemistry and physics involved.

Can we use the same techniques and take all the data that is being generated and really harness that to understand process

related issues? “That is one area we feel is important and does not get talked about a lot,” said Mr Vishnubhotla.

The other area that does not get talked about enough is the “supply chain”, he said. Applications in this industry include optimisation. Optimisation essentially allows us to design how such operations are set up. With a plant onsite and its operations, with a corporate department who does the planning and commercial processes. “How do we marry these two worlds?” so that real time pricing, real time raw materials, real time demand information gets feed into the site’s operations. That is a big advantage, that is a big lever to be pulled to make more money.

ENERGY

49

BOTTLENECKS TO GREATER IOT ADOPTION “We did a survey recently in May/June where 67 percent of our customers thought they wanted to do something in data analytics. While 68 percent are saying they will increase their investment for one month, so people believe in it,” he said. The challenge as Mr Vishnubhotla eluded to is in developing a proper business case with Honeywell’s customers. The business case will depend on its size and whether it is spread accross different regions and countries. For that you need deep domain expertise. You cannot just bring IT technologies and say it will magically work here.

50

ENERGY

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

as data analytics, and have a clear use case. “Ask yourself, how do I use data analytics to solve industry process related problems?” Mr Vishnubhotla continued: “We are focusing a lot on this.

We talk to our customers and discuss the use cases and the benefits. That is another way to do it.”

REGIONAL PROJECTS

“We have deep domain expertise. We have been in this business for 40+ years managing process data and automation,” he remarked. “Third is the ability to do something quickly and to scale rapidly.”

Lastily, the last barrier we feel we have a good solution for is security.”

Cyber security is very critical. You cannot just push the data without proper security. It is very important.

“These are the things, if we address these aspects, business case, technology,

implementation model, and security, I think the barriers can be reduced,” remarked Mr Vishnubhotla.

CLOSING THE IT/OT GAP When speaking about the IT/OT gap security is the issue. “We provide a security option, which gives our customers a level of confidence, said Mr Vishnubhotla.

Another way of bringing IT and OT together is take the techniques and capabilities that the IT world has, such

Honeywell Process Solutions is involved in a number of regional projects. One big project the company is involved in is a refinery in India. “It is a big multisite refinery and petrochemical giant. Their challenge is how do they standardise their processes and how to they become a more data driven organisation,” said Mr Vishnubhotla. “Their problem is they have different sites with different maturity levels. Some are very mature on using data and some are not. As such, how do we bring all of this together?” Mr Vishnubhotla remarked that the company uses their IoT based solution for this project to address these issues.

“When we bring together all of this data from different sites we standardise KPIs across all the functions, whether

ENERGY

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

it is the operations, health and safety, m a intena nce , rel i abi l i ty, etc. We have standard KPI metrics. Once you standardise the metrics then it is easy to measure,” he remarked.

The first step is to standardise. Once standardised all the data can be brought into the corporate world where there are subject matter experts who can look at the data and proactively help the sites to deploy. “This is a very large and successful implementation of our IoT solution,” said Mr Vishnubhotla.

evolution and we have solutions in all four elements of IoT. That is a unique thing for Honeywell,” he said.

“Right from smart connected assets to data management and onsite control with our Experion and with our analytical tools with our uniformity suite and intuition executive collaboration tools.

We have covered all of these four things very well,” he added.

“In addition, we have deep domain expertise and our partnership with UOP

51

which is part of Honeywell uses a significant advantage where we can take that process learning and knowledge and pass it on to our customers. This is the third thing.”

The fourth thing Mr Vishnubhotla explained: “ is our cyber security practice and offering. This is one of the key barriers we talked about. We feel Honeywell is really poised for the next evolution and we have elements in all of these for us to be successful and for our customers to be successful.”

CHANGING BUSINESS MODELS

WHAT IS A WORLD WITHOUT CONNECTORS?

NOTHING!

DIFFERENTIATING IOT SOLUTIONS Honeywell as a company has been at the forefront of automation for the last 40 years. They were the company who invited the DCS. “We see IoT as an

www.binder-connector.sg info@binder-connector.sg

ENQUIRY NO. 1057

Implementing IoT is not just about the technology, but there are much broader considerations, such as a change of business model. “We will not be a provider of equipment anymore, instead we will be a provider of a service,” remarked Mr Vishnubhotla. “We will become a provider of reliability, of process safety, of supply chain optimisation as a service,” he said.

More service business models is one, another change will be a greater need to partner with other parties to develop a successful ecosystem. “We have to realise we cannot solve everything alone. We have to have a model where customers take advantage of our infrastructure that can then be monetised,” he said.

“If you look at the cost of your cab ride today compared to five years back it is significantly reduced. Similarly I think for our customers we need that economic advantage as to where the amount of time it will take to solve the problems will have to dramatically reduce. That will spawn new business models,” he added.

There will also be a lot of subscription based models and a lot of models where you pay per usage. “That is where the cloud comes in,” said Mr Vishnubhotla.

“You can try something, pay for it for a year or for the time you really need it and then you can quickly discard it,” he said. As such, in subscription and service models they are not buying the technology, they are essentially buying a service.

52 SECTOR SPOTLIGHT ARTICLE TAG

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Power Supplies, Maternal Handling, Logistics

DC Power Supplies For

MATERIAL HANDLING AND LOGISTICS AUTOMATION

DC Power Supplies are an integral part of the material handling and logistics sector.

CONTRIBUTED BY MAXIMILIAN HÃ&#x153;LSEBUSCH, MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST, PULS (GERMANY)

GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8701

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

W

AREHOUSES AND DISTRIBUTION centres frequently operate 24 hours, seven days a week, and downtime can result in delayed order fulfilment, customer dissatisfaction, and lost revenue. Efficient, reliable and compact DC DIN rail power supplies can help to prevent those downtimes.

Customers in the material handling and logistics automation market recognise these benefits and become more sensitive for this topic. This rising interest in the key functionalities of power supplies is absolutely mandatory to stay successful in the future. Puls supports its customers to gain this important knowledge and offers a wide range of standard DIN rail power supplies

with features that can cope with the requirements in logistics applications.

SMALLEST SIZE TO FIT The compact size and lightweight design of DIN rail power supplies is for many customers one of the most important criterions.

Their electrical systems take over more and more functions whereas the cabinets become even smaller. The narrow design of the units saves space on the DIN-rail and enables higher packing density within the cabinet, as such reducing operational costs.

REDUCING HEAT AND SYSTEM COSTS For a power supply, it is essential

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

SECTOR SPOTLIGHT

to achieve a high level of efficiency throughout the entire load range. It helps users minimise system costs and increase system availability. One important factor for the reduction of system costs is to allow as little heat as possible to form inside the cabinet. Heat puts a strain on the lifetime of essential electronic components.

This means that a high level of effort and money is required for cooling.

However, the higher the efficiency of a power supply, the lower the no-load losses in the form of heat. So it is profitable in the long term to always select the power supply with the highest efficiency.

RELIABILITY AND SERVICE LIFE The electronic control is the heart of every machine and consequently any failure here results in expensive production downtime. The power supply must fulfil the highest demands in terms of quality, MTBF figures and service life.

The minimum service life specification of a power supply is fundamentally important information for the customers, and the company has been providing corresponding specifications in their datasheets for all products of the dimension product family. The family standard that applies to dimension is a lifetime of at least 50,000 hours at an ambient temperature of 40 deg C under full load.

FUNCTIONALITY WITHOUT OVERSIZING The power reserves for peak currents of DC power supplies are the perfect solution for the dynamic load requirements of material handling systems and help to prevent unnecessary oversizing.

On top of that, remote monitoring of the power supply output is also important for ensuring maximum system availability.

DC POWER PRODUCTS FOR FLUCTUATING DEMANDS DC DIN rail power supplies are usually large scale projects with fluctuating availability and delivery requirements of the material handling and logistics automation industry.

The variety of applications and power requirements such as Motorised Drive

Roller (MDR), zone controllers, sensors and other loads are also available for: • Automated storage and retrieval systems • Belt conveyor systems • Sorting systems • Storage systems • Palletisers and de-palletisers In summary, a reliable DIN rail power supply with the highest efficiency for the cost-optimised needs of modern material handling and logistics automation systems are what customers are looking for. A recent example is the CP10.241 — (24V/10A) introduced in 2015, with a width of 39mm, weight of 600g, efficiency of 95.2 percent and a typical service life of 120,000 hours.

Understanding the customer’s concerns is a big reason to follow and even exceed the requirements set by the customers, maximising the operational functionality and reliability of these essential power supply functionalities.

THE MINIMUM SERVICE LIFE SPECIFICATION OF A POWER SUPPLY IS FUNDAMENTALLY IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR THE CUSTOMERS.

