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years in business

Vol. 68 Number 1

JANUARY 2021

ANSWERS 20 | PLCs power industrial data integration 24 | Using IIoT for a more energy-efficiency pump environment

COVER: Next-generation PLCs, like the AutomationDirect BRX Series, use OT and IT communication protocols and security features to enable seamless data integration. With the free programming software, users can configure the BRX (with or without classic I/O) to also act as a data gateway. Courtesy: AutomationDirect

INSIGHTS 6 | International: Manufacturing digital transformation may start with consulting NEWS

8 | LED developed for direct integration into computer chips; Robots helping manufacture overflow healthcare, quarantine infrastructures; Headlines online 12 | Technology Update: Direct-drive vs. geared-rotary servomotor: A quantification of design advantage: Part 2

p.24

26 | How to keep machines operating during stoppages and power disruptions 29 | Five ways automation helps manufacturers during COVID-19 38 | How advanced digital twin technology narrows the industrial skills gap 41 | Industrial automation unites the best of OT and IT p.38

16 | Technology Update: How robots help additive manufacturers add precision

INSIDE PROCESS

19 | Think Again: Hot topics in Control Engineering for 2020

P1 | Eight tips for process automation success

CONTROL ENGINEERING (ISSN 0010-8049, Vol. 68, No. 1, GST #123397457) is published 11x per year, Monthly, except in November, by CFE Media, LLC, 3010 Highland Parkway, Suite #325 Downers Grove, IL 60515. Jim Langhenry, Group Publisher/Co-Founder; Steve Rourke CEO/COO/Co-Founder. CONTROL ENGINEERING copyright 2021 by CFE Media, LLC. All rights reserved. CONTROL ENGINEERING is a registered trademark of CFE Media, LLC used under license. Periodicals postage paid at Downers Grove, IL 60515 and additional mailing offices. Circulation records are maintained at 3010 Highland Parkway, Suite #325 Downers Grove, IL 60515. Telephone: 630/571-4070. E-mail: ctle@omeda.com. Postmaster: send address changes to CONTROL ENGINEERING, PO Box 348, Lincolnshire, IL 60069. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40685520. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: PO Box 348, Lincolnshire, IL 60069. Email: ctle@omeda.com. Rates for nonqualified subscriptions, including all issues: USA, $165/yr; Canada/Mexico, $200/yr (includes 7% GST, GST#123397457); International air delivery $350/yr. Except for special issues where price changes are indicated, single copies are available for $30 US and $35 foreign. Please address all subscription mail to CONTROL ENGINEERING, PO Box 348, Lincolnshire, IL 60069. Printed in the USA. CFE Media, LLC does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any person for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions in the material contained herein, regardless of whether such errors result from negligence, accident or any other cause whatsoever.

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JANUARY 2021

INNOVATIONS NEW PRODUCTS FOR ENGINEERS

44 | Linear motor series; Servo drive and motor series; Passive

distribution junction blocks; Industrial pressure transmitter; pH sensor for lab, critical applications; Industrial PC for rugged environments; Smart RFID reader; Multi-circuit power and energy meter; Raspberry Pi compute module; Built-in programmable controllers See more New Products for Engineers at www.controleng.com/NPE.

BACK TO BASICS

47 | How digital twins can help process simulations

Digital twins can help model-based technologies provide a basis for continuous process optimization and efficient plant operation.

NEWSLETTER: Information Control • AMP upgrades to edge controllers • Best practices matter when designing control systems • HMI, IIoT and AR technologies: Parts of the Industry 4.0 revolution • Migrating legacy PLC programs to modern PLC hardware • Optimizing materials design with minimal data Keep up with emerging trends: subscribe. www.controleng.com/newsletters.

Control Engineering eBook series: AI & Machine Learning eBook Winter Edition Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are becoming crucial to manufacturing’s success. How a machine and an industrial network learn and adapt to their surroundings is as important for them as it is for humans. Featured articles in this eBook include stories on improving automation safety, AI-based maintenance and using human and artificial intelligence with digital twins. Learn more, register to download: www.controleng.com/ebooks/

CFE EDU: Virtual Training Week On-Demand Did you miss the live event? You can still attend CFE Media and Technology’s Virtual Training Week on-demand to receive training on a variety of the latest industry trends. Register and receive full access to exclusive content offered by industry experts with live Q&A sessions! Check out the course catalog today: https://cfeedu.cfemedia.com/learning-paths/ cfe-media-technology-virtual-training-week

Global System Integrator Report Supplement to December Control Engineering and Plant Engineering Advice from automation and control system integrators with System Integrator of the Year for 2021, System Integrator Giants and more. www.controleng.com/GSIR

controleng.com provides new, relevant automation, controls, and instrumentation content daily, access to databases for new products and system integrators, and online training.

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INSIGHTS INTERNATIONAL

Stone Shi, Control Engineering China

Consulting on digital transformation Help needed for effective digital transformation? Most Chinese manufacturing enterprises have plan.

verything will be digital in the future. IDC predicts more than 60% of global GDP will be digital by the end of 2022. In June 2020, a media survey of chief information officers of nearly 600 Chinese manufacturing enterprises showed more than 99% of the enterprise leaders supported the digital transformation, and more than 70% of enterprises had a strategic plan for digital transformation. However, digital transformation is full of difficulties and challenges. Some international research institutions believe less than 30% of the global digital transformation programs have been successful. In China, some experts even said that only 9% of the 40% of the enterprises in digital transformation in China are successful, and the real data may be lower.

Help wanted for digital transformation

For digital transformation of enterprises, “Do not know how to do” is the most common problem. Some enterprises regard digitalization as simple technical engineering of data flow for process control production. Some enterprises equate digitalization with the establishment of online channels and e-malls. Confusing beginnings often result in poor returns on investments (ROI), which discourages other companies from investing in the digital space. Many concepts, theories and technologies relate to digital transformation, such as Industry 4.0, intelligent manufacturing, interconnected enterprises, industrial internet, edge computKEYWORDS: Digital ing, artificial intelligence, industrial cloud transformation for platform, digital twins, artificial intelligence manufacturing of things (AIoT), industrial data centers and Digital transformation others. New concepts are always emerging, includes a large array of which creates confusion and makes the digitechnologies and integration. tal transformation path hazy. Consulting firms and automation providers How should manufacturers begin on the offer digital transformation road of digital transformation? If the transconsulting. formation success rate is 30%, how should Creating a roadmap for manufacturers choose the right digital transdigital transformation can formation solutions for industrial enterprises? increase probability of Digital transformation for manufacturing success. enterprises may begin with consulting. CONSIDER THIS Digital consulting can help companies Seeking help for digital find success using rich practical experience transformation make and methods appropriate for a manufacturaccelerate opportunities over competitors. ing enterprise, carrying out suitable scientific planning, and gradually promoting it accordONLINE ing to a roadmap, adjusting and communiwww.controleng.com/ cating as needed to ensure a successful digital international

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transformation implementation. In the field of enterprise-oriented consulting, there are many well-known international companies. In the face of the current trend of digital and intelligent manufacturing, these consulting companies also have launched digital transformation consulting, and claimed many successful cases. For example, Accenture put forward the digital transformation service system of “Industry X.0” in 2017, which helps the transformation of enterprise business model from the aspects of digital R&D, digital production, digital supply chain and digital service. According to Accenture, it has developed a detailed digital roadmap for a large oil and gas company based on the “Industry X.0” approach to change the way the business operates, achieving billions of dollars in revenue and reducing millions of tons of emissions. Consulting firm McKinsey, in partnership with the World Economic Forum (WEF), publishes “Lighthouse Factory” annually, forming a global “best practice” learning platform. In China, it cooperated with Tsinghua University and other units to establish a digital capability development center in 2017, to help Chinese enterprises successfully upgrade the manufacturing industry through digital transformation.

Automation vendors transform, too

Beyond consulting firms, giants in the manufacturing industry and the digital field have launched consulting services, including Lenovo, Schneider Electric and Siemens. (See more details and examples for each with this article online.)

Clarify digital transformation, consider digital transformation help

The complexity of industrial sites and the uncertainty of technological developments adds complexity to each enterprise’s digital transformation; it cannot be achieved overnight. Manufacturing digital transformation is a long-term project that requires a high degree of integration with what already exists in the enterprise. Before starting digital transformation, it may be wise to seek digital consultation first. Gaining digital transformation knowledge will undoubtedly increase probability of success for the digital transformation of enterprises. ce

Stone Shi is executive editor-in-chief, Control Engineering China; edited by Mark T. Hoske, content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology , mhoske@cfemedia.com. www.controleng.com

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INSIGHTS

NEWS

LED developed for direct integration into computer chips Light-emitting diodes – LEDs – can do con is in the fourth column.) These semimore than illuminate your living room. conductors are more optically efficient These light sources are useful microelec- than silicon – they produce more light tronics, too. Smartphones, for example, from a given amount of energy. can use an LED proximity sensor to deterWhile the proximity sensor is a fracmine if you’re holding the phone next to tion of the size of the phone’s silicon proyour face to turn off the screen. The LED cessor, it adds significantly to the phone’s sends a pulse of light toward your face, overall cost. “There’s an entirely different and a timer in the phone measures how fabrication process that’s needed, and it’s long it takes that light to reflect back to the a separate factory that manufactures that phone, a proxy for how close the phone is one part,” said professor Rajeev Ram. “So to your face. LEDs the goal would be: are also handy for Can you put all this The LED sent signals at distance measuretogether in one sysment in autofocus tem?” Ram’s team frequencies up to 250 cameras and gesture did just that. recognition. Jin Xue, a PhD megahertz; it could be One problem student in RLE, with LEDs: It’s tough designed a siliconused for sensing and data based LED with to make them from silicon. That means specially engineered applications. LED sensors must junctions – the conbe manufactured tacts between difseparately from their device’s silicon-based ferent zones of the diode – to enhance processing chip, often at a hefty price. But brightness. This boosted efficiency: The that could one day change, thanks to new LED operates at low voltage, but it still research from MIT’s Research Labora- produces enough light to transmit a sigtory of Electronics (RLE). The research- nal through 5 meters of fiber optic cable. ers have fabricated a silicon chip with fully Plus, Global Foundries manufactured the integrated LEDs, bright enough to enable LEDs right alongside other silicon microstate-of-the-art sensor and communication electronic components, including trantechnologies. The advance could lead to sistors and photon detectors. While Xue’s streamlined manufacturing and to also bet- LED didn’t quite outshine a traditional ter performance for nanoscale electronics. III-V semiconductor LED, it easily beat Silicon is widely used in computer out prior attempts at silicon-based LEDs. chips because it’s abundant, cheap, and a “Our optimization process of how to semiconductor, meaning it can alternately make a better silicon LED had quite an block and allow the flow of electrons. This improvement over past reports,” Xue said. capacity to switch between “off ” and “on” The silicon LED could also switch on and underlies a computer’s ability to perform off faster than expected, he said. The team calculations. But despite silicon’s excellent used the LED to send signals at frequencies electronic properties, it doesn’t quite shine up to 250 megahertz, indicating that the when it comes to optical properties – sili- technology could potentially be used for con makes for a poor light source. So elec- sensing applications and also for efficient trical engineers often turn away from the data transmission. Xue’s team plans to conmaterial when they need to connect LED tinue developing the technology. He said, technologies to a device’s computer chip. “It’s already great progress.” The LED in your smartphone’s proxRam envisions a day when LED techimity sensor, for example, is made from nology can be built right onto a device’s III-V semiconductors, so called because silicon processor – no separate factory they contain elements from the third and needed. “This is designed in a standard fifth columns of the periodic table. (Sili- microelectronics process,” he said. “It’s a

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control engineering

really integrated solution.” In addition to cheaper manufacturing, the advance could improve LED performance and efficiency as electronics shrink to ever smaller scales. That’s because, at a microscopic scale, III-V semiconductors have non-ideal surfaces, riddled with “dangling bonds” that allow energy to be lost as heat rather than as light, according to Ram. In contrast, silicon forms a cleaner crystal surface. “We can take advantage of those very clean surfaces,” Ram said. “It’s useful enough to be competitive for these microscale applications.” Ram is confident that his team can continue fine-tuning the technology, so that one day LEDs will be cheaply and efficiently integrated into silicon chips as the industry standard. “We don’t think we’re anywhere close to the end of the line here,” Ram said. “We have ideas and results pointing to significant improvements.” ce Daniel Ackerman, MIT News Office. Edited by Chris Vavra, web content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, cvavra@cfemedia.com.