53

54 SECTOR SPOTLIGHT ARTICLE TAG

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Industrial IoT, Manufacturing, Logistics

Pepperl+Fuchs:

LEADING THE CHANGE IN IIOT It is either change or be changed in the new world order. Pepperl+Fuchs decided neither. Instead it will lead the change — playing an active role in the digitalisation of the industry.

BY EILEEN CHAN

T

HE INDUSTRIAL Internet of Things (IIoT, Industrie 4.0) has been identified as a key capability in Singapore’s Advanced Manufacturing thrust with Singapore looking towards Pepperl+Fuchs as a leader in this direction.

At the opening of its new 17,700 sq m, Global Distribution Centre in Jurong, Singapore, on October 14, 2016, Minister S Iswaran, Singapore’s Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry) credited the German controls and automation manufacturer, as a member of a pioneering group of companies that has leveraged Industrial IoT technologies to digitalise their facilities.

The five-storey, S$65 million (US$45.98 million) investment for the leading manufacturer of process and factory automation systems and components, will serve as the central warehouse from which Pepperl+Fuchs Group provides a worldwide distribution of more than 15,000 products.

The facility is an important step forward in the company’s strategy to deliver both stock and custom solutions more quickly and efficiently to its clients around the world, said Dr -Ing Gunther Kegel, its CEO, in his opening address.

Speaking at a press interview at the opening ceremony, Dr Kegel stated that GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8702

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

as the world is changing, and moving forward, the manufacturing industry has only two choices: “Either we accept that we are going to be changed or, we turn it around and we become the frontrunner of the change, and we do the change.”

THE FUTURE OF THINGS TO COME Pepperl+Fuchs decided right from the onset, not to be the ones that are changed, but to lead the change — playing an active role in the digitalisation of the industry.

For example, its own internal

communication system was changed to the next generation of social media.

Instead of the usual email, they produced a ‘Facebook’ alternative, P+F net, for its workforce. “This is especially popular among the younger generation and it now forms an integral part of the company’s general communication,” added Dr Kegel.

“We provide necessary communication infrastructure and we are changing all our business models to Internet-based business models. That does not mean that we sell something on the Internet, but we use Internet technology to actually

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

improve our work processes.”

Dr Kegel cites that in the earlier years, when a sales quotation was called for, it was up to the local sales personnel to formulate an appropriate price for the product. Putting the company’s vision into practice, today there is an Internet-based pricing tool that allows the sales personnel to key in details of the order, the volume, type of product, etc, and he gets an automatically-derived recommended selling price. “Even in Mongolia, Russia, or South America, we use the same identical tool over there, and they are all connected via the Internet. We use Internet technology to intensify and raise the efficiency of our process.”

For Pepperl+Fuchs, creating connected manufacturing operations in the IoT starts by looking into its own backyard, or in this case, its own products. Dr Kegel said: “It is important to understand the meaning of connectivity — we need to connect all our embedded systems to the Industry 4.0 standard.”

Data and information in the industrial IoT will be generated predominantly by more and better sensors. As a consequence to this, all companies

have to develop their own digital agenda to cope with the rapidly changing business environment. “By integrating Open Platform Communications (OPC) inside our devices,” Dr Kegel said, “we make them an integral part of the next generation of communication.”

With the introduction of a collaborative project called Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) introduced at CeBIT this March, machine uptime and productivity can be increased significantly with easy-to-retrofit hardware components and a business platform with special analysis tools.

Working on smart status monitoring and maintenance, it will allow even older systems to be connected to IT systems and modernised in line with Industry 4.0, without any major investment. Dr Kegel remarked: “That provides the necessary software so that every product built from now to a few years time, will seemingly connect to the Internet of Things.”

INROADS IN R&D Industry 4.0 is making manufacturing increasingly smarter, more flexible, and more transparent. The most significant

SECTOR SPOTLIGHT

About Dr Gunther Kegel DR GUNTHER KEGEL studied Electrical Engineering at the Technical University of Darmstadt in Darmstadt, Germany. He completed his doctoral thesis on the topic of ‘Integration of Sensor Signals into Robotic Controls,’ and in 1990, Dr Kegel started his engagement with Pepperl+Fuchs as head of its Pre-design Department.

He was subsequently named head of Pepperl+Fuchs’ Development Department/Factory Automation and Division Factory Automation, and later served as its deputy MD. In 2004, Dr Kegel was chosen as CEO of Pepperl+Fuchs. Dr Kegel has authored numerous publications in the field of sensor and interface technology and serves on the Executive Committee of the VDE (Association of German Engineers), the supervisory board of the Mannheim University of Applied Sciences and several advisory boards of organisations.

Besides his commitment to the Fieldbus Foundation Board of Directors Dr Kegel is a founding member of the EMEA Executive Advisory Council and has been its chairman for several years, thus emphasising the dedication of Pepperl+Fuchs to support the Fieldbus Foundation on a worldwide base.

55

56

SECTOR SPOTLIGHT

role in this changing environment is played by people — the creators of the factory of the future.

Pepperl+Fuchs walks the talk, as its investment in digitalisation works towards a higher efficiency of manufacturing in the future. “The digital plant will only work when we have improved sensors, smart sensors, therefore we have the initiative called Sensorix 4.0 — the next generation of sensors. The smart sensor, that is what we are currently developing. All our sensor development divisions have a task to come up with the digital expansion of the product offering into the direction of Industry 4.0 or smart sensors.”

Developed both in Germany and also here in Singapore, the company has about 50 design engineers (in Singapore and other R&D facilities around the world), furthering this area.

“We see the engineering capabilities of Pepperl+Fuchs group expanding in this territory. In the old days we do R&D

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

in Germany, today, we do in Asia — in Singapore, Vietnam. Also in Germany, UK, Italy and in the US.” He added: “We are looking for talents, and where we can find the appropriate talent, we can set up an R&D team to lead in the different industries.”

THE ‘SMARTIFICATION’ OF THINGS Looking ahead as to whether they will be a change of business model for Pepperl+Fuchs as it makes its way towards a future propelled increasingly by the digitalisation of how we do things, Dr Kegel gives a definitive answer: “In the f uture people will require sensors, so there is no need we should not be afraid that the Internet of Things will make our things obsolete.

We will sell sensors even 20 years from now — that I am absolutely sure.” “ B u t t h e s e n s o rs w i l l c h a n ge because they become an integral part of the IIoT and on top of this, there

might be new business models using the data of our sensors.”

Industry 4.0 systems capture a wide range of data that can be used to improve performance and productivity with the application of analytics. As analytics can be used for real-time predictive maintenance, it would prove invaluable as manufacturing companies can avoid interruptions by machine failures and improve asset utilisation. Other applications include the optimisation of production operations, improving productivity and energy efficiency.

He added: “We could easily use this to expand this into more serviceoriented structure. But that is a really difficult task as you have to predict what service-oriented structure the customers will want in the future. Don’t forget Industry 4.0 is not about technology but about generating additional extra customer value.”

In many ways Dr Kegel said it is an

SECTOR SPOTLIGHT

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

evolution of things, not a revolution: “Considered a ‘smartification’, it is just a matter of doing what we always do, more efficiently.”

FUTURE FORWARD STATEMENTS Main growth segments in the Southeast Asian region for Pepperl+Fuchs will remain in the energy and intralogistics arena.

While the entire energy sector is expected to remain sluggish in the near term, Dr Kegel added: “We expect this will basically take off in a year from now when we see more investments into renewables or investments in highly-efficient power plants, and gas power plants to get rid of coal-fired power plants.”

Whereas in the discrete industry, like in automotive or in intralogistics, he points out: “We can see that the industry is still booming, so that is definitely our main growth.”

Dr Kegel strongly believes more growth opportunities still lie in China while countries like South Korea and Vietnam are expected to do well too. “So there are definitely opportunities for us and do not forget the ‘Tiger’ countries of Malaysia, Taiwan and also Singapore.”

Pepperl+Fuchs remains at the heart of it all, an automation company and “we want to stay as an automation company, there is no further plan to diversify into anything else but automation.”

Its position as a leader in the industry is fortified by the way it positions itself and its brand. “The Pepperl+Fuchs brand says we want to do what we do in a passionate way. People must be not only satisfied, but really delighted from what we do. So increasing our service level, increasing our performance in regards to delivery, liability, capability, to deliver every product to the edge of the world inside of two to four days. This is something we are investing our money in. This Global Distribution Centre is an example of this investment.

In conclusion, Dr Kegel added: “With digitalisation, our product will become more smart with the coming years and will become part of the Industrie 4.0 conformal communication standards as with our marketing mission, our marketing strategy statement.”

Pepperl+Fuchs Opens Global Distribution Centre SINGAPORE German controls and automation manufacturer Pepperl+Fuchs opened its five-storey Global Distribution Centre, located in Jurong, Singapore, on October 14, 2016.

With an investment of over S$65 million and spanning an area of 17,700 sq m, the centre serves as the central warehouse from which Pepperl+Fuchs Group provides a worldwide distribution of more than 15,000 products.

Integrated with the Internetof-Things (IoT) enabled high bay Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) and an Intelligent Warehouse Management Software (WMS) system, the fully-automated warehouse will increase productivity by more than 400 percent. This will enable the company to increase its efficiency and cost-effectiveness while providing customers with shorter delivery times.

“Facilitating a worldwide control tower function out of Singapore will enable us to manage the entire logistics process, which includes

tracking, distribution, and production planning more efficiently,” said Dr Gunther Kegel, CEO of Pepperl+Fuchs Group, “Additionally, our decision to include some of the latest Industry 4.0 concepts within our Global Distribution Centre is also a demonstration of our commitment to take on the leadership role in this exciting new space.”

In addition, the centre will include one floor of manufacturing operations which the deployment of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) will automate the moving of both raw materials and finished goods between ASRS and the production lines.

“We warmly welcome Pepperl +Fuchs’ decision to set up its Global Distribution Centre in Singapore, which will further strengthen its existing manufacturing presence here. The success of this facility is underpinned by the holistic application of Industrial IoT technologies, which Singapore has identified as a key capability in our advanced manufacturing pillar,” said Yeoh Keat Chuan, MD, Singapore Economic Development Board.

57

58 FEATURES ARTICLE TAG

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia Optics, Coatings, Surface Properties

ALL ABOUT COATINGS Optical systems today rely heavily on suitable protective coatings for successful operation and performance.

CONTRIBUTED BY EDMUND OPTICS

I

N EVERY REALM of physical science, surface properties dictate much of the interaction between an object and its environment. This is true for optics as well. Although the bulk properties of glasses certainly influence an optic’s interaction with light, the shape and smoothness of the sur face are the primary determinants of the way a lens or mirror modifies the propagation of light. In addition to surface shape and quality, the coatings on an optical surface strongly affect an optic’s interaction with light. Specifically, coatings significantly modify the behaviour of light at different waveleng ths. Nearly ever y modern optical system depends on effective optical coatings.

Just about two hundred years ago, Augustin Jean Fresnel developed a set of equations that defined the reflection of an electromagnetic wave from a dielectric surface. The amount of reflection depends upon the angle of incidence, GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8801

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

the indices of refraction of the initial and final media, and the wavelength of the light. One consequence of his discovery, for example, is that about four percent of the visible light incident on a glass surface will reflect from that surface. Fresnel extended his discovery to incorporate an understanding of how it is that light can interfere with itself. That is, the wave nature of light means it can be split up and recombined in such a way that its intensity can be increased and decreased in particular regions.

Optical coatings are built on those two principles: that light reflects from the interface between two different dielectric materials and that two separate portions of a light beam can be manipulated to eliminate or reinforce its propagation in specific directions. Although these principles were not applied to coating an optical surface until about a hundred years after Fresnel’s work, the mathematics of the structure called ‘the quarter-wave stack’ was independently generated several times. Through the years many industries experienced an improved performance resulting from optical coating, and the technique began a development phase that continues today.

THE QUARTER-WAVE STACK Anti-reflection coatings are simple in principle. Take the example of a single thin-film coating on a glass surface.

Without any coating, about four percent of the light incident on the glass will be reflected, and that is the end of the story.

With thin film coating, just about that same four percent is initially reflected at the first surface. The remaining 96 percent transmits through the thin film to the surface of the glass substrate.

Again, some fraction of that 96 percent is reflected from that interface. The specific fraction reflected at this interface depends upon the index difference between the thin-film material and the glass. The fraction reflected from the glass surface propagates back through the thin film.

The two beams — the one reflected from the thin film and the one reflected from the glass — recombine. Because of the wave nature of light (and details of the electromagnetic field), the two beams do not add their intensities.

Instead, they add their amplitudes. This means that one wave can cancel out the other, so that the net reflection goes to zero. Specifically, this happens when one

FEATURES 59

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

wave is 180 degrees out of phase with the other. That is the same as saying that the two beams are one-half-wave out of phase with one another. To meet that condition, the wave reflected from the glass must have travelled one extra halfwavelength before it recombines with the first reflected wave. This happens when the thin film is one-quarter wave thick. The beam travels one-quarter wave headed to the glass surface and onequarter wave when reflected.

That puts the two beams perfectly out of phase, which means there is no reflection from the coated surface.

Mathematically, this happens where the index of refraction of the thin film, times the thickness of the coating, equals onequarter of the wavelength of light. That is, n * t = ¼λ. The interference effect can be reinforced with multiple layers, each a quarter-wavelength in thickness. That is the structure called the quarter-wave stack, and it can reduce reflection to almost nothing, which means nearly all the light is transmitted through the optic.

for an antireflection coating. See (Figure 1) for performance curves of Standard Broadband Anti-Reflection Coatings.

Coatings can also be optimised in reverse, to maximise reflection, creating mirrors. Other specialised coatings can separate polarisations, block a specific wavelength, or reflect wavelengths above or below a given cutoff Wavelength.

When requirements move beyond simple antireflection at a single wavelength and a single incident angle,

the coatings grow in complexity, but coating design — and more importantly coating application technology — is now mature enough that challenging requirements are routinely met.

HIGH QUALITY COATINGS NEED HIGH QUALITY SUBSTRATES The quality of an optical coating depends upon the degree of control over deposition rate, temperature, and other process parameters, but even the

The innovation in object measurement.

MULTIPLE REQUIREMENTS, MULTIPLE LAYERS

PosCon light section sensors by Baumer offer complex functions integrated in an easy-to-operate, compact sensor. Thanks to their excellent performance, the sensors are the ideal alternative to tactile sensor solutions as well as to complex 3D measuring systems at significantly lower overall costs.

For more information visit us at www.baumer.com/poscon

ENQUIRY NO. 1066

That is a simple equation, but it does not take long to introduce complications.

First of all, this equation only works perfectly for a single wavelength of light.

Second, it only works for light incident normally on the surface. In the real world, designers usually want an optic to work over a range of angles and a range of wavelengths. That means that real-world coatings often need to be more complex than a set of identical layers of thin film — sometimes far more complex, with dozens or scores of alternating indices of varying thicknesses. And that is just

60

FEATURES

Reflection (%)

5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0 200

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Standard Visible Anti-Reflection Coatings λ/4 MgF2 at 550nm VISO° (425 - 675nm) UV-AR (250 - 425nm) UV-VIS (250 - 700nm) VIS-NIR (400 - 1000nm) VIS-EXT (350 - 700nm)

300

400

500

600

700

Wavelength (nm)

800

900

1100

Standard Near Infrared Anti-Reflection Coatings

5.0 4.5

NIR I (600 - 1050nm) NIR II (750 - 1550nm) Telecom-NIR (1200 - 1600nm) SWIR (900 - 1700nm) YAG-BBAR (500 - 1100nm)

4.0

Reflection (%)

1000

3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0 400

600

800

1000

1200

Wavelength (nm)

1400

1600

1800

Figure 1: Standard anti-reflecting coating performance. best-controlled process cannot make a high-quality coating on a poor quality substrate. It all starts with material selection, which must be guided by the optical and environmental requirements.

But the substrate material choice must also be made with an eye towards compatibility with the coating material.

The choice of substrate material, however, is just the start.

The surface quality, subsurface quality, and cleanliness of the substrate all critically influence the quality of the final coating. This is crucial for high power coatings, where any material defect is likely to absorb laser energy, heat up, and lead to catastrophic failure of the coating. Process control is as important for substrate preparation as it is for the actual coating. To produce

a superior substrate through the machining, grinding, and polishing steps, technicians must understand the effects of parameters such as tool speed, coolant flow, and grit and polish progression.

It almost goes without saying — except that it can be overlooked — that cleanliness is also of paramount importance. Any contaminant between the substrate and the initial coating will degrade (perhaps catastrophically) the coating quality. But cleanliness is not only a concern in substrate preparation, it is also crucial within the coating chamber itself, to avoid the deposition of unwanted organics and particulates.

REACHING PEAK PERFORMANCE FOR YOUR OPTICS Without optical coatings, multi-element

lenses would be nearly useless because the light you need to form the image would be reduced, and the unwanted reflected light would be increased. But coatings do not only improve the performance of traditional lens designs, they also enable entirely new classes of optical elements, such as notch filters, bandpass filters, polarisation beamsplitters, and more.