Headlines online Top 5 Control Engineering Articles Dec. 14-20, 2020 Most-viewed articles this week include stories on legacy PLC programs to modern PLC hardware, system integrators reducing maintenance costs, flowmeter testing and calibrating challenges. Lithium batteries developed to survive extreme cold temperatures Tadiran has developed bobbin-type lithium thionyl chloride (LiSOCl2) batteries that have been specially modified for use in the cold chain, which is required for transporting the COVID-19 vaccine. Grant given to design ultrahigh temperature tolerant alloys A team of Texas A&M University researchers are investigating a class of metals, called refractory high entropy alloys (RHEAS), that can withstand higher operating temperatures. www.controleng.com

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INSIGHTS

Digital edition? Click on headlines for more details. See news daily at www.controleng.com

NEWS

Robots helping manufacture overflow A research effort led by a team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) aims to improve manufacturing of rapidly deployed structures to address future shortages of medical care and quarantine facilities, as well as housing needs following a disaster. This project is developing a group of self-aware, human-directed robots to assist in manufacturing, and is being funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) through the Advanced Robots for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute. The stress that COVID-19 has placed on U.S. medical facilities highlights the need for safe, convenient, and functional surge capacity that can be used for hospital care or quarantine during a public health crisis. The Rensselaer team will support Pvilion, a company based in Brooklyn, New York, in producing self-erecting, solarpowered structures that can be configured to suit the needs of a specific mission, including providing critical care, shelter,

quarantine, infection control, or other functions. Pvilion is working with the U.S. Air Force Rapid Sustainment Office. Manufacturing these structures requires manipulating and joining multiple pieces of large, heavy, waterproof fabric. The Rensselaer team will design, build, and program a team of small robots capable of holding the material, rotating it, and pulling it taut while it is being heat sealed. The robots will work in coordination, guided by humans, using software and algorithms developed and built by Rensselaer researchers. “We’ll know the location of each robot, we’ll know which direction they are pointed, and we will know which direction they are exerting forces,” said Glenn Saunders, a senior research engineer within the Center for Automation Technologies and Systems at Rensselaer, who leads the project with John Wen, head of the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering.

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“The swarm behavior happens when the robots begin pulling and rotating the fabric at the sewing machine or heat sealer.” The Rensselaer team and Pvilion will also work with Albany Medical College (AMC), which not only has expertise in health care, but also in caring for COVID19 patients specifically. The AMC team will share its medical perspective to improve the design of the structure. This research is being expedited within a oneyear timeline to address current challenges brought about by the pandemic. Saunders said, “These robots will enable faster production of a structure that could give medical teams the extra space they need to respond to a pandemic like the one we’re currently experiencing.” ce Torie Wells, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Edited by Chris Vavra, web content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, cvavra@cfemedia.com.

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input #8 at www.controleng.com/information

INSIGHTS

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE: MOTORS AND DRIVES Dakota Miller and Bryan Knight, Yaskawa America Inc.

Direct-drive vs. geared-rotary servomotor: Design quantification Part 2: Testing a direct-drive and geared-rotary servomotor shows significant differences in practice.

geared servomotor competes head-tohead with a direct-drive servomotor using the same load, motion profile and mounting fixture, simulating a real-world application to determine if the performance advantages of the direct-drive system outweigh the higher initial cost. (In part 1, the case for decreasing backlash and increasing torsional stiffness was presented.) For this test, the following evaluation criteria were considered: • Positioning accuracy • Backlash • Settling time • Cycle time • Machine cost and payback time • Design complexity. For this test, a servo system was created representative of an indexing table application where the table has high rotational inertia. The load inertia, root mean squared (RMS) torque, and speed requirements were chosen such that a gearmotor and direct-drive servomotor would both operate near their rated limits. To measure the positioning accuracy and cycle time of this simulated “machine,” an external encoder was affixed to the load to precisely measure the position of the load itself. This external encoder was not used in closing the position loop, but only as an independent measuring tool for the

Figure 1: Example of a tested motion profile. Courtesy: Yaskawa America

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test. Performance differences were quantified using the data gathered from both the motor encoders and load side ring encoder feedback. Before designing the actual test hardware, a gearmotor and a direct-drive motor were chosen for comparison. These motors were selected as the 50:1 gear reduction gives the gearmotor comparable torque, speed and overall size to the direct-drive motor, as seen in Table 1. Based on these characteristics, it is no stretch of the imagination that both of these motors could be competing against one another to control an axis on a new machine. After selecting the motors and motion profile, the servomotor sizing software was used to find a load inertia to push both motors nearly to their rated limits, ensuring that neither motor was over or undersized for the application. The motion profile selected was a trapezoidal indexing move of 45 degrees in 200 ms followed by 300 ms of dwell, a motion profile similar to what one might see on a large indexing table in an assembly, inspection, or packaging application. This motion profile can be seen graphed in Figure 1. Using the target load inertia value as a design-to criterion, a dummy load was designed that would both push the motors to their RMS torque limit and allow for the external ring encoder to be attached to the load. Figure 2 shows the test setup with the gearmotor and Figure 3 shows the test setup with the direct-drive motor. For this test, the average settling time is defined to be the time elapsed between when the commanded motion signal ended and when the load had settled to within a tolerance window of the goal position. As seen in Table 2, the load driven by the direct-drive motor settled much faster on average than when driven by the gearmotor. The second metric, total move time, is defined here as the time elapsed between the start of commanded motion to when the load had settled within a tolerance window of the goal position. The total move time is the sum of the commanded move time and the settling time, shown above. Table 3 shows the direct-drive motor had a shorter moving time than the gearmotor, despite having the same commanded motion profile. For machine operations with short cycle times, the settling time advantage becomes more significant. In this test, even a conservative cycle time of www.controleng.com

Figure 2 (a and b): Test setup with gearmotor. Courtesy: Yaskawa America

500 ms with a move time of 200 ms provides an impressive point for comparison. Figures 4 and 5 depict the oscillation of the load that occurred at the end of the motion for both the gearmotor and direct-drive motor. The gearmotor showed damped oscillation at the end of the move, typical of this mechanical configuration, whereas the direct-drive motor had virtually no vibration. This difference in vibration amplitude and duration was seen uniformly across all tests. The visible oscillation and additional settling time required by the gearmotor is attributed to a combination of backlash and finite torsional stiffness seen in the gearbox. In fact, the backlash is visible in Figure 4 as seen by the load position leading the encoder position during most of the deceleration before springing back and oscillating. The gearing is interlocking at the forward mechanical tolerance point during acceleration and then shifting to the reverse mechanical tolerance point during deceleration. This deceleration, coupled with the torsional stiffness, effectively acts like a spring, causing the load to bounce back and forth until friction and internal losses dampen the motion. The servomotor is attempting to compensate, but due to backlash much of the oscillation is uncoupled from the servomotor and does not manifest as a position error on the servomotor encoder. It’s also worth noting the motor encoder shows the load has settled much sooner than it has. If the process requires the load to settle to a tighter tolerance than is achieved when the servomotor indicates it has reached the target position, delay timers may be required. These timers add wasted time to the motion profile as the delay period must be conservative enough to remain effective across a wide range of operating conditions. The direct-drive motor provides a more direct look at the actual motion of the load; therefore, the feedback from the encoder is sufficient to optimally sequence the machine without additional timers. Another solution would be to use an external encoder to fully close the loop with the load; however, this adds additional design, fabrication, maintenance, and material costs to a bill of material (BOM) and can be the most cost prohibitive solution. Tables 2 and 3 show significant percentage improvements with the direct-drive motor, but in realwww.controleng.com

Figure 3 (a and b): Test setup with the direct drive motor. Courtesy: Yaskawa America

Figure 4: Gearmotor setting. Courtesy: Yaskawa America

Figure 5: Direct drive motor setting. Courtesy: Yaskawa America control engineering

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INSIGHTS

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE: MOTORS AND DRIVES ity, the motor is only shaving off a few hundred milliseconds per movement. This small difference may seem insignificant; however, these fractions of a second add up over the lifetime of a machine. Consider an indexing table that has eight stations; the table rotates 45 degrees in 200 milliseconds (nominally) during each index. After this rotation, a secondary process is performed for 300 milliseconds to complete the cycle. The table needs to be settled to within 0.050 degrees for the widget to be made correctly. Every rotation produces a $0.05 widget, and the machine runs one 8 hour shift per day.

Comparing gearmotor, direct-drive motor specs Gearmotor

Direct drive motor

Model

57A02A-VL070-50

SGM7D-2817C52

Backlash [arcmin]

Torque (cont. / peak) [NM]

28.7 / 50.0

28.0 / 50.0

Speed (cont. / peak) (rpm)

60/120

90/108

Length (mm)

170.5

158

Footprint (mm)

264

Axial load (N)

1100

40000

Hollow bore (mm)

N/A

150

Table 1: Specs compared. All tables courtesy: Yaskawa America

Direct-drive motor settles faster than gearmotor Tolerance window [degrees]

Settling time direct drive [ms]

Settling time gearmotor [ms]

Improvement with direct drive

0.050

25.4

130.8

415%

0.010

34.6

307.6

789%

0.001

51.3

407.2

694%

Table 2: In settling time, results show significant improvements with the direct drive motor.

Shorter moving time: Direct-drive vs. gearmotor Tolerence window [degrees]

Move time direct drive

Move time gearmotor

Improvement with direct drive

0.050

225.4

330.8

47%

0.010

234.6

507.6

116%

0.001

251.3

607.2

142%

Table 3: While moving time improvements might seem minor, they can have a tremendous long-term impact over a machine’s life.

Comparison table: Direct-drive motor vs. gearmotor Best direct drive motor

Gearmotor

Gearmotor w/fully closed loop MIDDLE

Postion accurracy

BEST

WORST

Backlash

BEST

WORST

Settling time

BEST

WORST

MIDDLE

In this scenario, the increased throughput brought about by using a direct-drive motor would allow the motor to pay for itself in less than 14 days, despite the direct-drive system costs more than the gearmotor system. One might assume that processes don’t need the level of accuracy provided with a 0.050-degree settling window; however, on a 5-foot diameter table, a 0.050-degree tolerance allows a float equivalent to +/- 0.026” or slightly less than 1/32-in., in either direction at the edge of the table. When put in this perspective, it’s easy to understand that most processes require a window even tighter than +/- 1/32in. to be completed accurately, and the tolerance is not unreasonable as such. When comparing the three primary solutions available for indexing tables, the gearmotor, directdrive motor, and gearmotor with an external encoder, a direct-drive motor offers the best benefits. As seen in this test, the gearmotor solution cannot compete with a direct-drive motor in positioning accuracy, backlash, settling time and cycle time. A gearmotor with an external encoder would be closer to the performance capabilities of a direct-drive motor, but the additional mechanical design, machining, installation, maintenance, and programming time costs of a fully-closed system make it the most cost prohibitive and engineering intensive solution. While the price of a direct-drive servomotor may cause engineers to give pause, the performance advantages and the rapid payback in productivity make direct-drive servomotors the best choice for a wide range of rotary servo axis applications. ce Bryan Knight is product marketing manager, Yaskawa America; Dakota Miller is automation product specialist, Yaskawa America. Edited by Chris Vavra, web content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, cvavra@cfemedia.com.

M More INSIGHTS KEYWORDS: motors and drives, servomotors A geared servomotor competes head-to-head with a direct drive servomotor using the same settings and features. Many of the results might seem minor on the surface, but they can be quite significant for applications that require absolute precision. Direct drive servomotors are more expensive, but they make up for it in performance and overall payback.

Cycle time

BEST

WORST

MIDDLE

Machine cost & payback time

ONLINE

BEST

MIDDLE

WORST

Design complexity

BEST

MIDDLE

WORST

Read this online at www.controleng.com for a link to part 1 of this article.

Table 4: The direct drive motor, while more expensive than its counterparts, offers the best overall performance for users.

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INSIGHTS

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE: ROBOT PRECISION Laura Moretz, Robotic Industries Association (RIA)

How robots help additive manufacturers add precision Robotics and other technology advances increase accuracy and allow robots to improve precision and make larger parts for additive manufacturing applications.

obots increasingly facilitate additive manufacturing, enabling efficiency, precision, and the size of created parts. In this growing field, long-time industry leaders and start-up companies improve additive manufacturing (3D printing) results with robots. Two companies that make single-piece components with robotic assistance are Arevo, a Silicon Valley start-up, and Fanuc America. Others also innovate in the field, working to create larger parts and eliminate weak joints. Physik Instrumente (PI), a German company with U.S. headquarters in Auburn, Mass., drills down for sub-micron precision in its parts, which in turn allows additive manufacturers greater precision in additive manufacturing processes.

Figure 1: Smooth surface finish after post processing. Courtesy: FANUC/RIA

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Maximize automation from the start

Arevo, launched in 2013 as a start-up, has developed direct digital technology to create strong, lightweight parts on demand for a range of customers. Wiener Mondesir, a co-founder, and chief technology officer (CTO) of the Silicon Valley company, described how its proprietary software, Xplorator, allows the creation of light carbon fiber composites. His partners agreed the “software is really going to unlock a lot of what we’re able to do if we have software that can look at real-world loading conditions and come up with the right fiber orientation.” Xplorator opened the door to the founders’ second objective, which was to eliminate handbuilt procedures. “There had to be a way of doing this in an automated way to give you freedom,” Mondesir said. In 2014, patents were expiring and the maker movement was in gear, he said. Arevo’s next step was to find the best way to build, using software modeling. 3D printing was key to building composite structures. “If we tailored it with the software, we could understand how to orient fibers and build the kind of structure that could meet any kind of predetermined material property or part property,” Mondesir said. “So we built a machine essentially to do that.” The latest iteration is the Aqua 2 carbon fiber printer. Mondesir said the third important thing for Arevo’s development was its materials. 3D printing was first used for prototypes, but now the goal was to print components for production. “In production, there’s a need to understand how that part is going to perform in the real world as far as quality, consistent repeatability, accuracy, dimensional tolerance, and quality assurance,” he said. “So there was a process problem that we needed to address. As a startup, you know, this was a lot to bite and swallow in one go. We were ambitious and decided we wanted to control our destiny” by spanning design to production. After Arevo created its first prototypes, it added robots to provide multiaccess capability and the ability to orient in 3D space. Arevo’s use of carbon fiber composites allows a short turnaround from concept www.controleng.com

Figure 2: Operator monitoring WAAM process performed by a collaborative robot. Courtesy: FANUC/RIA

to a functional product. Its industrial-grade continuous fiber 3D-printing system can print parts of up to one cubic meter volume.

Key wins along the way

Arevo accepts orders from clients for parts and continues to develop new uses for carbon fiber composites, hosting monthly hackathons. From these hackathons, it has developed a well-received continuous carbon fiber tennis racket and furniture. In a separate initiative, Arevo developed a carbon fiber bicycle this year, the Superstrata, which began as a technology and product demonstration, but also has an exciting market. Its frame is a single piece of carbon fiber designed with Arevo’s Xplorator and printed on its Aqua platform. Each bike is custom-made to accommodate different leg lengths and body sizes. Arevo is expanding its printing capacity from five Aqua machines at its farm in Milpitas, Calif., by adding 15 Aqua machines to a new farm in Vietnam. The farm in Vietnam is planned to grow to 100 machines. “It’s probably the only country open and speeding ahead right now in this COVID time, and it just so happens our CEO is from there.” Fast redesign and turnaround are key. Mondesir said, “If you are able to move at this speed, you have the ability to change on the fly, and if something isn’t working, you make the change and continue. Automation enables all of this.”

Metal wire for additive manufacturing of large parts

Fanuc America Corp., based in Rochester Hills, Mich., is the No. 1 manufacturer of robots in the U.S., with a broad range of customers in the automotive, aerospace, agricultural equipment, and many other industries. Its parent company, Fanuc, was founded in Japan in 1956. Fanuc America also supplies the aerospace industry with robots that perform additive manufacturing or 3D printing by working with partners that specialize in the integration of robots for build-

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ing automated systems. Figure 3: Arevo DED Recent advances in weld-wire additive manufac- (direct-energy-depoturing (WAAM) allows the creation of large parts sition) head. Enables with robotic assistance. Mark Scherler, a general high-quality composmanager of Fanuc America, said the weld-wire pro- ite parts at scale. cess creates metal parts suitable for automobiles and Courtesy: Arevo Labs/RIA airplanes. “When an extrusion head can be placed on a robot, it goes from having a three-axis system to a six-axis system,” Scherler said. “So obviously, we can manipulate the head quite a number of ways with robot models that provide a larger envelope than what standard additive systems allows you to do. So you can build bigger parts.” Scherler said he is excited by new possibilities allowed by the additive process, including flexibility in design, reduction in weight, and designs that are more efficient to build. “It opens up a lot of new ideas for manufacturing.” Only some of Fanuc’s 100-person research and development team focuses KEYWORDS: robotics, additive manufacturing on additive manufacturing, but the focus Robots increasingly facilitate has grown. additive manufacturing, which is For example, Scherler said, “A num- allowing them to create larger parts ber of years ago, I wasn’t really thinking more precisely. about additive using weld wire. But that Recent advances in weld-wire process is certainly mature enough that additive manufacturing (WAAM) the creation of large parts people are using it. And being able to put allows with robotic assistance. that on one of our robots and building a Some manufacturers are improving part is pretty exciting.” robot precision and enhancing In addition, Fanuc embraced the coltheir performance in additive manufacturing. laborative robot (cobot) concept, which allows a human to interact with or stand ONLINE near a robot as it works, without the stan- See additional stories from the RIA dard guarding that separates robots from at www.controleng.com. humans. Fanuc demonstrated the collabCONSIDER THIS orative robot at shows such as Fabtech, What benefits could your company performing WAAM for small metal parts gain from additive manufacturing typical for the aerospace industry. and collaborative robots?

M More INSIGHTS

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TECHNOLOGY UPDATE: ROBOT PRECISION

Figure 4: Custom Gantry for laser machining of PCB boards and electronics components. Courtesy: Physik Instrumente (PI)/RIA

In production manufacturing, such parts can be three or four feet tall.

Honing precision for additive manufacturing systems

Physik Instrumente (PI), a German company with a U.S. presence and U.S. headquarters in Auburn, Mass., focuses on motion systems that are enabling the creation of the highest precision parts for additive manufacturing systems. Matthew Price, the technical manager of precision Figure 5: Additive automation for PI, says that PI has a team of 40 to manufacturing in 50 people works to create the more precise parts the nanoworld. for their customers dedicated to additive manuThe TERA-Fab facturing, often with features measured on micron desktop printer and sub-micron scales. for nanostrucPrice said, “We don’t sell additive manufacturtures. It employs a ing systems. We sell to people building them. If you compact 3D piezo held up a part, and you looked at it, and you saw nanopositioning defects, we probably wouldn’t be involved in the stage (model P-611 manufacturing of a part like that.” PI NanoCube) to PI has fully-featured software and hardware that move the substrate contribute to additive manufacturing systems. under the beam “Our primary work is focused on making our pen array. Courteautomated platforms, precision stages, motion sy: TERA-print/RIA systems, and software to support laser processes,

Figure 6: TERA-Fab desktop printer for nanostructures: 3D piezo nanopositioning stage moves the substrate. Courtesy: RIA/TERA-print

dispensers, and extruders. We have some proprietary processes that help us to optimize, especially with material-dispensing applications. But our core is making hardware and software used to build advanced 3D printers or advanced additive manufacturing systems.” PI often works with major university research centers and commercial companies in the private and public sectors that use features that are extremely small. “They’re starting to get to sub 50 microns and sub 30 micron-type features. Then there are specialized laser processes achieving much higher feature sizes still.” Price pointed to photopolymerization as stateof-the-art technology. “Two-photon polymerization can resolve down to sub hundred nanometers.” PI’s goal is to continue to enhance the performance of manufacturers that use robots to perform additive manufacturing. “We’re not going to have the kind of materials/process expertise they have. They will never have the kind of precision automation expertise we have on our side. And when you put the two together, then I think that’s how you really get the best result.” ce Laura Moretz is contributing editor for the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) and Robotics Online. RIA is a not-for-profit trade association dedicated to improving the regional, national, and global competitiveness of the North American manufacturing and service sectors through robotics and related automation. This article originally appeared on the RIA website. The RIA is a part of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), a CFE Media content partner. Edited by Chris Vavra, web content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media & Technology, cvavra@cfemedia.com.

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CFE Media and Technology Contributor Guidelines Overview Content For Engineers. That’s what CFE Media stands for, and what CFE Media is all about – engineers sharing with their peers. We welcome content submissions for all interested parties in engineering. We will use those materials online, on our website, in print and in newsletters to keep engineers informed about the products, solutions and industry trends. www.controleng.com/contribute explains how to submit press releases, products, images and graphics, bylined feature articles, case studies, white papers, and other media. * Content should focus on helping engineers solve problems. Articles that are commercial or are critical of other products or organizations will be rejected. (Technology discussions and comparative tables may be accepted if non-promotional and if contributor corroborates information with sources cited.) * If the content meets criteria noted in guidelines, expect to see it first on our Websites. Content for our e-newsletters comes from content already available on our Websites. All content for print also will be online. All content that appears in our print magazines will appear as space permits, and we will indicate in print if more content from that article is available online. * Deadlines for feature articles intended for the print magazines are at least two months in advance of the publication date. Again, it is best to discuss all feature articles with the appropriate content manager prior to submission. Learn more at: www.controleng.com/contribute

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THINK AGAIN

Hot topics for 2020

Controller programming, COVID-19 acceleration of engineering, automation and digitalization, and VFDs were among top 2020 articles.

mong hot Control Engineering topics posted in 2020, seven of 10 were automation and digitalization responses to COVID-19 pandemic. Programmable logic controller (PLC) programming languages and explanations about the top 5 variable frequency drive (VFD) parameter changes rounded out the 10 most-visited Control Engineering articles during 2020. Top covers Control Engineering of 2020 were on the real-time remote monitoring, robotics, and digitalization and simulations (right). Think again about writing articles in 2021 at www.controleng. com/2021articles. The articles posted during 2020 at w w w.controleng. com with the most clicks in 2020 follow, which favors articles posted earlier in the year. 1. Which IEC 611313 programming language is best? Part 1, June 29: With so many programmable logic controller (PLC) programming languages and standards from which to choose, what is the right choice? 2. COVID-19 impact on engineering, engineers, March 17: Engineers like facts and seek credible information sources on COVID-19 (Coronavirus) effects to the engineering-related world. Engineers have technologies, processes and advice to help. 3. Coronavirus will force manufacturers to enhance automation, digitalization, March 18: COVID-19 is forcing manufacturers to rely more on automation and digitalization for long-term operations to reduce the financial impacts. 4. Top 5 VFD parameter changes explained, July 1: Programming variable frequency drives (VFDs) to fit most industrial applications require only the most basic settings to operate the motor.

5. Preventing coronavirus through preparation, March 10: Many manufacturers are becoming more concerned with COVID-19 breakouts on the production floor. Improve worker safety. 6. How COVID-19 is changing the engineering jobs, jobs market, May 19: Taking control in an uncontrolled time: Leaders share lessons from the industrial automation, controls, and manufacturing industries. 7. Universities developing DIY medical devices, PPE to combat coronavirus spread, March 23: Researchers from Georgia Tech and other universities are racing to develop “doit-yourself ” health care gear that can be assembled where it’s needed from locally available components. See video. 8. When remote monitoring and control becomes essential for manufacturing operations, April 1: The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing companies to adjust business practices. See four tips to adjust. 9. Poll results: Coronavirus, COVID-19 impact on engineers and industry, March 19: Coronavirus impact data was collected from March 12 to 17. 10. Which IEC 61131-3 Programming Language is best? Part 2, July 30: With many programmable logic controller (PLC) programming languages and standards from which to choose, select the best language. ce Mark T. Hoske is content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology at mhoske@cfemedia.com. Traffic ranking based on www.controleng.com analytics performed by Chris Vavra, web content manager, Control Engineering, cvavra@cfemedia.com. Cover analysis was by Michael Smith, creative director, Control Engineering.

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ANSWERS

COVER STORY: ROLE OF PLCS IN FUTURE CONTROL SYSTEMS Damon Purvis, AutomationDirect

PLCs power industrial data integration Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) have recently gained capabilities formerly possible only with PCs, expanding their role to support seamless data integration with the enterprise.

ot long ago, the roles of industrial automation devices and systems were a little more straightforward. Most field devices and sensors were relatively “dumb” and were directly connected to controllers, which may have interacted with operator displays, and in rare cases some data may have flowed up to higher level enterprise systems. Today’s smart sensors, clever controllers, and more capable communications have improved upon this scenario, and end users are looking for the best ways to enable the enterprise host systems to access valuable field-level data. The operational technology (OT) domain of

sensors, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), and human-machine interfaces (HMIs) is converging with the information technology (IT) world of PC servers and cloud connectivity. These technologies are more intelligent than ever with a lot of overlapping functionality. This means users have more options for building or upgrading an industrial automation system to deliver integrated data. Applications where OT data is accessed with IT methods are often referred to as Internet of Things (IoT) implementations. Some of today’s PLCs are speeding end users on their journey to extract data from manufacturing systems and transporting it to enterprise systems so users can make informative decisions on how to optimize operations. IT-friendly additions are making OT-centric PLC platforms more effective for optimizing operations.