This is true not only for the dielectric coatings described here, but for organic and metallic coatings.

It is almost impossible to imagine a modern optical system that does not rely on optical coatings to achieve its goals. So if you are developing an optical system, you are going to need coatings. To maximise the performance of your system, you want to consider coating requirements early in your design process.

EVENT REVIEW 61

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

NIDAYS 2016 equip companies with tools that will enable them to create new markets and compete in non-traditional ways; and innovators and experts to develop solutions that address global challenges and impact the wider communities,” said Matej Krajnc, MD, ASEAN & ANZ, National Instruments.

Kevin Ilcisin, VP of Product Marketing, Matej Krajnc, MD, ASEAN and ANZ, and Goh Yih-Hsiung, regional sales manager, ASEAN, were among the NIDays speakers.

During their keynote presentations, they shared how the NI platform is empowering scientists and engineers to acquire more accurate and meaningful insight from their data, improve RF system design and measurement; as well as create reliable, advanced control and monitoring systems for the Industrial Internet of Things.

LEVERAGING A PLATFORM

Returning for another year, NIDays is National Instruments regional technology and innovation event focused on solving key challenges with its expertise in instrumentation and measurement.

N

ATIONAL INSTRUMENTS HELD the Singapore leg of its annual technical conference NIDays on October 14, 2016, at the Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre. The event was well attended, attracting over 300 engineers, scientists, and researchers from around Singapore and the region to attend its series of talk and presentations. This year the company focused on a few key areas, such as Embedded Control and Monitoring, Data Acquisition, Automated Test and RF. “For 40 years, our commitment to empower engineers, scientists and educators with open technology platforms and tools that enable them to innovate more and faster has never waned and this will take us through the next 100 years.

Today the proliferation of smart connected devices and reliance on data for insights are allowing companies to disrupt their industries at an unprecedented pace. It is truly a very exciting time for engineers and

scientists — and it is also very exciting for us,” said Chandran Nair, VP for Asia Pacific, National Instruments.

NURTURING INNOVATION During the opening keynote the importance of adopting a platform based approach was discussed, as well the importance of nurturing a large ecosystem of users and developers focused on solving critical application challenges. The theme of the year’s keynote was Disrupting Test, Measurement, and Control with A Platform and ecosystem. A range of application stories and solutions to critical areas of measurement were discussed and presented to the attendees in areas such as semiconductor, defence, and infrastructure.

“Each year at NIDays, National Instruments shows the breadth and diversity of technology for software-centric systems in test, measurement, and control.

This year is no different. NIDays aims to

NIDays 2016 also serves as a platform to honour outstanding engineers and scientists in the region. Several engineers and researchers, including representatives from Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Institute of Technology, were recognised for their winning papers in the 2016 Engineering Impact Awards.

Now on its 11th year, the Engineering Impact Awards recognise extraordinarily innovative projects, which aimed to address engineering challenges that impact society.

This year’s NIDays also saw Singapore Institute of Technology and NI enter a three-year agreement to train and groom telematics talent. NI will support SIT with training through the NI LabVIEW Academy programme, to enhance students learning and research experience.

As the first university in Singapore to facilitate NI LabVIEW certification at the undergraduate level, SIT will welcome the first cohort of students reading SIT’s Bachelor of Engineering in Telematics (Intelligent Transport Systems Engineering) in August 2016.

GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8901

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

62 EVENT REVIEW

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Intuitive Design And Using The Cloud:

SOLID EDGE UNIVERSITY 2016 A focus on start-ups, more intuitive design and simulation, and making greater use of the cloud are only some of the highlights from 2016’s Solid Edge University.

S

OLID EDGE UNIVERSITY 2016 (SEU16) took place from October 25-27, 2016, at the JW Marriott in Indianapolis, Indiana, US. The event had more than 90 workshops and presentations for the over 500 people who attended.

The theme of this year’s show was to ‘expand your horizons’, which is what Siemens PLM Software hopes to do with the release of their new Solid Edge package, ST9.

ST9 has been officially available since July 2016, but this event marks the first opportunity the users have had to come together with the company’s engineers to delve deeper into the package and learn what is ahead for the platform.

“My hope today is to give you a roadmap that allows you to learn more about the new features of ST9,” said Dan Staples, VP of mainstream engineering, GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8902

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

product development at Siemens PLM Software, during the opening keynote.

One new program that was announced was Solid Edge for start-ups. This program will provide free access to the Solid Edge Premium software portfolio for product development, including 3D design and rendering, simulation, manufacturing, data management, and more. Qualifying businesses will get one year of free access to the engineering software and learning resources, after which they can choose to purchase a permanent license or a newly introduced subscription based license.

The Solid Edge for start-ups program is current available in the US and UK, expanding to other countries over time.

LEVERAGING THE CLOUD Flexibility was a key component across many of the new features announced.

CAD that follows you wherever you go is one important way of introducing more flexibility into the product. It is now no longer the norm for an engineer to spend their time in an office. With the increasing proliferation of new mobile devices on the market it is now possible to take your

CAD with you, wherever you go.

By extension, it is now possible to share CAD files across teams without creating duplicates. In a distributed team with members located across different regions and countries it is now possible to work together on the same file, by leveraging the cloud.

Reliability is also a key feature, which is why editing is done locally before being synchronised to the cloud.

This is to ensure a poor connection to the internet does not disrupt the user’s workflow. By using the cloud, both the software license and your personalised settings will follow the user wherever they sign-in, as well as giving the user control over when to install updates.

“We also automatically write lock the files across the internet, so if you open a file here in Indianapolis and they want to try and open that same file for write in China they will be given a message that says ‘No, this is already in write by your colleague’,” said Mr Staples.

3D MODELLING AND SIMULATION This year’s edition saw updates to

EVENT REVIEW 63

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

the user interface in light of new trends and developments, such as tabbed documents for quicker access to documents, increased consistency with Microsoft Office, and support for highresolution monitors, such as 4k, which is becoming more common, especially in the design space.

O ther improvements include enhanced multibody, in context, 3D sketch, mirror, and design intent modelling functionality; threaded hole feature creation from threaded-shaft Booleans; multiface replace lets you replace multiple assembly occurrences with a single surface; sheet metal contour flange creation from edges of multiple parts; enhanced materials library management; and Solid Sweep, which lets the user sweep a solid body along a 2D or 3D path, simulate machine tool operations like milling, and create complex protrusions.

There were also enhancements to the simulation tools, which included suppression of boundary conditions for easier what-if scenarios; maximised quad elements for more accurate surface meshing; and meshing performance that is as much as four times faster than the previous version for a variety of models.

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS One avenue to increase adoption of any software platform is to decrease the learning curve and design that platform to be intuitive. While there have been improvements to the overall UI and tools to increase productivity, the Catchbook sketching app, officially released in May 2016, should prove attractive to new and experienced users alike.

Catchbook is a sketching app that converts freehand drawings into 2D designs for direct export to virtually any graphic design or commercial CAD system. The app is available for the Android, iOS, and Windows platforms for both tablets and smartphones. Just like using pencil on paper, the app allows users to freely sketch their design which Catchbook then automatically converts to a precise, to-scale, editable drawing.

ST9 now offers Solidworks fully associative drawings. This tool makes moving to Solid Edge a lot easier from the

Solidworks platform. “We figured out how to bring your model and your drawings over at the same time and have it be fully associative in Solid Edge,” said Mr Staples.

There were also improvements made to Teamcenter with the addition of Active Workspace into the Solid Edge platform.

This should please users that have been asking for the same tight integration between Solid Edge and Teamcenter that Teamcenter has with NX.

A LOOK AT THE FUTURE During the closing keynote Jeff Walker, director of Solid Edge Products, Siemens PLM Software, gave a snippet of what is

to come in Synchronous Technology 10 (ST10), the next release of Solid Edge.

In ST10, this technology will get an update to include sheet metal design.

Now engineers working with sheet metal will get the benefits of this technology such as being able to edit models directly without having to untangle hierarchical and dependent feature trees.

Other highlights of ST10 include an automatic routing path feature, improvements in patterning, enhanced data management tools, including the provision of a design management tool, and deeper integration with Microsoft’s Surface Pro.

Partnering Siemens: Collaborative Manufacturing Local Motors, a US based manufacturer, embodies the idea of a sharing economy. Its modus operandi is one of collaboration and open sourcing ideas.

The company runs challenges where designers compete with their ideas, and with community involvement a design is chosen and eventually built at one of the company’s micro factories, located in the US and Europe, with more planned for Asia.

Local Motors formed a formal partnership with the Solid Edge platform in 2012.

“Very early on, Siemens realised there might be something to crowdsourcing/cocreation,” said Justin Fishkin, chief strategy officer, Local Motors.