Yesterday’s PLC data flow challenges…

Gathering field data, let alone connecting to some higher-level host system, historically has involved several types of challenges. Hardwired sensors were easiest to connect to a PLC, but publishing PLC information up to on-site or cloud-based systems required careful curation of data structures, along with configuring network and communication protocols. PLCs didn’t support all the industrial protocols required to talk with more intelligent field devices, and they had limitations for connecting with host systems. Navigating the architectural hierarchy from the control level, through operations, up to the enterprise systems and the cloud was a thorny problem (Figure 1). Users needed to generate custom configurations of code to select, arrange and manage data. Then they had to take additional steps to handle extended information like scaling, engineering units and tag descriptions. A lot of parts and effort might be involved: PLCs, gateways, PCs, software packages, network configuration and custom code.

Figure 1: Sending valuable plant floor data up to higher level operations, enterprise, and remote cloud systems has traditionally entailed troublesome configuration for many layers of hardware, software, and networking. Images courtesy: AutomationDirect

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Even when data connectivity could be patched together, it was often at the expense of security. Traditionally, PLCs have not included strong cybersecurity provisions, especially for internet-connected systems.

…are solved by today’s PLC tech

Fortunately, some modern PLCs include all the elements needed to overcome these challenges, eliminating complexity from the task of getting data from the shop floor up to the cloud and enterprise. PLCs have been an established and reliable platform for edge automation tasks. Instead of creating a new category of device for data communication duties, some vendors realized next-generation OT-based PLCs could be enhanced with the necessary IT-associated tech to effectively integrate data (Figure 2). For best results, all data integration elements need to reside natively in the PLC product, providing an off-the-shelf experience for users. End users, especially in the IT field, also are looking for open source-based technologies because they are already familiar with this approach, as opposed to the specialized environments common to OT products. A PLC bundling data integration protocols bridgesOT and IT systems and can create many ways to connect new and legacy factory floor equipment to today’s enterprise systems. Popular serial and Ethernet OT protocols include ASCII, Modbus RTI K-Seq, Modbus TCP and EtherNet/IP (ODVA). Essential IT protocols include SNTP DNS, MQTT, SMTP, SSL and web services.

Figure 2: COVER: Next-generation PLCs, like the AutomationDirect BRX Series, are built from the ground up with OT and IT communication protocols, and the necessary security features, for enabling seamless data integration. With the free programming software, users can configure the BRX (with or without classic I/O) to also act as a data gateway.

M More ANSWERS

Store data in the PLC and forward via FTP Today’s PLCs have enough memory to log data locally over a period of hours, days, or weeks—and then forward it to a network- or cloud-connected computer using file transfer protocol (FTP). This form of storing and forwarding data can be effective for bulk transactions, which do not need to be near-real-time, however, it will require the user to configure the PLC for aggregating the data and the host system for parsing the data.

MQTT over TLS The message queuing telemetry transport (MQTT) protocol has emerged as the common standard for PLC-to-cloud communications, for several reasons. While it offers two-way communications, the PLC in the field initiates conversations as outbound messages to a centralized broker, which can be on premises or more commonly in the cloud. This helps avoid firewall and IT management issues. Although MQTT can be implemented without security, best practice is to perform communications using the standard transport layer security (TLS) networking protocol, and to use other security features provided within MQTT. MQTT communications are processed quickly, but are resilient enough to withstand the kinds of network outages that can occur for industrial and edge-located installations. Users can access the broker data with enterprise and/or mobile clients, or they can implement cloud computing services to connect with PLCsourced MQTT data directly.

Web server Sometimes it is only necessary for a PLC to expose limited data for read-only, near real-time remote viewing by users. In this case, some PLCs include built-in web servers, empowering users to develop HTML5 displays of data and information viewable using browsers. No other additional software or licensing is required. A downside to this basic approach is the need for clients to be connected on the same network – or via a firewall and routing – with the proper access privileges.

REST API The previous three methods require users to manage and configure the source data at the PLC. However, if a PLC offers a representation state transfer (REST) application programming interface (API), then external clients can initiate communications and access data residing in PLC memory with a standard request (Figure 3). This powerful ability makes it easier for users to change polled data tags in the future, as no modifications are needed in the PLC. The client sends a request

Multiple PLC integration options

PLCs can enable popular data integration options depending on application needs.

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KEYWORDS: programmable logic controllers, PLCs, operational technology Programmable logic controllers (PLCs), long a domain of operational technology (OT), converging with the information technology (IT) world of PC servers and cloud connectivity. Legacy PLCs aren’t known for cybersecurity, but the current models are designed for protection against external threats. There are multiple PLC integration options including MQTT over TLS, REST API and web servers. ONLINE Read this story online at www.controleng.com for additional stories about PLCs.

CONSIDER THIS How has your facility integrated modern and legacy PLCs on the plant floor?

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ANSWERS

ROLE OF PLCS IN FUTURE CONTROL SYSTEMS • The ability to store username and password credentials on-board (managed by OT personnel using programming software) • Support for IP whitelisting to control which external clients are allowed to communicate with the PLC • Secure communications over TLS when possible. With the right tools and security, users are afforded a world of options for creating safe PLCbased data connectivity.

Applications for modern PLCs

Figure 3: AutomationDirect BRX Series PLCs include multiple data connectivity options. A REST API enables external clients, such as Node-RED operating on a computing service, to initiate requests to access data residing in PLC memory, so long as proper security credentials are presented.

Many IoT clients are remote monitoring applications needing to receive certain items of data. Sometimes developers will configure programming tools that are IT-centric methods for preprocessing, formatting, transforming, and configuring data for consumption by other applications. Designers can build new systems using a modern PLC able to support these types of connections, or they can implement such a PLC on top of an existing system to add IoT capability. Data becomes easily available using one or more of the methods described here, so developers can focus their efforts on the host applications. For example, a solutions provider developed a cloud-based IoT application that can access many operational sites, such as pump houses, using MQTT. Before PLCs were available to support MQTT and other methods, it was necessary for developers to add dedicated communication gateways (Figure 4).

PLCs are the future of OT data connectivity Figure 4: Modern PLCs include the necessary protocols and security users need in support of accessing industrially-sourced data and integrating it with higher level computing systems.

to the PLC, and the PLC gathers the necessary data from its memory and replies with the data assembled into an easy to read and parse JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format. Messaging occurs via HTTP requests from clients, using traditional and typically open IT ports, like port 80. However, as with the web server option, external clients must be on the same network or permitted through any firewalls.

Security must be built-in

One natural consequence of improved PLC data connectivity options is greater exposure of the PLC to bad actors who could access potentially valuable information. Therefore, new PLCs must include builtin security features, extending far beyond what was offered in previous generations. Users should look for: • PLCs that are by default (right out of the box) not open to requests from the outside world

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Whereas yesterday’s industrial automation products were often very specialized and somewhat limited in terms of data handling, the processing power incorporated in today’s OT digital devices imbues them with greater capabilities. These new capabilities are addressing end user needs for obtaining timely field data to support IoT and analytical initiatives at the enterprise level. OT-based PLC technology is already well-proven in the field. The addition of IT-friendly protocols and security features to PLCs makes them ideal as edge devices for accessing raw field data using industrial protocols, processing it into information, and securely publishing or transmitting it to any industrial IoT client or external computing platform. ce

Damon Purvis is the PLC product manager at AutomationDirect. Edited by Chris Vavra, web content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, cvavra@cfemedia.com. www.controleng.com

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ANSWERS

WIRELESS II O T SENSORS Mike McClurg, Load Controls Inc.

IIoT, pump energy efficiency Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) implementation uses pump power measurements to save energy, with sensors enabled by a wireless gateway and cloudbased analytics. See eight project guidelines for a secure, easy application.

he economics of improving pump energy consumption are compelling, and a case study shows how significant savings can be achieved. More than $250 billion is spent annually to power the world’s industrial pumps; another $100 billion is spent maintaining pumps to keep them running and improve efficiency. It’s not uncommon for a process manufacturer to spend upwards of 25% of an operating budget on power to keep pumps spinning. Even so, industry solutions to address pump power consumption focus on new pump purchases. The goal for this project was to develop an architecture that bridges the gap between currentlyinstalled environments for pumps and sensors and the emerging world of cloud-based machine learning. The solution enables long-term pump energy consumption data to be stored and analyzed, allowing decisions on pump efficiency, sizing, maintenance and replacements made from factual historical information.

8 project guidelines

A few guidelines provided direction to the technologies chosen for implementation, including wanting to: 1. Create a cloud-based digital representation of pump status, energy conKEYWORDS: Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), pump analytics sumption and workload. IIoT project uses wireless 2. Leverage state-of-the-art visualizacommunications and sensors to tion and analytics tools, without the need analyze pump energy use. to implement these locally. Energy maintenance savings 3. Have the ability to spin up and are among expected results. down test environments as well as to Process manufacturers with retain data for long periods. many pumps could benefit from pursuing a similar project. 4. Work in today’s world (hands-off, remote monitoring, without a disruptive CONSIDER THIS installation). Given COVID-19 induced How many pumps should be restrictions manufacturers need a remote supplying energy information and aren’t? monitoring solution that doesn’t require extensive on-site staffing for implemenONLINE tation, monitoring and maintenance. The If reading from the digital solution had to be simple to install and edition, click on the headline for more resources. require no local staffing afterward. www.controleng.com/magazine 5. Avoid new sensors or proprietary www.thethingsnetwork.org software, leveraging existing sensors prev-

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alent in the processing industry and avoid proprietary solutions that would provide vendor lock-in. 6. Avoid wireless and power assumptions, such as availability of Wi-Fi on the factory floor, a low noise environment, or 120 V power. Many manufacturing environments are large, noisy and may lack reliable Wi-Fi capability. Most control environments don’t have 120 V power outlets. 7. Avoid messing with the manufacturing execution system (MES), programmable logic controller (PLC), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system or information technology (IT) resources. 8. Make the project secure and simple. That means having the data and control flow from the measured pumps without a mechanism to control or influence the process. By keeping this data flow in one direction, there’s no ability to alter the manufacturing process. Similarly, attaching non-disruptively to the sensor network eliminates the need for software changes, time consuming data dumps, or IT support for data acquisition. Measuring pump motor power provides an accurate view of energy consumption. While this is great for instantaneous control of a pump (shutting off a pump in error conditions such as dry-running, cavitation or mechanical failure), it’s also valuable information when tracked over time. Longer-term analysis of power data can indicate increases that signal: • Increased workloads • Need for potential maintenance, including alignment and lubrication. • Under-sizing. Similarly, decreasing levels of power could indicate potential oversizing of motors/pumps, or changes in the pumping process that need to be addressed. Output from the power sensor is a 4 to 20 mA analog signal corresponding to instantaneous power. The implementation attached a simple temperature probe to the pump motor. The temperature sensor also provides a scaled 4 to 20 mA analog signal. This thermocouple/transmitter was attached to the motor via a small metal strap. www.controleng.com

Figure 1 shows the IIoT solution including Load Controls power sensors, temperature sensor, Abilioty gateway that transfers 4-20 mA to digital that’s transmitted via a longrange wide area network (LoRaWAN) using The Things Network protocols. All images courtesy: Load Controls Inc.

Wireless gateways, analytics

The wireless gateway takes the 4-20mA analog inputs, converts them to a digital signal that is then transmitted via a long-range wide area network (LoRaWAN) using protocols from The Things Network (TTN). The sensor gateway takes a snapshot of two analog data inputs every 20 seconds. Using LoRaWAN enables the devices to communicate over long distances (up to kilometers as opposed to tens of meters when using Wi-Fi) and in factory environments where interference from machinery would otherwise disrupt a Wi-Fi signal. The Things Network (TTN) enables userdefined network topology based on low-cost gateways, with either inside or outside deployment. This deployment installed low-cost inside gateways, which were installed in minutes. The TTN network provides integration to stream data to a variety of analytics engines. Results are shown in Figure 2. The implemented architecture built a continuous data stream of pump motor activity. Tracking motor power and temperature levels with time stamps created visualizations and analysis for: • Oversizing (% of motor capacity) hp measured versus faceplate motor hp • Increased energy usage where the area under the hp curve represents kWh or energy consumption.

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• Drift in power results. Increases in motor power and temperature for consistent workloads may indicate: – A pump installation issue – Pump wear or maintenance needs – System problems such as control valve issues.

Digital twin, energy cost savings

Next step in the deployment was using captured data and creating a digital twin, or virtual representation of the pump motor over time. Future capabilities will leverage machine-learning capabilities in the data analytics environments to automate anomaly detection and remote warnings. This proof of concept can show immediate cost savings through improved energy awareness and motor efficiency information. Additional benefits of increased uptime and improved manufacturing quality will come as the data model builds and learning matures. All process manufacturers with large installed pump environments could benefit from pursuing a similar project. ce

Figure 2: Output from MathWorks ThingSpeak and MatLab cloud-based data analytics shows pump motor jam and increases in power (hp) and temperature. The Things Network provides simple integration to stream data to a variety of analytics engines, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) IoT and the MathWorks ThingSpeak and MatLab. Future efforts will use available artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities in the analytics software.

Mike McClurg is chief marketing officer, Load Controls Inc. Edited by Mark T. Hoske, content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, mhoske@cfemedia.com.

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MACHINE SAFETY

Mike Johnson and Enrico De Carolis, Emerson

How to keep machines operating during stoppages and power disruptions Zoned safety and uninterruptible power supplies for control power offer enhanced machines control during stoppages and power disruptions.

s packaging line machinery has become more sophisticated, it has also become more complex. This increased complexity, coupled with a high number of interactions between operators and machines, increases the potential for safety incidents. For example, in packaging facilities, production lines may stop for manual loading 10 to 30 times per shift, each time necessitating some form of interaction that exposes operators to possible risk and increases the potential for a safety incident. Guarding against such risks isn’t easy. When changes are made to improve a machine’s safety, operations can become even more complex or more restrictive. These safety measures may incorporate time-consuming procedures to stop machine operation, isolate energy, resolve issues and restart process-

es, which translate into lost production. Frustrated by these disruptions, operators may look to bypass safety measures to keep the line moving and meet throughput expectations, adding unnecessary risk. The consequences can be significant. An operation can experience damage to equipment, unforeseen costs, loss of productivity from shutdowns, injury to its personnel and even loss of life. A recent study by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reveals manufacturing accounted for 26% of all reported hospitalizations and 57% of all reported amputations – the highest proportions for all industries. Clearly, safeguarding people and assets remains a challenge for end users and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that must account for a seemingly infinite number of variables, including

Figure 1: Zoned safety technology offers a better approach to machine safety during manual interactions while meeting the requirements of the Machinery Directive and ISO 13849-1. Images courtesy: Emerson

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machine complexity, operator interactions, workplace culture and individual attitudes. Despite these challenges, improving safety within a packaging operation is possible. By implementing the right technologies, OEMs and end users can create safer manufacturing environments that reduce risk to operators without compromising productivity. Specifically, innovative technologies such as zoned safety and uninterruptible control power solutions offer enhanced control of machines during stoppages and power disruptions. Providing operators with enhanced functional safety systems on their machinery helps minimize the impact of these events on operations and results in more predictable machines that improve operator safety.

Zones: Safe operator interactions

When operators interact with machines, they can be exposed to increased risk. If something goes wrong, they can be hurt or damage can occur, which causes production to come to a grinding halt. This especially holds true for pneumatic control sections of machines in a packaging operation. Traditionally, ensuring operator safety of these machines has required employing discrete safety circuits with redundant dump valves, designed for lock out/tag out (LO/TO) applications, that shut off air supply, dump air and disable machine operation. In addition to wasting energy by repeatedly dumping all the compressed air in the whole machine and forcing operators to wait for extended periods as entire systems restart, this approach adds significant complexity and unnecessary cost to the machine design because it requires complicated control structures to be in place and more expensive components. Without these control structures, the sudden reintroduction of air into a pneumatic system can cause unintended motion of components, increasing the risk of damage to the machinery itself or cause the machinery to drop products resulting in spills, lost product and scrap. To avoid this damage and maintain their expected output, operators may allow some machinery to remain live at times when it shouldn’t be active, inadvertently exposing themselves and their operations to increased risk. Zoned safety technology offers a better approach to machine safety during manual interactions while meeting the requirements of the Machinery Directive and ISO 13849-1 (see Figure 1). Zoned safety technology simplifies the design of a redundant pneumatic safety circuit with a single manifold system that can be configured to shut down air and power to only the group of valves that controls the machine’s specific motion in the operator’s vicinity while the rest of the machine remains in operation. This ensures operator safety and allows the rest of the machine to keep producing even though these safety circuits are enabled. Multiple

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Figure 2: Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) help protect electronic equipment such as field power supplies, programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and communications devices safe during a power disruption.

independent safety circuits and standard valve functions can easily and cost effectively be designed into a single pneumatic valve manifold. This reduces complexity and the number of safety system components by up to 35% while allowing multiple and independent safety functions such as stop motion, return home, exhaust air, unclamp, remain clamped, and so on. For equipment owners and operators, zoned safety manifolds simplify operations and reduce cost while optimizing machine safety and improving productivity.

Intelligent shutdowns, restarts

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KEYWORDS: machine safety,

uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) Ensuring machine and operator safety remains a constant challenge. When operators interact with machines, they can be exposed to increased risk. Zones and other safety standards can help enforce and ensure best practices.

ONLINE See additional machine safety stories at www.controleng.com under the “Discrete Manufacturing” topic.

Power disruptions represent another critical area of concern when it comes to CONSIDER THIS ensuring the safety of a packaging operWhat are you doing to ensure ation’s people and assets. For operators machine safety on the plant floor? who rely on electronically driven automated packaging systems, power disruptions can occur with little or no warning, and the sudden machine stops that result from these disruptions can be dangerous, time consuming and costly. In addition to potentially exposing operators on a packaging line to unsafe conditions, these stops can lead to damaged equipment, ruined product, material pileups and product backorders. These disruptions can be caused by a wide range control engineering

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MACHINE SAFETY

of power issues, including voltage sags and surges, brownouts, power interruptions and low- and highfrequency voltage transients; no facilities are immune. Compounding the problem are aging plant electrical systems that provide power to advanced machinery with elecWith the ability to protronic control systems, which are vide status updates of the highly sophisticated and highly susceptible to the impacts of disUPS while it’s running, ruption. Damaged control systems create chaos, causing machines these power supplies help can to act unpredictably, with components crashing into each other, operators prevent equipproducts breaking and operators ment issues that can lead caught in the crossfire. Preventing this chaos – and to potential hazards. the threats it poses to safety and productivity – requires maintaining critical, electronic-based plant equipment during a disruption. Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) offer a means of achieving this by allowing machines to keep their field power supplies, programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and communications devices functioning during an unexpected outage (see Figure 2). In the event of a power disturbance, a UPS provides immediate backup ac power so that processes

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can continue or be intelligently shut down without causing unsafe conditions. These units also enable operators to safely control the restart of power without accidental re-energization of circuits before it is safe to do so. With the ability to provide status updates of the UPS while it’s running, these power supplies help operators prevent equipment issues that can lead to potential hazards. Outfitted with UPS technology, packaging lines can operate reliably and continuously and help operators stay safe. Ensuring machine and operator safety in today’s increasingly complex packaging lines will remain a growing challenge, especially as operations seek to maintain production standards and meet customer expectations. Manufacturers must ensure the safety and health of employees who are engaged in the installation, operation, adjustment and maintenance of production equipment. It’s the right thing to do, and technologies that offer enhanced control of machine interruptions make it possible. ce Mike Johnson is vice president of marketing at Emerson Automation Solutions; Enrico De Carolis is vice president of global technology at Emerson ASCO Numatics. This was reprinted with minor edits from the October 2020 issue of Plant Engineering.

Control Engineering’s webcasts cover the latest engineering topics that affect your industry and operations. Join the expert panelists and attend our webcasts at your desktop or mobile device of your choice.

Discover the latest on topics like: • Arc flash

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COVID-19 AUTOMATION PROJECT HELP David N. Erby, Applied Control Engineering Inc.

Five ways automation helps manufacturers during COVID-19 During COVID-19, protect people and minimize manufacturing interruptions with virtual site visits, a team approach, remote visualization, a backup control room and offsite capabilities.

rotecting people and minimizing interruptions in manufacturing operations are goals during COVID-19 or any disaster response plan. Virtual site visits, a team approach, remote visualization, a backup control room and offsite plant management and engineering are five ways automation technologies and best practices can protect people and minimize manufacturing interruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic and other disasters.

1. Virtual site visits for control system integrators and OEMs

The most obvious response to the increased pandemic restrictions is to limit activities by outside contractors onsite. For system integrators and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), remote access often means accessing control systems remotely, such as through a virtual private network (VPN). For technical, safety and security reasons, many of our customers do not allow offsite access directly to their control systems. When the initial lockdown orders went into effect, many manufacturers put restrictions in place that prohibited site visits from contractors, as well. One of our customers got creative when service to one of their systems became necessary. They established a temporary procedure to virtually escort the engineer into the system. The customer’s information technology (IT) group first had to establish a temporary path to access the engineering workstation, then grant remote access to that path to their process engineer. Once remote access was established, the customer shared their screen on a video conference and our engineer verbally directed them through the troubleshooting process. With the customer’s help, our engineer was able to help troubleshoot

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Figure 1: An engineer from Applied Control Engineering Inc. verbally directs a customer through troubleshooting a system. Being able to see the system live is a big advantage over simple telephone support. Images courtesy: Applied Control Engineering Inc.

the system and point onsite maintenance to a field instrument that was not providing the feedback it should have been. If a pandemic response includes different levels of lockdown, the question of how manufacturing systems get the on-demand service they need at each of those levels must be addressed. In this case, there is an argument for making an allowance for some level of remote support in a pandemic.

2. Take a team approach for manufacturing automation

For manufacturers, a large focus of the pandemic response has been keeping operation staff isolated from day-to-day interactions – not just with concontrol engineering

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COVID-19 AUTOMATION PROJECT HELP because resources are less mobile and more confined to their teams. In this case, the customer looked to outside contractors to help round out their support teams and complete work that would have normally been handled internally.

3. Remote visualization helps manufacturers

Figure 2: The time saved by being able to remotely troubleshoot a late-night problem instead of going into the plant can shorten losses in production.

tractors but also internal support personnel, such as technicians and process engineers. One of our customers established a team approach for engineering and technical support. Support personnel have been divided up and assigned to teams. The teams do not interact with each other. This limits the impact and exposure a single case would have. A team could be quarantined, and the plant could continue running with the remaining teams.

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team supports the plant as they can.

For support personnel and operations staff, it was a matter of more strictly enforcing the separation of shifts. Taking that a step further, this manufacturer also extended the team approach to the engineering and plant management level where two teams have been established and work at the site on opposite days. When a team is off, they work remotely to support the plant where they can. The tradeoff in this approach is the strain it puts on resources. The rigid approach is understandable, but it makes things like the occasional day off harder to cover and slows down internal project work

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Many manufacturers have already invested in a portal that would allow staff engineers who are not at the site the ability to view the process just as operations is seeing it. In a manufacturing environment, these portals should generally be set up as read-only so someone who is remote cannot affect a running process. Even with this restriction, a process engineer can view the graphics, examine the trends and sort through current and historical alarms to help operations work through an issue. Many customers mandated that process engineers work from home when COVID-19 struck. It was at that time when many of the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and distributed control system (DCS) vendors provided extended trial licenses and discounting on their portal products. Leveraging these offers, we helped several customers set up portals so remote process engineers were able to be more effective in their interactions with operations. The utility value of products like this goes beyond usage in a pandemic. A tool like this also could mean the difference between needing to go into the plant to help with a 2 a.m. emergency and delay corrective actions versus being able to simply open the laptop, decide on a course of action and go back to bed. Regardless, a pandemic response plan should include tools like this. The return comes in the form of reduced downtime and other gained efficiencies that when a process engineer can be more engaged with operations from a distance.

4. Backup control room for facilities, plants, manufacturers

In plants with a centralized control room, the concept of a backup control room has picked up momentum in recent years. Prior to COVID-19, the discussion of a backup control room mostly rose out of disaster recovery requirements developed for fire and flood. About four years ago, I was attending a meeting at a central utility plant when the building was evacuated. The firefighters who showed up to deal with the emergency could not even enter the building because they were not equipped for the situation. They had to wait for trained personnel to arrive. During this time, the process continued doing what it was doing before, and site operations www.controleng.com

could neither see nor direct the process to do anything different. A backup control room, potentially outside the utility plant, would have allowed them to monitor equipment and, if need be, control and shutdown portions of the system. During a pandemic, a backup control room would allow one control room to be deep cleaned in case of possible contamination while the other is in use. This concept also could be coupled with the team approach discussed above where each operations team would take over operations from alternating control rooms while the other is cleaned in preparation for the next shift. The wider adoption of thin client technology in the industrial space has helped make the setup of a backup control room easier and more cost effective than before. A set of thin clients in a backup control room can serve as operator workstations using the same set of servers and terminal sessions the primary control room uses. There are ways to architect the additions to the system where sessions can be shared between backup and primary control rooms, saving the cost of additional licenses. The backup control room also can be smaller. Since one thin client can host multiple sessions, a redundant setup may not need to have as many stations as the primary control room.