“They were testing the concept with Local Motors and since then others have shifted their entire strategy in that direction. Siemens was one of the first,” he added.

“We are deepening our relationship with Solid Edge and more broadly with Siemens PLM for a number of reasons. The first reason is Synchronous Technology. Our community was using all kinds of different file types. It was important to us that we could submit different file types. This was a big part of our decision to go with Solid Edge.”

On Siemens more broadly, Mr Fishkin remarked: “Beyond Solid Edge, their focus on Industry 4.0 is critical because it is not just about one software package or solution, but it is about the entire value chain that we are trying to connect.”

64 EVENT REVIEW

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

Transformation With IoT:

INDUSTRIAL IOT WORLD PARTNER CONFERENCE Advantech emphasised their pursuit of Industrial IoT leadership with Solution Ready Platform (SRP) Initiatives and the sharing platform business model at the 2016 edition of their Industrial IoT World Partner Conference, held in Taipei, Taiwan, from November 10-12, 2016.

THE PREVALENCE OF IOT TECHNOLOGY, THE EXPANDING APPLICATION OF THE SHARING ECONOMY, AND THE GRADUAL ADOPTION OF PLATFORM OPERATIONS FOR CORPORATIONS ARE THE THREE PHASES WHICH WILL TAKE US INTO A NEW EVOLUTION OF IOT.

A

DVANTECH’S 2016 EDITION OF THEIR World Partner Conference was held with great success at the company’s new Linkou Intelligent Campus, in Taiwan, from November 10-12, 2016. In many ways the campus symbolises the company’s future and its commitment to acheive its goals. Designed to help accelerate the IoT and Smart City era, the campus was designed and constructed with the help of industry partners.

Its Solution-Ready Platform (SRP) was a focus together with the company’s GOT A QUESTION? MAKE AN ENQUIRY TURN TO PAGE 72A TO ENQUIRE OR LOG ON TO:

ENQUIRY NUMBER

8903

HTTP://WWW.IAASIAONLINE.COM/

sharing platform business model.

Designed to help accelerate industrial IoT application development.

With nearly 400 partners in attendance the company had the opportunity to demonstrate a plethora of industrial IoT and Industry 4.0 applications at its new Linkou campus. Industrial Equipment M a n u f a c t u r i n g ( I E M ) , I n t e l l i ge n t Networking, Energy and Environment, Transportation, and Smart Manufacturing were some of the major focus sectors, as well as general industrial IoT. The company refers to its focus here as sectorlead business development.

SOLUTION-READY PLATFORM Whilst Advantech started life as a hardware company there is a realisation that its

continuation as a hardware only company no longer makes sense in today’s highly automated, data rich, and software driven age. As KC Liu, CEO, Advantech alluded to the organisation transforming into a more solutions driven organisation, whilst expanding its software business.

With the combination of both hardware and software offerings, the company can focus on providing the complete solution to its customer base.

Advantech, which started as a hardware company, is transforming into an industrial IoT solutions company offering device-to-cloud Solution-Ready Platforms (SRPs) that integrate hardware and middle-ware, with a focus on six major verticles, which include: General Industrial IoT, Industrial Equipment

EVENT REVIEW 65

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

Manufacturing (IEM), Transportation, and iNetworking.

The company was proactive in trying to find consenus at this year’s IIoT WPC with its allied or general partners, in the hope of using its platforms as a base, SRP application solutions as the catalyst, and its sector-lead business organisation model as a means to accurately target the market and provide value-added services for the whole IIoT industry.

KC Liu, CEO, Advantech, stated: “The prevalence of IoT technology, the expanding application of the sharing economy, and the gradual adoption of platform operations for corporations are the three phases which will take us into a new evolution of IoT. Advantech operations are based on the concept of a sharing economy; we regard ourselves as a platform, and we seek to construct an ecosystem and put our key techniques or solutions on the platform to share with our clients so they can make most value out of these resources.”

KC further stated that: “In addition, the platform removes obstacles in the transformation toward intelligent technology for our clients, at the same time as helping us expand IoT technology

to various industries. Among all groups in Advantech, the Industrial IoT (IIoT) group focuses on the Solution Ready Platform (SRP); hardware-software integration as its core technology. With an innovative business model called WebAccess Sharing Platform Alliance, we will cooperate with our partners in the ecosystem to encourage development in several key IIoT vertical industries.”

Linda Tsai, VP, Advantech Industrial IoT Group said: “The business group will make use of the SRP model to help clients speed up development and save time on specific projects. Application products will reach the goal of standardisation, and furthermore assist clients in the system integration industry to fully realise their customised applications. Moreover, in order to respond to the demands of various industries, Advantech will focus on them with our Sector-Lead business organisation for business development. The company is also set to transform and reshape the sales team to better answer to the demand of six vertical industry markets.”

TARGETING KEY VERTICALS Linda further explained that the company will engage in Sector-Lead business

development in order to target: General Industrial IoT, Industrial Equipment Manufacturing (IEM), iFactory, Energy & Environment (E&E), Transportation, and iNetworking. These six major vertical industries or sectors will see the development of application solutions via SRP hardware/software integration.

Industrial Equipment Manufacturing (IEM) IEM provide complete motion control and machine visionary components, including motion control, machine vision, robot controllers and a software development

Delivering On An End-To-End IoT Platform, From Device To Cloud In addition to Advantech’s industrial IoT group, the company has an embedded IoT group and a service IoT group. At the company’s recent embedded IoT event, Embedded IoT Partner Summit, held in Taipei, Taiwan, from October 27-29, 2016, it announced a partnership with ARM on the ARM mbed Cloud service and the mbed IoT Device Platform. By combining Advantech and ARM technologies, this collaboration will accelerate the deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for businesses across a range of sectors.

Chaney Ho, president of Advantech, commented: “The embedded computing industry is changing due to a paradigm shift into the era of IoT, as well as the invention of diverse CPU chipset technologies. Meanwhile, the single board computer market is transforming into an integrated computer system market as a result of time-to-market pressure. Similarly, leading players in the global embedded market have gradually shifted from European to Asian brands, with the selling model changing from design-in to IoT conceptual selling.” mbed Cloud is a standards-based SaaS solution enabling

device management services, while the mbed IoT Device Platform provides a simplified, standards-based model for rapid IoT integration. By integrating mbed Cloud with Advantech WISE-PaaS platform and using mbed OS as the for Advantech M2.COM platform, this collaboration will create a seamless bridge between cloud and device to enable customers to rapidly develop and implement IoT solutions across a broad range of applications.

“Advantech is an important partner for mbed and our collaboration will enable enterprise IoT to scale by securely connecting end node devices to cloud services,” said Krisztian Flautner, VP of strategy, IoT Business, ARM. “By combining our technologies, we will deliver a simplified, standards-based model for rapid IoT integration.”

Advantech has consistently maintained its commitment to ‘Partnering for Smart City and IoT Solutions’. This cooperation with ARM not only demonstrates how the combination of the IoT and cloud services has reached a new milestone, but also creates a synergistic effect for both partners.

66

EVENT REVIEW

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

platform for smart facilities. These technologies help an OEM construct smart facilities swiftly.

iFactory The company prioritises markets with higher automation maturity — those with the capability to incorporate smart factory and Industry 4.0 technologies and concepts such as the automobile assembly industry, the food industry, and the home electronics industry. For traditional industries such as PCB, solar energy, LED, and so on, it introduced Industry 4.0 with open solutions to assist and encourage them to elevate their capability.

Energy & Environment (E&E) Advantech adopts the communication standard IEC 61850 to provide solutions in building the infrastructure of smart electrical grids, aiming for a global rollout.

The company’s products incorporate telecommunication technology such as LORA, Sigfox, and so on, and combined with their expertise in data acquisition and control, help develop many new functions that satisfy the requirement for reliability and security in Industrial IoT communications.

Transportation In every branch of Advantech, the company forms teams to assist their clients and provide suitable products for them using their industry know-how. They cooperate with ecological partners on international RFTs. Its global advantages provide transregional as well as local services.

LOOKING OUTWARD Advantech believes in collaboration, and in developing partnerships to advance its goals of elevating industrial IoT and smart city solutions. The many partners from a broad spectrum of industries and countries were testament to the company’s influence in this field.

It also introduced an all-new online marketing site called IoTMart, which is intended to focus on sales in B2B and B2C solutions for its partners, with the intent of giving SRP application solutions a stronger global presence and influence. Mr Ho remarked that he sees SRPs accounting for 50 percent of the company’s IIoT revenue a decade from now.

Expanding Industrial Connectivity It has been a year since B+B SmartWorx Inc, a privately-held company based in Ottawa, IL, was acquired by Advantech for US$99.85 million. The company joined Advantech’s Industrial IoT Business Group with the aim of developing new products and integrating global sales resources. With this acquisition, Advantech expanded its Industrial Connectivity product portfolio and increased its global market share by leveraging B+B SmartWorx’ branding and sales channels in the US, Europe, and the Middle East.

“Industrial Connectivity is a key to the development of Industrial IoT,” said KC Liu, Chairman of Advantech.

“B+B SmartWorx has had a high level of Industrial Connectivity expertise for many years, and has strong teams in the US and Europe. With the acquisition of B+B SmartWorx, Advantech expects to develop its Industrial Wired Networking & Fiber Infrastructure, and Industrial Wireless Connectivity

Solutions product divisions, and to accelerate the expansion of the Industrial IoT channel business with a target of becoming a leader in the Industrial Networking area.”

At the time of the acquisition, Jerry O’Gorman, CEO of B+B SmartWorx, remarked: “B+B Smartworx has enjoyed a long and fruitful association with Advantech. We are really pleased to join such a strong global leader in the industry. We share a common strategic view on the future of the Industrial IoT market. Our focus on ‘Edge Intelligence’ with our new routers and gateways, together with our Wzzard wireless sensing systems, are a perfect complement to Advantech’s WISE platform. Additionally, our channel forces in the US and Europe are complementary to Advantech’s positioning in Asia. We look forward to serving our many customers with a combined vast offering of products and solutions.”

For exclusive interviews with Linda Tsai and Jerry O’Gorman visit the Features section on iaasiaonline.com

EOS: CAM Software

With its EOSPRINT 2.0, EOS offers a comprehensive AM CAM environment for engineers who want to fully leverage the benefits of Additive Manufacturing with productionready design. The company has integrated numerous improvements and addressed customer requirements in the latest version, particularly in the field of operability.

This makes the initial steps of the actual AM build process easier. Also, users increase their productivity in construction.

Experienced developers also profit from the new EOS ParameterEditor module as part of EOSPRINT: intuitive in its handling and with a large tool set â&#x20AC;&#x201D; for example new exposure strategies can be developed, that offer greater freedom for application-specific parameter optimisation and help improve the part quality.

ENQUIRY NO. 8905

Bosch: Remote Monitoring System Companies operating combined heat and power units can obtain quick and easy access to relevant system data via the Master Energy Control (MEC) Remote web portal. The data can be called up with any commercially available desktop PC or smartphone. The visualisation of current operating values in text form or as a graphic overview ensures that there is a comprehensive overview of the system, as well as convenient and cost-effective remote monitoring. A notification service via SMS or e-mail gives important status reports such as maintenance or faults.

The display of occurrences and historical measured data, together with the possible analysis of efficiency and economy, are also available as an option.

Flexicon: Sanitary High-Lift Box/Container Tipper A new sanitary TIP-TITE High-Lift Box/Container Tipper from Flexicon discharges dust-free into vessels 1830 to 3050 mm above the plant floor.

Boxes and other containers are loaded at floor level and hydraulically seated against a discharge hood. The assembly is then hydraulically elevated and tipped, causing the discharge hood spout to seat against a gasketed receiving ring installed on any receiving vessel or process equipment. Opening of a pneumatically actuated slide gate valve at the spout outlet allows controlled, dust-free discharge, while closing it allows partially empty boxes and containers to be returned to the plant floor.

Constructed of stainless steel finished to food, pharmaceutical or industrial standards, the unit is engineered to perform with fail-safe reliability under constant use in demanding environments.

ENQUIRY NO. 8907

Belden has developed Lumberg Automation M12 Power Connectors as an economical solution for power transmission in harsh environments.

The L-coded M12 Power Connectors of the Lumberg Automation brand are approved in accordance with UL and VDE, and are offered in both straight and angled versions, as well as molded, for customer assembly or as an installation variant. They have an extended operating temperature range of -40 deg C to +125 deg C and are available with protection classes IP65, IP67 or IP69K. The five-pin versions with functional ground are clearly recognisable by a gray cable jacket and gray contact carriers for pins and sockets.

ENQUIRY NO. 8906

Belden: Power Connectors

ENQUIRY NO. 8904

Products&Services

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

Hioki: Digital Multimeter Hioki has announced the launch of a proprietary noncircuit breaker tripping digital multimeter design - Digital Multimeter DT4223 and DT4224. Caution is necessary when using testers to measure electrical voltages. Improperly setting the instrument to its resistance range, for example, when measuring a voltage can cause a power outage by tripping a circuit breaker or result in an electrical accident. By providing a voltage input protection function, the new digital multimeter DT4223 and DT4224 improves safety, preventing electrical accidents caused by operator mistakes and enabling greater peace of mind.

ENQUIRY NO. 8909

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

ENQUIRY NO. 8908

68

Fluke: Thermal Imaging Cameras

Hypertherm: Rotary Tube Pro Tube Cutting Software Hypertherm has announced the release of Rotary Tube Pro, software that makes it easier to design and cut tube and pipe parts with no 3D CAD experience required.

The software features a parametric design interface that allows main tubes and side-wall cutouts to be added from a list of pre-defined shapes. Alternatively, users can add tubes and cutouts directly from a CAD program.

This flexibility means fabricators and manufacturers can enjoy greater productivity by increasing programming speed, and improving cut quality for improved fit-up with fewer secondary operations. The software also includes an optional rotary bevel interface provided with bevel cut charts based on True Bevel technology, which greatly reduce bevel setup time.

Igus: Support Tray Igus has expanded its product range of support trays for secure and maintenance-free operation of unsupported e-chain applications. Uneven surfaces, high dynamic stresses or noise-sensitive environments — support trays help to keep energy chains moving smoothly and safely.

With the latest version, the motion plastics specialist igus now offers a lightweight and long-lasting solution made from corrosion-resistant aluminium, which can be easily adapted to the respective igus energy chain by its flexible width adjustment.

When e-chains operate in ‘unsupported’ mode, support trays enable the lower run of the chain to roll smoothly and securely. In addition to the previously available versions made of galvanised steel and stainless steel, the company now offers a light option made of anodised aluminium.

ENQUIRY NO. 8911

ENQUIRY NO. 8910

Fluke has introduced two new rugged 640 x 480 thermal imaging cameras – four times the resolution power of previous cameras in these categories. These cameras, the Ti480 and TiX580, offer excellent image quality at an affordable price point. Users can now perform thermal imaging inspections with more confidence and faster results.

These cameras are not only Fluke Connect compatible but also include the new Fluke Connect desktop software to optimise and analyse infrared images, and generate quick, customisable reports.

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has introduced a next-generation power module called X-series New Dual HVIGBT module for traction and electric power applications in heavy industries.

The New Dual HVIGBT module will satisfy demand for efficient, high power density semiconductor devices with a range of current and voltage ratings, while contributing to higher power output and efficiency in inverters by adopting the latest seventh-generation IGBTs and RFC diodes. Meanwhile, the standardised package dimensions will allow manufacturers of industrial electronics to simplify design and secure multiple sources for inverters.

Moog Components Group Limited, a division of Moog Inc., has announced the introduction of a new pitch control slip ring. The EPA3 slip ring is the next generation of advanced slip ring products specifically developed for the wind energy market. It is well suited for both large and small wind turbines.

A key advantage of the Moog slip ring is its high reliability, modular design that can be scaled and optimised for most requirements. The slip ring provides the most advanced contact technology available in the market while extending the life of the product to reduce field maintenance. No maintenance (cleaning) is required.

Nexeo Solutions has announced the launch of www. nexeo3d.com. The site provides exclusive access to Arnitel ID and Novamid ID, premium filament grades specifically designed by DSM for the 3D printing market.

The new e-commerce platform enables customers to buy filaments or order samples. The companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s years of experience of working with a wide range of thermoplastic materials plus DSMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deep material technology and application know-how delivers in-depth content to help guide customers to selecting the right material for their needs.

Panasonic: Handheld Tablet Panasonic has announced the launch of the Panasonic Toughpad FZ-N1. Its smallest Toughpad device to date, the 4.7-inch Panasonic Toughpad FZ-N1 handheld tablet can be held and operated in one hand. It weighs well below 280g, and comes packed with productivity features in an ergonomically-designed case. With its integrated angled rear barcode reader which enhances user protection and productivity, this device is well-suited for workers in the logistics and transportation sectors.

The angled rear barcode reader on the Panasonic Toughpad FZ-N1 reduces the risk of repetitive strain injuries by removing the need for users to bend at the elbow or wrist when scanning.