5. Offsite plant management and engineering for automation, controls

There are tools and technologies that can facilitate remotely managing a plant and engineering from a distance including: Asset management software: When plant engineering is forced to socially distance with technicians and contract support, it is harder to rely on direct communication about what is happening with maintenance and troubleshooting efforts. An asset management system provides methods for automatically tracking changes to programmable logic controllers (PLCs), humanmachine interfaces (HMIs) and drives. Since the software stores a master copy of the configurations, it also can provide notifications when unexpected changes occur. Manufacturing execution systems (MES): Running a plant from a distance is hard and knowing how it is performing in real time is even more difficult when trying to minimize interactions with plant-floor operators. A well-thought-out MES can help by automatically collecting the data from the plant floor and input from operations and making that available to plant managers and engineers in real time. Network monitoring: There is a selection of products available for monitoring process net-

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With secure remote access, a system integrator engineer verbally directed them through the troubleshooting process and help troubleshoot the system and point onsite maintenance to a field instrument that was not providing the

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works and the devices on them. Some of these are software and others are network appliances. Regardless of the form factor, these products are designed to act as early warning systems for problems that have not impacted operation yet or as a historical record that allows an engineer to go back and see what was happening on the network during a past event. These are a few of the many of tools that can help engineering and management stay in touch with the plant floor even if they cannot be there in person. A manufacturing pandemic response plan should be reviewed and tested regularly so it is always ready for action. ce

David N. Erby is vice president of Applied Control Engineering Inc. Applied Control Engineering is a member of the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA), which is a Control Engineering content partner. Edited by Mark T. Hoske, content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, mhoske@cfemedia.com.

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KEYWORDS: COVID-19, manufacturing disaster plan COVID-19 has updated many manufacturers disaster plans. During COVID-19, protect people and minimize manufacturing interruptions. Disaster plans can be helped with capabilities for virtual site visits, a team approach, remote visualization, a backup control room and offsite operations functionality.

CONSIDER THIS How has COVID-19 and automation helped your disaster planning?

ONLINE For more on disaster planning from ACE, see: www.controleng.com/articles/advice-for-a-manufacturing-pandemic-response-plan/ Applied Control Engineering Inc. (ACE) is a System Integrator of the Year: www.controleng.com/articles/ applied-control-engineering-inc-is-system-integrator-of-the-year-2021/ Global System Integrator Database has more Applied Control Engineering Inc. https://gspplatform.cfemedia.com/si/integratorProfile/5399d0b3e4b025bf87df435f control engineering

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INSIDE PROCESS: SYSTEM INTEGRATION By Robbie Peoples, Cross Co.

Eight tips for process automation success Process automation projects are complex and can go through many challenges before completion. Remaining open, honest and demanding high expectations from everyone can help ensure the project will succeed.

omplex integration projects can present a level of ambiguity even for seasoned project managers. Keeping a close watch on budget and schedule is critical for success, but is not enough to ensure the project is successful in the eyes of a client. Maintaining client satisfaction can be the most challenging aspect when managing an integration project. A client’s perception of satisfaction goes through transition cycles just like projects do. The client’s view of the performance of the integration team is a complex element that can be difficult to measure accurately. Effectively managing perceptions and expectations can be challenging. To succeed, one must understand and relate to the client’s pain points. As projects progress through their lifecycle, the number of interactions and exchanges of data between stakeholders fluctuates. On a typical project, the time and effort of the definition and planning phases exceed that of the execution phase. Generally speaking, more interaction is needed with clients on the front- and back-end of project phases. The planning stage also requires accurate and timely delivery of data from the client in order to progress into the execution stages. These demands put pressure on clients to produce information and can be a bottleneck for the entire project. In many cases, clients do not have the expertise and/or available bandwidth to spend the time to produce the information needed for execution. The following eight points are derived from real-world experiences of managing complex automation projects and identify key attributes to help manage the process.

1. Don’t underestimate the demands

To ensure project demands can be met, it is recommended to evaluate the workload requirements for all stakeholders prior to the execution of a large

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project. If the company does not have large project execution experience, it is highly recommended to talk with knowledgeable professionals to define the requirements. A common misconception is that the current work responsibilities can be maintained while taking on additional project loading activities as well. Another common oversight is underestimating the detailed knowledge required to provide accurate data or review/approvals required. These oversights can be detrimental to success and all work loading should be properly planned and staffed for success.

2. Engage with stakeholders early

It is important to have a solid working relationship between stakeholders. It is recommended to dedicate time at the front-end of the project to establish a solid foundation based on ethical business practices. Face-to-face meetings always are recommended over video or conference calls. It is important to discuss the interactions between groups and define scope boundaries. Define the expectations of how requests, submittals, deadlines and out-of-scope requests will be handled. Doing business is easy when the project is within schedule and budget. However, when deadlines are looming and stakes are high, so it is always better to understand how to work together to address issues and concerns prior to a high-stress situation. Over-communicate the expectation from all stakeholders to ensure everyone understands.

3. Request feedback often

Embrace feedback as an important aspect of continuous improvement. That is, stakeholders should check in their ego at the door, humble themselves and ask for direct honest feedback. Positive feedback is great but the only way to improve is to define the negative aspects. This is a two-way street, however, and both client and contractor should have an open discussion because www.controleng.com

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input #10 at www.controleng.com/information

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INSIDE PROCESS: SYSTEM INTEGRATION both have responsibilities to deliver. Depending on the project size, milestone reviews can be performed on a periodic basis. All issues and actions should be published and followed-up for each feedback session.

4. Get management involved

Involving upper management on a periodic basis shows a commitment to the responsibilities of the project. This cultivates an open-door policy to help clarify current issues at hand and provide primary decision makers with first-hand information. These meetings should be more strategic than tactical. Identify roadblocks or critical-path items but keep the topics at a level that everyone can follow and do not allow conversations to get into the weeds, which might make the management team lose interest. Review meetings should not be the standard weekly or bi-weekly meeting attendees. Identify a separate time to review the key issues to keep management aware of the project status.

5. Hold stakeholders accountable

DTE selected the Siemens Simatic PCS 7 distributed control system (DCS) to modernize its control system using redundant AS400H controllers for the updated project configuration, including the combustion control (blue I/O) and process safety/burner management applications (yellow I/O). The system was integrated into new cabinets by Cross Company. Courtesy: Cross Co. via Siemens

Stakeholders should be held accountable to deliver the associated data and/or information needed to move the project forward. Always assign specific deadlines for delivery and do not allow generic time frames to be assigned. If items are delayed then the successive items will be delayed as well. All deliverables and deadlines should be reviewed at every meeting to ensure everyone fully understands and accepts the responsibilities. Collective synergy and commitment from all stakeholders will result in project success.

CASE STUDY: DCS migration By Josh Dalzell, Cross Company

TE Calvert City (DTECC) in Kentucky made the decision three years ago to upgrade its obsolete Process Suite HMI to APACS OS. For 15 years, the APACS distributed control system (DCS) had been a reliable and comfortable system used to maintain the operational functionality for a plant that generated power and utilities around the clock. However, now the APACS hardware lifespan was coming to an end due to a decrease in both new and used replacement components, and a lack of support for its human-machine interface (HMI) and hardware. Cross Company, a certified PCS7 solution partner for Siemens, had built trust with DTECC by implementing the smooth transition to APACS OS. DTECC

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reviewed its needs, concerns and questions and chose Cross Company to migrate the APACS DCS to a full Siemens PCS 7 system implementation.

Key upgrade challenges With any change and upgrade, even to a modern system, there will be issues along the way. To begin with, there is the initial fear of the change itself. If we are not sure what will happen, good or bad, we may fear that it will be overwhelming, causing us to avoid that change and deny that there is a problem that requires the change. In the specific case of DTECC and its migration, the upgrade challenges included: • DTECC supplies industrial utility services to a number of chemical facilities in the area that include www.controleng.com

6. Follow the process

Partnering with a professional group with a defined and qualified process of implementation can be the difference between success and failure. Do not allow a custom approach or unproven strategies to creep into the project. Cutting a new path or reinventing the wheel only invokes a level of uncertainty to the outcome. The only way to predict the future is to understand the past. When schedules become tight, most people search for ways to cut corners. Be sure to fully evaluate the impact or potential impact of all actions and trust the proven process to lead to success.

7. Do the right thing

Mistakes will happen, but what is important is to be honest and admit the mistake, identify how to correct the situation and provide a solution to prevent that mistake from happening again. Honest, fair and open communications with stakeholders is the best policy. Always act in the best interest of the client and lead by example.

8. Remain persistent and open

Common attributes of successful projects are acceptance and upholding responsibilities from stakeholders. Successful projects have hardships throughout the project lifecycle. However, persistence to work through those issues establishes a level of trust and understanding that builds healthy relationships. An open culture of continuous improvement and dedication to success are critical to forming a close partnership.

Dedication to those relationships means fair practices solutions are identified together and decisions are not one-sided. It is a good idea to keep management involved, solidifying the commitment. Be sure to communicate openly and honestly with realistic expectations while adhering to the most ethical business practices. Doing these things surely will bring success to the project. Robbie Peoples, integration manager, Cross Co. This article originally appeared on Cross Company online. Cross Company is a CFE Media content partner. Edited by Jack Smith, content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, jsmith@cfemedia.com.

M More ANSWERS KEYWORDS: system integration; process automation To ensure project demands can be met, it is recommended to evaluate the workload requirements for all stakeholders prior to the execution of a large project. Involving upper management on a periodic basis shows a commitment to the responsibilities of the project. Partnering with a professional group with a defined and qualified process of implementation can be the difference between success and failure. Common attributes of successful projects are acceptance and upholding responsibilities from stakeholders. ONLINE Link to additional System integration and related content at www.controleng.com/archives, under January 2021.

CONSIDER THIS Are the stakeholders at your company accountable to deliver the associated data and/or information needed to move its projects forward?

power via a gas turbine generator, softened water, steam and compressed air. Its customers need a constant supply, so how could an upgrade take place with minimal downtime so as to minimize a loss of revenue for DTECC and its customers? APACS does not have a direct migration tool for moving to PCS 7. • APACS OS, while fundamentally using a Siemens WinCC supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, is configured with a third-party tool that write-protects the project database. • The initial PCS 7 version was 9.0 but had initial issues with the redundancy library, thus the project was migrated to version 9.0 SP1 during the implementation. • Following that, there were issues installing the Modbus (a method used for transmitting information www.controleng.com

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over serial lines between electronic devices) library on PCS 7 V9.0 SP1.

The power of a systems integrator partnership Braintrust is a powerful asset and Cross Company’s professional team has had experience with similar transitions. DTECC already had a positive working relationship with Cross and was able to discuss previous control system support and DCS upgrade projects. control engineeering

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INSIDE PROCESS: SYSTEM INTEGRATION Additionally, Cross had personnel within a few hours of the site for continued support and improvements on a long-term basis. DTECC relied on its trusted relationship with Cross to discuss concerns and find reasonable and agreeable solutions.

Planning overcomes obstacles Identifying key issues is an important part of the problem-solving process, but once those are determined, it is equally important to determine the next course of action. DTECC brainstormed with Cross engineers to mutually understand the goal of the process, review potential solutions or combinations of solutions, evaluate those options and agree on contingencies and future review. Things can be very different on paper than they are in the field, so Cross engineers used a mix of planning and situational problem solving to achieve their goal within the timeframe provided. • After discussing all possible options, a black plant (a plant that shuts down com-

plete power) was scheduled for three days. To minimize issues or complications during the outage and speed up installation, Cross engineers planned the migration and rigged all necessary panels with more than roughly 2,500 input/output (I/O) points and used electronic marshaling which replaces manual cross-marshaling of field wiring with digital mapping. • The WinCC project was migrated by creating a new OS project, copying graphics and using import/export functionality to move configurations for alarms, tags, scripts, etc., into the new OS project. • APACS logic was programmed manually for all initial implementations. Upon that successful completion, bulk engineering, copy/ paste and Process Object View were used to replicate code to all duplicate units. • Siemens tech support was able to provide a manual workaround for the version issue with the redundancy library until a permanent fix was developed through a software update.

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• The Modbus library installation issue was resolved after manual steps were completed.

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Things can differ on paper compared to in the field, so engineers used a mix of planning and situational problem solving to achieve

Final thoughts Change is an inevitable facet of our lives, but how we respond to change can determine the path that we take and where we end up. We can choose to ignore a problem in the hopes that it will go away, however, history shows us that this approach to change leaves us reacting to a situation (i.e., cleaning up a mess) instead of responding to it (i.e., proactive measures). The migration to PCS 7 allowed DTECC to operate its facility on a current, state-of-theart, well-supported system with a clear and reliable upgrade concept for future expansion. As time marches on, DTECC will continue to look to its trusted systems integration partners to maximize time management and improve production costs. APACS DCS was a reliable product, but those who have not yet migrated are encouraged to schedule a

goals in the timeframe provided. consultation to remain relevant in the industry, to stay within the production-possibility curve (PPC) and to understand the value that a modern system can offer. DTE Calvert City is part of the DTE Energy P&I group of companies. The DTE Energy P&I Group focuses its products and services on energy-intensive industrial, commercial and institutional customers across North America.