ENQUIRY NO. 8915

ENQUIRY NO. 8912

Moog: Pitch Control Slip Ring

ENQUIRY NO. 8914

Mitsubishi Electric: Power Module

Nexeo: 3D Printing Filaments

69

ENQUIRY NO. 8913

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

industrial automation asia | December 16/January 2017

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

ENQUIRY NO. 8917

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

ENQUIRY NO. 8916

70

Siemens: Human Machine Interface

Siko: Position Indicators The AP05 is the most compact of all busco m p a t i b le p o s i t i o n indicators from Siko. As the successor to the AP04, the AP05 offers the same space-saving attachment dimensions, as well as being attachment-compatible. The user now experiences maximal ergonomics in order to quickly and intuitively reach the target position. A significant new element of the AP05 — an inverted, backlit LCD display — has been integrated for this reason. The lighting ensures that the values for the target and actual position are ideally legible, even in low light conditions.

Along with the LCD directional arrow, the AP05 position indicator also offers intuitive user guidance via the right and left status LEDs, both integrated into the case and in two colours.

ENQUIRY NO. 8918

Seeq Corporation has announced the release of R15, the newest version of Seeq, an application for engineers and operations analysts in process manufacturing to rapidly achieve insights from asset and operations data.

R15 accelerates all aspects of the user and organisation experience with Seeq, enabling broader adoption of current deployments in the oil & gas, pharmaceutical, chemical, energy, and food and beverage industries.

Seeq R15 delivers features and capabilities addressing the span of requirements for larger and broader deployments for existing users, as well as making Seeq easier to deploy for new users.

ENQUIRY NO. 8919

Siemens is complementing its industrial operator control and monitoring devices with new Simatic Flat Panel monitors and Simatic Panel PCs in multi-touch, 16:9 widescreen format. The new versions are the Simatic Panel PC IPC277E with 15 and 19 inch displays, and the Simatic Panel PC IPC477E and Simatic Flat Panel IFP monitors with 15, 19 and 22 inch displays.

The slimline design Human Machine Interface (HMI) devices, with a full glass front and brilliant imaging, are used on series and special machine, as well as in plant engineering for modern operating concepts. These are increasingly based on intuitive, efficient single and multi-finger, gesture or two-hands operation on multitouch and widescreen devices.

Seeq: Software Application

STMicroelectronics: Automotive Chips STMicroelectronics Accordo 5 family of automotive processors meet crucial display-performance and security demands in a low-power compact platform suitable for lower-cost vehicles. The devices enable digital instrument clusters and Audio/Video/Navigation (AVN) head units to become more affordable than ever by integrating the complete graphics, video, and audio functionality on-chip to save design costs and simplify assembly.

Accordo 5 devices provide features that have high value for car drivers, including smartphone mirroring that gives access to content such as music and navigation services on the phone safely through the vehicle’s own user interface. The host processor and high-performance video and graphics engines can present complex information displays, such as simultaneous user-interface plus rear-view camera with navigation and video preview.

CalendarofEvents

2017 JANUARY

18-20

Nepcon Japan 2017

Tokyo International Exhibition Center, (Tokyo Big Sight), 3-21-1 Ariake, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0063, Japan Email: info@reedexpo.co.jp Web: www.reedexpo.co.jp/en/

FEBRUARY

8-10

Semicon Korea 2017

COEX, Seoul, South Korea Email: semiconkorea@semi.org Web: www.semiconkorea.org

29-31

HVACR/PS Vietnam 2017

Saigon Exhibition & Convention Centre (SECC), 79 Nguyen Van Linh Parkway, Tan Phu Ward, District 7, Hochi Minh City, Vietnam Email: singapore@informa.com Web: www.informaexhibitions.com

29-1

Inapa Jakarta 2017

Jakarta International Expo (JIExpo), Gedung Pusat Niaga Lt., 1 Arena PRJ Kemayoran Jakarta 10620, Indonesia Email: info@gem-indonesia.com Web: www.gem-indonesia.com

19-21

APRIL MARCH

1-3

SIAF Guangzhou 2017

China Import and Export Fair Complex, 380 Yuejiang Zhong Road, Haizhu District, Guangzhou, China Email: info@hongkong.messefrankfurt.com Web: www.spsinchina.com

15-17

Electric, Power & Renewable Energy Malaysia 2017

4-7

Buildtech Yangon 2017

Singapoe Expo, Singapore Email: juliet@sesallworld.com Web: www.mta-asia.com

Myanmar Convention Centre, Mindhamma Road, Marankone Township, Yangon, Myanmar (Burma) Email: sphere@sph.com.sg Web: www.sphereexhibits.com.sg

20-21

23-25

MTA Asia 2017

SMART-FMSE (Facilities Management Solutions Expo) 2017 Marina Bay Sands, 10 Bayfront Avenue, Singapore 018956, Singapore Email: sphere@sph.com.sg Web: www.sphereexhibitis.com.sg

Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC), Kuala Lumpur City Centre Email: info@klccconventioncentre.com Web: www.klccconventioncentre.com

MAY

21-23

Inatronics 2017

Propak Vietnam 2017

Saigon Exhibition & Convention Centre (SECC), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Email: events@sesallworld.com Web: www.propakvietnam.com

29-30

IoT Asia 2017

Singapore Expo, 1 Expo Drive, Singapore 486150, Singapore Email: enquiries@singex.com Web: www.singex.com

Communicasia 2017

Marina Bay Sands, 10 Bayfront Avenue, Singapore 018956, Singapore Email: events@sesallworld.com Web: www.sesallworld.com

JUNE

17-19 Jakarta International Expo (JIExpo), Gedung Pusat Niaga Lt., 1 Arena PRJ Kemayoran Jakarta 10620, Indonesia Email: info@gem-indonesia.com Web: www.gem-indonesia.com

7-10

ASEAN Sustainable Energy Week 2017

Bangkok International Trade & Exhibition Centre (BITEC), 8 Bangna-Trad Road (Km.1), Bangna, Bangkok 10260, Thailand Email: info@cmpthailand.com Web: www.ubmthailand.com

TO BE CONSIDERED FOR INCLUSION OF THE CALENDAR OF EVENTS, SEND DETAILS OF EVENT (NAME, DATE, VENUE, ORGANISER CONTACT) TO:

THE EDITOR IAA

EASTERN TRADE MEDIA PTE LTD 12 HOY FATT ROAD, #03-01, BRYTON HOUSE, SINGAPORE 159506 TEL: (65) 6379 2888 | FAX: (65) 6379 2886 | EMAIL: IAA@EPL.COM.SG

72 ADVERTISING INDEX

December 16/January 2017 | industrial automation asia

I N D E X ADVERTISER

PAGE NO

ENQ NO

BAUMER (SINGAPORE) PTE LTD

59

1066

BINDERS CONNECTOR SOUTH EAST ASIA LLP

51

1057

CONTEC CO LTD

13

1061

DI-SORIC GMBH & CO KG

33

1067

FLUKE SOUTH EAST ASIA PTE LTD

IFC

1060

IFM ELECTRONICS PTE LTD

41

1059

IGUS SINGAPORE PTE LTD

IBC

1058

KEYSIGHT TECHNOLOGIES SINGAPORE (SALES) PTE LTD

07

0975

MALAYSIA EXHIBITION SERVICES SDN BHD (EPRE 2017)

21

1069

MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC ASIA PTE LTD

05

1002

MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC ASIA PTE LTD (CC-LINK PARTNER ASSOCIATION (ASEAN)

BC

1048

NEWPORT OPTO-ELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGIES (S) PTE LTD

37

1064

OMRON ASIA PACIFIC PTE LTD

02/03

1068

PANDUIT SINGAPORE PTE LTD

01

1062

PULS PTE LTD

15

1045

SCHAEFFLER (SINGAPORE) PTE LTD

11

0929

SICK PTE LTD

09

1063

SINGAPORE EXHIBITION SERVICES PTE LTD (MTA 2017)

23

1065

ADVERTISING SALES OFFICES HEAD OFFICE

SINGAPORE EASTERN TRADE MEDIA PTE LTD 12 Hoy Fatt Road #03-01, Bryton House Singapore 159506 Tel: (65) 6379 2888 Fax: (65) 6379 2886 SINGAPORE: salesIAA@epl.com.sg

MEDIA REPRESENTATIVES JAPAN: Ted Asoshina Echo Japan Corporation Tel: 81-3-32635065 Fax: 81-3-32342064 aso@echo-japan.co.jp

KOREA: Young-Seoh Chinn Jes Media International Tel: 82-2-481 3411/3 Fax: 82-2-481 3414 jesmedia@unitel.co.kr

TAIWAN: Robert Yu Worldwide Services Co Ltd Tel: 886-4-23251784 Fax: 886-4-23252967 sales@wwstaiwan.com The closing date for placing advertisements is not less than FOUR WEEKS before the date of publication.

Please contact our nearest advertising office for more details.

This index is provided as an additional service. The publisher does not assume any liability for errors or omissions.

Recommend another industry professional to receive FREE copy of Industrial Automation Asia You only need to complete the below form and return it to our Singapore office via fax: (65) 6379 2886 or post: EASTERN TRADE MEDIA PTE LTD 12 Hoy Fatt Road, #03-01, Bryton House, Singapore 159506 Attn: The Circulation Executive Name: ___________________________________________________________________________ Signature: ________________________ Job Title: _____________________________________________ Company: ____________________________________________________ Address: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Tel: __________________________________________________ Fax: _________________________________________________________ Email: ________________________________________________ Website: _____________________________________________________ Product / Services: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________

www.iaasiaonline.com

YOUR READER REGISTRATION NO.

ENTER PRODUCT ENQUIRY NUMBERS HERE FOR FAST INFORMATION! Kindly enquire online @ www.iaasiaonline.com or complete and post to: Eastern Trade Media Pte Ltd, 12 Hoy Fatt Road, #03-01, Bryton House, Singapore 159506 or fax to: (65) 6379 2886 (Singapore) December 16/January 2017

To: The Circulation Executive, Circulation Department, Name: (Surname)

(Given names) ATTACH

Job Title:

Do you want to receive (continue to receive) Industrial Automation Asia? ❑ YES ❑ NO (Not valid without signature)

BUSINESS

Company Name:

CARD

Business Address:

Signature ___________________ Date__________

Country: Telephone:

Fax:

E-mail:

FAX OR POST FOR INFORMATION

ENTER INFORMATION CARD NUMBER(S)

TYPES OF PRODUCTS TO BE PURCHASED IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS ❍ Motion & Drives ❍ Detection Instruments ❍ I/O Products ❍ Automation Software ❍ Machine Safety ❍ Systems & Architectures

✔ Tick one box only ❑ ❑ 500 ❑ 505 ❑ 510 ❑ 515 ❑ 520 ❑ 525 ❑ 530 ❑ 535 ❑ 540 ❑ 545 ❑ 550

❍ PLM Products ❍ Others

MAIN INDUSTRY SECTOR

Semi-Conductor Foundry Services Semi- Conductor Equipment Mfg Electrical & Electronics Mfg Automated Assembly Precision Engineering & Sub-contracting Aerospace Automotive Material,Storage & Handling Systems Design & Programme Building and Construction Rubber & Plastic Manufacturing

❑ 555 ❑ 560 ❑ 565 ❑ 570 ❑ 575 ❑ 580 ❑ 585 ❑ 590 ❑ 595 ❑ 600 ❑ 605

Assembly/Packaging Food & Beverage Processing Pulp & Paper Oil & Gas Production Power Generation Chemical and Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Environmental Management Water & Waste Water Management & Recycling Shipbuilding & Repair Trade Association/Institutions/Government Agency Agents/Distributors/Representatives

❑ 610 Others (Please specify)

✔ Tick one box only ❑ MY JOB FUNCTION IS ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑

50 52 54 56

❑ 72

Executive Management Maintenance Engineering Manufacturing Engineering Design Engineering

❑ ❑ ❑ ❑

58 60 62 64

Packaging Engineering Process Engineering System Support Engineering Testing & Inspection/Quality Control

❑ 66 Purchasing/Sourcing ❑ 68 Research & Development ❑ 70 Sales & Marketing

Others (Please specify) Do you

❑ recommend

❑ decide

❑ specify on new product purchases?

THE NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES AT OUR COMPANY/FACTORY IS 1 ❑ 1-10

2 ❑ 11-30

3 ❑ 31-50

4 ❑ 51-100

5 ❑ 101-499

6 ❑ 500 or more

www.iaasiaonline.com

SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

OR

SUBSCRIPTION RATES AIRMAIL (1 YEAR – EIGHT ISSUES) ■ Singapore/Malaysia S$60.00

ONLINE @ www.iaasiaonline.com

■ Asia Pacific/America/Europe/Others S$100.00

(GST Applicable)

Name: (Surname) ________________________________________ (Given Name) ___________________________ Company: ______________________________________________ Job Title: _______________________________ Address: ________________________________________________________________________________________ Country: _______________________________________________ Telephone No: __________________________ E-mail:_________________________________________________ Fax No: ________________________________ Commencing From: ____________ (Year) ___________ (Month)

I wish to pay by: Cheque - made payable to Eastern Trade Media Pte Ltd

❑

❑

Telegraphic Transfer Payment

Cardholder’s Name ________________________________

SGD/EURO

USD

❑

Credit Card ❑ Amex

Bank: United Overseas Bank Limited, Singapore Account Swift Code: UOVBSGSG A/C Name: EASTERN TRADE MEDIA PTE LTD A/C No : 451-903-681-3 Branch Code: 001 Bank Code: 7375 Bank Address: 80 Raffles Place, UOB Plaza 1 Singapore 048624 Bank: UOB MARINA SQUARE Swift Code: UOVBSGSG A/C Name: EASTERN TRADE MEDIA PTE LTD A/C No : 921-343-851-0 Branch Code: 037 Bank Code: 7375 Bank Address: 6 Raffles Boulevard #01-210/211 Marina Square S(039594)

❑ Visa

❑ Mastercard

Number

Security ID –

Receipt will only be issued upon request!

Expiry Date

Signature

Mail or Fax this form to: Circulation Department, Eastern Trade Media Pte Ltd

12 Hoy Fatt Road, #03-01, Bryton House, Singapore 159506 Fax: (65) 6379 2886

YOUR BUSINESS ACTIVITY ❑ 500 ❑ 505 ❑ 510 ❑ 515 ❑ 520 ❑ 525 ❑ 530 ❑ 535 ❑ 540 ❑ 545 ❑ 550 ❑ 555

Semi-Conductor Foundry Services Semi-Conductor Equipment Mfg Electrical & Electronics Mfg Automated Assembly Precision Engineering & Sub-contracting Aerospace Automotive Material,Storage & Handling Systems Design & Programme Building and Construction Rubber & Plastic Manufacturing Assembly/Packaging

❑ 560 ❑ 565 ❑ 570 ❑ 575 ❑ 580 ❑ 585 ❑ 590 ❑ 595 ❑ 600 ❑ 605 ❑ 610

Food & Beverage Processing Pulp & Paper Oil & Gas Production Power Generation Chemical and Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Environmental Management Water & Waste Water Management & Recycling Shipbuilding & Repair Trade Association/Institutions/Government Agency Agents/Distributors/Representatives Others (Please be specific)

YOUR JOB FUNCTION ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑

50 52 54 56 58 60

Executive Management Maintenance Engineering Manufacturing Engineering Design Engineering Packaging Engineering Process Engineering

❑ ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑

62 64 66 68 70 72

(Please tick)

(Please tick)

System Support Engineering Testing & Inspection/Quality Control Purchasing/Sourcing Research & Development Sales & Marketing Others (Please be specific)

SIZE OF COMPANY (Please tick) ❑ 001 1 – 10

❑ 002 11 – 30

❑ 003 31 – 50

❑ 004 51 – 100

❑ 005 101 – 499

❑ 006 500 or more

zero Largest Test Lab. Widest Choice. 36 Month Guarantee.

... zero Downtime ... From #1 in moving cables.

TORSION

FOC

CAT7

MEASURING

BUS

Zero Downtime solutions for your toughest moving cables: chainflex cables are developed and tested in the industry’s largest test lab. With 600 parallel tests on 2750 m2, 1.4 million electric measurements and 2 billion cycles per year, you find cables that solve your toughest "zero downtime" challenge. And with up to 7 motion quality classes, you find just the right cable for your application - for less money. 1244 cables from stock make chainflex the largest motion cable range - for torsion, motor, servo, hybrid, control, data, BUS, ethernet and FOC cables. Calculate life online and order today with a 36 month guarantee. plastics for longer life Check out more than 30 interesting test reports here: www.igus-asean.com/chainflextests ®

®

®

igus Singapore Pte Ltd 84 Genting Lane #06-03 Cityneon Design Centre ®

Singapore 349584 Fax +65 6487 1511 info@igus.com.sg Free Sample: Tel. +65 6487 1411

ENQUIRY NO. 1058

HYBRID

Open automation network technology leader | CC-Link IE

The only open gigabit Ethernet ready for Industry 4.0 and Asia

CC-Link IE is the only open gigabit Ethernet available today and proven for over five years in demanding applications in Asia. So, why gigabit?

• Maximum bandwidth for Industry 4.0 applications • Open development & product support • SLMP technology reduces time to market.

CC-Link IE is supported by leading automation vendors such as:

15th All third party trademarks and/or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners and acknowledged.

ENQUIRY NO. 1048