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Josh Dalzell is a system integration engineer in the Process Control Integration group at Cross Company, a CFE Media content partner. Edited by Jack Smith, content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, jsmith@cfemedia.com.

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ANSWERS

DIGITAL TWIN TECHNOLOGY Vincent Higgins, Honeywell’s Workforce Competency Solutions

How advanced digital twins narrow the industrial skills gap Digital twins and immersive field simulators (IFS) can narrow the skills gap by offering a replica training environment with virtual and mixed reality tools.

n today’s demanding industrial environment, there is an urgent need for training that helps workers acquire knowledge and develop new skills they can perform on the job. Without proper technical instruction, plant personnel are prone to mistakes that can hinder operational and business performance. According to industry data, more than a quarter of plant incidents occur because workers lack competence. Many situations require fast response based on an accurate understanding of equipment in the appropriate context. A surging compressor, flow reversal in an FCC or boiler drum level instability are all situations requiring prompt and effective action to avoid bad consequences. Unfortunately, the current business environment has restricted the ability to perform classroom instruction at most industrial sites. Knowledge transfer between seasoned employees and new hires has become more difficult, if not impossible. Faced with increasingly complex KEYWORDS: digital twins, technology and an experienced workimmersive field simulator, force nearing retirement, plants need virtual reality robust training solutions that accurately An immersive field simulator depict real-world environments. Tradi(IFS) provides a virtual reality tional training often fails to help panel (VR)/mixed (MR)-based training and field operators and maintenance solution. technicians become better at their jobs. VR learning is four times faster than traditional classroom The result can be reliability issues and instruction and four times more unplanned downtime

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focused than e-learning. IFS provides a detailed accurate training environment that replicates the look and feel of an actual plant environment.

ONLINE Read additional articles about digital twins and virtual reality at www.controleng.com.

CONSIDER THIS What benefits could your plant gain from digital twins and virtual reality simulator?

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January 2021

Evolution of training simulators

Manufacturers have long used operator training simulator (OTS) systems to train process operators in large-scale industrial applications. These simulators are used for instruction on a wide range of operational procedures, imparting fundamental process understanding and maintaining and improving occupational skills.

control engineering

Modern OTS solutions combine dynamic process simulations, emulated control systems and replicated interfaces to recreate the look, feel and behavior of the actual plant. They provide an effective means for optimizing processes and gaining operations experience. Simulation offers a protected area for instruction on new job scenarios, which can be relearned at any time. OTS systems also have employed digital twin technology to replicate physical processes and assets in a virtual environment. This approach provides the closest possible virtual image of a real control system, serving as a simulation model of reality with all components, their characteristics, functionalities and parameters. Digital twins developed by process experts can help retain and transfer valuable expertise to a newer control room and field operators. The digital twin models can be static or dynamic high-fidelity process models; dynamic control system models; or 3D spatial models created from CAD drawings, light detection and ranging (LIDAR) scans, or even photos taken using digital algorithms.

Digital twin helps industrial training

Using a digital twin, training courses can be designed for: • Familiarization with layout, including the location of main pieces of equipment and identification of emergency equipment • Line tracing and location of instrumentation, control and relief valves and start/stop motors • Start-up, shutdown, malfunctions and normal operations • Rounds and sampling procedures • Lockout and tagout (LOTO), and equipment isolation. www.controleng.com

Digital twins can help retain and transfer valuable expertise to a newer control room and field operators. Courtesy: Honeywell’s Workforce Competency Solutions

As a result of ongoing development efforts, a new type of digital twin combines a 3D physical twin of the plant with a mathematical twin of the process to enhance the training of multiple personas within a typical industrial facility. This technology brings actual plant experiences to life in an efficient, controlled and safe learning environment.

Immersive training: Virtual reality, mixed reality

For many years, control room personnel had comprehensive training programs, while field workers relied on hands-on instruction to learn their job functions. This situation has evolved with new immersive simulation technology enabling teams of field operators and technicians to interact via virtual walk-talkies and achieve a training experience similar to their counterparts working at control room consoles. An immersive field simulator (IFS) provides a virtual reality (VR)/mixed (MR)-based training solution, which helps better train today’s industrial workforce. The IFS can be used to extend console operator simulator training to field operators for credible, realistic and immersive collaborative training experiences. This enables operating companies to increase worker competency while enhancing safety, to maximize plant performance. According to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers study, VR learning is four times faster than traditional classroom instruction and four times more focused than e-learning. It also inspires 300% greater confidence in trainees doing their jobs in the real world. The codification of training with sight and sound makes VR learning much closer to handson “practice by doing” than existing e-learning techniques.

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The IFS design is the culmination of years of development in digital twin technology coupled with decades of real-world process domain experience. The simulator embeds industry know-how via digital twins and experience-driven insights to drive intelligence beyond traditional Big Databased solutions. Some automation suppliers have offered operator training simulators to replicate the functions and activities of an industrial control room setting. However, this training-based control room was not connected to the actual production operation but rather was tied to a digital twin of the process and

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In a study by the National Training Laboratory, retention rates for VR learning were around 75%, and it helped fill the skills gap between experienced employees who are retiring in large numbers and younger workers who must gain know-

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how in a wide range of critical operations. assets. With an IFS, the same digital twin has now been paired with a digital twin of the 3D world – essentially the plant itself with details such as handrails, ladders and stairs, as well as individual assets such pumps, compressors and pipes. The replications are linked to a mathematical process model so an action such as turning a valve in the virtual world also changes the variables in the back-end digital twin of the process. These functions are connected to the control room training simulator. control engineering

January 2021

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ANSWERS

DIGITAL TWIN TECHNOLOGY IFS software uses common immersive gaming technology to create the physical, three-dimensional digital twin of the plant. This approach applies to any facility with 3D CAD engineering drawings or laser-scanned imagery. The 3D plant digital twin is married to the digital twin of the facility’s process and assets. The design of the IFS initially focused on training personnel concerned with the process control side of industrial operations; further developments have centered around maintenance, reliability and safety scenarios that can occur in the plant. Integration of the simulator’s 3D-immersive modeling environment with a traditional OTS enables field and panel operators to train together in a safe environment, learning collaborative skills essential for effective operations.

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Digital twin technologies will be developed to address asset performance management and improve health and

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performance of crucial assets.

Implementing virtual reality, mixed reality training

In the same way pilots practice takeoffs and landings with a flight simulator, an immersive training simulator offers a smooth, virtual walkthrough to familiarize workers with the operations they’ll encounter during day-to-day jobs. It includes avatars that represent virtual team members. This approach helps to improve skill retention versus traditional training methods and reduces the length of technical training. As a cloud-based solution, the IFS responds to the frequent changes to processes and assets typical of refineries, petrochemical plants and other process industry facilities. The use of cloud technology simplifies updates to the back-end digital twin to help reflect the current configuration within the plant and in the field. As such, training departments can enhance management of change when it comes to swapping out equipment, animations, etc. This capability is almost impossible with older, less dynamic technology. In addition, including an instructor portal as part of the IFS allows training supervisors and instructors to build custom training modules on their own within the 3D environment and the operator training simulator without the need for coding. The IFS is intended to be a hardware-agnostic, extensible platform to accommodate future developments in VR and MR technologies. In this case, mixed reality exists in the space between immer-

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control engineering

sive and augmented reality (AR). It blends VR, which is fully immersive and disconnected from the trainee’s actual physical surroundings and augmented reality (AR), which superimposes images on the real world. With IFS technology, plants can use holographic computers and mixed reality headsets to simulate various scenarios – such as primary failure and switchovers, and cable and power supply failures – that train and test personnel on their skills. For example, mixed reality can be used to build a hologram enabling trainees to work on a large compressor in the classroom. Students manipulate a controller in their hands to interact with the equipment in a very authentic 3D manner. The solution also incorporates sounds such as warning sirens, running pumps, etc., to increase the realism of the instructional experience. Trainees can sit at a simulator and go through the exact set of steps for a repair or maintenance activity as they would in the real world and then go out and accurately perform the same procedure on physical equipment in the field. IFS is a preferable method of training for today’s digital-native workforce, which is taking over many complex job responsibilities on the plant floor. Traditional classroom and e-learning techniques are often ineffective with the new generation of workers. In a study by the National Training Laboratory, retention rates for VR learning were around 75%, and it helped fill the skills gap between experienced employees who are retiring in large numbers and younger workers who must gain know-how in a wide range of critical operations. Digital twin solutions will be developed to address asset performance management and relate the health and performance of crucial assets to the 3D digital twin that exists today. The drive for higher efficiency and greater safety in an ever-more-stringent regulatory environment is causing plant owners to consider new ways to enhance training of their personnel. Unlike equipment assets, people are mobile and are the key enabler of plant’s safety and productivity. Their skills vary by individual with each one learning and retaining knowledge differently. A new generation of IFS software incorporates VR to provide plant operators and field technicians with a detailed, accurate training environment. This solution helps improve training times beyond traditional classroom-based learning and minimizes situations that can result in operational downtime. ce Vincent Higgins, global director/general manager, Honeywell’s Workforce Competency Solutions. Edited by Chris Vavra, web content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, cvavra@cfemedia.com. www.controleng.com

ANSWERS

IIoT FOR ENGINEERS Rich Carpenter, Emerson

Industrial automation unites the best of OT and IT As operational and information technology roles progressively overlap in the industrial automation space, a hybrid operational technology/information technology (OT/IT) solution becomes increasingly necessary.

or manufacturing and infrastructure industries with an automation focus, the increasing use of data to drive analytical insights has forced a convergence of traditional operational technology (OT) with information technology (IT), creating a need for more united implementations. In response, commercial advancements in hardware, software, and networking have been adopted into industrial platforms at an increasing rate. These trends have been driven by available technology and sophisticated end users who want the same flexibility and convenience offered by consumer applications. However, the path to merging OT with IT has had a few bumps and potholes. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) relies on well-coordinated products and performance in the OT and IT realms. For the progressively overlapping roles of OT and IT to be most effective, it is necessary to merge the strengths of OT and IT disciplines. It’s useful to examines what those strengths are, and how a hybrid OT/IT solution approach can become greater than the sum of its parts.

OT and IT seek to expand constraints

A reality is work performed in OT and IT environments are subjected to unique constraints. One key challenge is traditional hardware and software solutions used by OT and IT evolved from different starting points. They are used by distinct groups of people whose objectives and skill sets were not the same. OT and IT specialists often find themselves out of their element when exposed to common tools used by the other group.

OT tools for automation expand with IT

OT tools emerged for domain experts, primarily with electrical or mechanical engineering backgrounds, for the primary purpose of monitoring and controlling production equipment with the utmost reliability.

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Figure 1: Numerous industrial “little data” sources aggregate into site-wide “big data,” which can easily exceed the data volume of typical consumer applications. Images courtesy: Emerson

Automation designs and physical processing equipment are often capacity-constrained and require control engineers to apply intimate knowledge of the limits. Ladder logic, structured text (ST), and function block diagrams (FBDs) are examples of specific industrial development languages used by OT communities to manage programmable logic controllers (PLCs), distributed control systems (DCSs), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), historians, and other typical OT applications. IT tools emerged at the other end of the spectrum with software and computer engineers often in mind. More recently, additional personnel such as cloud developers, data engineers and data scientists have become involved. Cloud systems, by their very nature, assume infinite compute and storage capacity. The idea of constraining the application to a small edge device is as foreign to the IT community as developing a C# or Java application is to some OT experts.

Data pushes OT/IT convergence

The need for insights from a common data set is forcing a convergence of the tools used to collect, distribute, and analyze data – requiring the use of control engineering

M More ANSWERS

KEYWORDS: IT/OT

convergence, edge-tocloud technologies IT and OT technologies can help automation. IT and OT toolsets must be understood and accessible by all. Converged IT/OT tools are helping.

CONSIDER THIS Can your IT and OT teams deploy all tools available?

ONLINE If reading from the digital edition, click on the headline for more resources. www.controleng.com/ magazine

January 2021

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ANSWERS

IIoT FOR ENGINEERS OT and IT applications. Initially, IT-oriented developers assumed all analysis would be moved to the cloud, where a vast open-source community has created a collection of tools well suited to analyzing large data sets. Many corporate initiatives were launched with this objective in mind, often with limited or mixed results. OT applications generate an enormous amount of “little data” from machines operating 24/7/365. In aggregate, one industrial facility can create “Big Data” significantly exceeding consumer applications, even those with millions of users (Figure 1).

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Comprehensive and seamless access to IT-centric features like networking, cloud processing, and advanced computing and

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visualization options is a must.

Certain OT applications like historians have evolved to efficiently store this data through builtin compression algorithms and very high-speed indexed data access. Moving this volume of data to the cloud and storing it there is cumbersome and expensive. Typical cloud software tools are not as efficient in storage and access speed, so interactions with cloud-based data can be less than acceptable for evaluating even one machine’s data set. On the other hand, IT tools are more efficient at analyzing large data sets across a fleet of assets by using parallel computing techniques built into the software infrastructure. Addressing performance

challenges is often as simple as adding an additional server to the system. Likewise, IT infrastructures are designed for supplying information to a full set of users because they incorporate browsers, web servers, and mobile devices to provide information to people regardless of physical location. A final point is OT applications often need to be always available because any outages would cause equipment and production downtime. ITbased cloud applications, on the other hand, can often run in a partially-connected paradigm, taking advantage of available computing and connectivity resources.

Converging edge/cloud tools, platforms

To deal with the challenges discussed above, development tools are merging the best aspects of OT and IT, with a shift toward edge-located platforms used either standalone or in conjunction with cloud-based efforts. Out of necessity, OT and IT applications and users are now sharing edge platforms, which have emerged as a crucial element for industrial data management tasks (Figure 2). IT users understand the benefits of executing analytics at the edge with high fidelity and low latency mission critical data designed and architected to always be available. For plant-wide, multi-plant, and fleet-level analysis, data must be transmitted to higher level systems. Edge platforms are well suited to delivering the proper subsets of data from each site to cloud-based platforms, where massive parallel compute architectures can be used to gain big data insights. When connection is lost to the cloud-based systems, the edge platforms typically store the data locally until connectivity is restored. OT users also are adopting more commonly IT-oriented development tools such as NodeRED and Python, which are now available to run on edge hardware. They are using these and other tools to develop OT-focused applications for reducing downtime, predicting failures, and improving production efficiency. These tools are more powerful than traditional OT options for analytical and dashboarding applications, and they are enabling the creation of advanced IIoT applications. Evidence of this level of IT/OT platform convergence is seen with the emergence of IT protocols at the edge such as message queuing telemetry transport (MQTT), advanced message queuing protocol (AMQP), and the more recent adoption of OPC UA, a traditional OT protocol, for delivering production data to IT applications.

OT and IT’s best features help automation Figure 2: Applications needed by OT and IT personnel to create IIoT solutions can best be deployed on edge devices.

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control engineering

Edge hardware will continue to evolve to support OT and IT users who want the best of both www.controleng.com

worlds for developing, deploying, operating and optimizing systems. For example, classic OT tools allow dashboard graphical objects like an RPM gauge to be dragged, dropped, linked, and moved as needed, but within relatively restrictive circumstances. In the IT world, the developer can create such an object in any way they want, but it often requires customized effort. A hybrid evolution must make accessing all these elements easier for OT and IT personnel. It should be tailored for OT engineers to use while incorporating necessary IT advancements to quickly get information to the right people regardless of where they are. OT systems provide the best operational reliability but are not ideal for more advanced computing like fleet level analytics. IT systems are best positioned for analysis purposes and can span multiple OT installations. By seamlessly sharing edge devices in a cloud/edge infrastructure, OT and IT analysis can be performed on the same data. Easy accessibility must be addressed for OT and IT personnel so all disciplines can be comfortable working with the hardware, software and networking technologies involved. This also includes the ability to rapidly create, use and re-use IIoT applications combining OT and IT principles. Edge products and tools need to retain the robust operating features of traditional systems used by OT to automate equipment and connect with input/output (I/O) while being usable by plant operational and maintenance personnel. However, managing edge applications at each individual point-of-use is a problem. To address this issue, IT concepts can be leveraged so edge applications are centrally managed like IT applications, allowing them to be kept current with the latest software releases and security updates and then easily and automatically distributed to the edge nodes where they are used. Comprehensive and seamless access to IT-centric features like networking, cloud processing, and advanced computing and visualization options is a must for meeting these challenges.

Reconciling OT, IT: 3 edge automation examples

In the consumer world, some software products and services are carefully curated and secured, while others are openly distributed. The former is better defined and more protected than the latter, but it is generally more costly and less flexible. Both approaches can be desirable, and sometimes they are even combined. Similarly, industrial automation platforms and tools are available today with sufficient rigor for OT, and plenty of freedom for incorporating IT technologies. Three examples are:

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Figure 3: Emerson’s PACSystems edge controllers deliver real-time deterministic automation like a PLC and can also run a more IT-centric software stack like PACEdge, allowing OT and IT users to easily create flexible IIoT applications.

1. Edge controller: Provides reliable hardware, similar in many ways to traditional PLC technology, but extensible to enable general-purpose computing (Figure 3). 2. Edge stack: There are many software options in the IT world, but a carefully curated stack of software elements useful for edge projects can significantly streamline IIoT implementations. 3. Edge networking: Device-level networking – such as industrial Ethernet, OPC UA, and other specific industrial protocols – are necessary for gathering source data. Other more IT-friendly protocols, such as MQTT, are required to efficiently communicate data to higher level, IT-oriented systems. Although networking architectures are flattening, edge computing plays a key role in coordinating both types of networking. As more end users embark on a digital transformation journey, they need the right platforms and tools to build IIoT applications. A successful OT and IT evolution creates a seamless merger and results in an edge solution where technology is abstracted from usage, providing end users with the right balance between easy access and expanded functionality. ce Rich Carpenter is the general manager for product management for Emerson’s machine automation solutions business. Edited by Mark T. Hoske, content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, mhoske@cfemedia.com. control engineering

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INNOVATIONS

NEW PRODUCTS FOR ENGINEERS Linear motor series, three widths, four types Beckhoff ’s AL8000 product family is based on a modular system design consisting of linear motors and magnetic plates. Users can choose between three widths: 50 mm (AL8x2x), 80 mm (AL8x4x) and 130 mm (AL8x6x). In addition, each width category offers a broad range of different linear motor types in terms of overall length, type of winding and cooling type. The portfolio therefore contains a total of 28 linear motor types for implementing dynamic and linear axes to suit specific application requirements. Depending on the size of the linear motor, peak forces of 120 to 6,750 N are possible as well as maximum speeds of up to 12 m/s. The entire linear motor coil part is composed of identical individual segments. Depending on which linear motor is ordered, the production process can be adapted to accommodate the relevant number of segments. Beckhoff Automation, www.beckhoff.com

Input #200 at www.controleng.com/information

Servo drive and motor series, one software

Trio Motion Technology’s DX4 servo drive and MX servo motor series and MX servo motor series is designed to be faster and easier for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to use motion control available from Trio’s range of Motion Coordinators. The DX4 servo drive has plug-andplay compatibility with Trio’s controllers and slice I/O systems, all programmed within one software. This increases the speed of application development and commissioning for OEMs. The DX4 servo drive operates at 200V AC and power extends from 50W to 3kW. The DX4 servo drive extends high control performance to the motor shaft, achieving fast and accurate positioning with the matched MXL low inertia and MXM medium inertia servo motors. The drive features EtherCAT update rates down to 125μs and 350% overload for high dynamic applications, as well as functional safety dual STO (SIL3, PLe). Trio Motion Technology, www.triomotion.uk Input #201 at www.controleng.com/information

Industrial pressure transmitter

Passive distribution junction blocks

Murr distribution junction blocks provide a convenient method for connecting sensors and actuators to the control cabinet. The blocks are designed to create optimum installations for any application blocks and add M8 style connectivity as well as M12 12-pin and terminal block homerun options. Murr junction blocks feature a 30 mm wide footprint that saves space and offers flexible mounting options. Integrated LED indicators make troubleshooting easy and overmolded bodies provide vibration and environmental protection. The distribution blocks are available with an integrated cable or the Homerun cabling option. The passive distribution blocks support 18-30.2 Vdc signals, are IP67 rated and UL / CE approved, and include marking tags. AutomationDirect www.automationdirect.com Input #203 at www.controleng.com/information

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control engineering

Piezus’ APZ 3420 is a general-purpose industrial pressure transmitter. It consists of a high-quality silicon piezoresistive sensor with a stainless steel diaphragm. Its versatile design and wide spectrum of variations make APZ 3420 a perfect fit for many industrial applications. Its pressure ranges go from 40 mbar to 600 bar and has a basic accuracy of ±0.25%. It can work in harsh industrial applications and has an operating temperature range of -40 to 85 °C. The APZ 3420 also comes with optional field housing and can operate with or without a graphics display, giving the operator more freedom to choice depending on the current situation. Piezus, www.piezus.com Input #202 at www.controleng.com/information

pH sensor for lab, critical applications

Endress+Hauser’s CML18 and the CPL51E pH electrode can be paired together for applications in the lab or for grab sample analysis in the field. With the Liquiline Mobile CML18 device, the same Memosens sensors that are used in the process can also be used in the lab. This guarantees complete consistency of data between lab and process measurements. For pH measurement applications in the lab requiring a particularly fast response time, the Memosens CPL51E is the ideal choice. It uses the same Memosens technology as the process sensors, but is optimized for a fast response time in sample analysis and laboratory applications that do not require a high degree of temperature- and pressureresistance. The Liquiline Mobile CML18 device has an integrated, wireless charging function, which enables inductive charging using a Qi-certified charger. The Memosens CPL51E lab pH sensor is pre-calibrated and ready for use. Endress+Hauser, www.us.endress.com Input #204 at www.controleng.com/information

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See more New Products for Engineers. www.controleng.com/NPE

Industrial PC for rugged environments

Phoenix Contact’s BL2 BPC 1500 is a compact industrial PC (IPC) designed for rugged environments with limited space. This box IPC is designed for entry-level automation, small machine control, and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications such as edge/fog computing or decentralized data collection and processing. With its fanless design, solid-state mass storage, and heavy-duty metal housing, the BL2 BPC 1500 can operate in demanding industrial applications. The standard version measures 97 x 92 x 46 mm. An extended version is 63 mm deep, with the same width and height. Additional features include 32 GB eMMC internal mass storage, 12 to 30 Vdc wide-voltage operation, and DIN-rail mounting. Phoenix Contact, www.phoenixcontact.com

Input #205 at www.controleng.com/information

Multi-circuit power and energy meter

Accuenergy’s AcuRev 2100 is a next-generation multi-circuit power and energy meter designed to measure up to 18 single-phase or 6 three-phase circuits using SnapOn CT technology for quick and easy installations in high-density, multi-point applications. Reliably monitor real-time energy consumption and perform power quality analysis in commercial, industrial, and residential multi-tenant energy management systems. The AcuRev 2100 is a flexible metering solution is designed to operate and monitor over a broad range of parameters: 10 V to 1000 kV, 5 mA to 50kA and up to 9999MW. Ther AcuRev 2100 is revenue-grade compliant (ANSI C12.2 Class 0.5 and IEC 62053-22 Class 0.5s) providing 8 GB of data-logging capabilities to ensure reliable monitoring and storing of power quality and metering data. Built-in support for Modbus and BACnet provides interoperability between varied devices. Accuenergy, www.accuenergy.com

Built-in programmable controllers, HMI, I/O

Unistream 10 is a multi-function programmable logic controller (PLC) with an integrated, human-machine interface (HMI) touchscreen. It is available in a range of built-in input/ output (I/O) configurations. UniStream 10 includes EtherNet/IP, VNC, FTP, Web Server, Video + RTSP, SQL Client and more. Other Features include auto-tune proportionalintegral-derivative (PID) with up to

Input #206 at www.controleng.com/information

Raspberry Pi compute module

Newark’s Compute Module 4 (CM4) brings the power of the Raspberry Pi 4 to the compute module family and is accompanied by two accessories, the Compute Module 4 I/O (CM4IO) Board and the Compute Module 4 Antenna Kit. CM4 is a faster system on module (SoM) and offers a greater range of connectivity and memory options for design engineers building embedded solutions. Key features include a small form-factor, greater power efficiency, PCle support and a variety of multimedia interfaces. The power and versatility of CM4 make it ideal for artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT) and a wide range of home and industrial automation applications. CM4 is based on the acclaimed Raspberry Pi Model 4B single-board computer, with an updated form factor accommodating new interfaces such as dual HDMI, PCIe and Gigabit Ethernet.

Unitronics, www.unitronics.com

Newark, www.newark.com

Input #208 at www.controleng.com/information

Input #207 at www.controleng.com/information

64 independent loops. It also comes with a function blocks and struts, a multi-language display and builtin alarm screens. It is designed for use in a variety of industries including water and wastewater, machine building, packaging and more.

Smart RFID reader installs into 22 mm panel-mount holes

The Idec KW2D series of radio frequency identification (RFID) readers are compact UL listed allin-one devices installed into typical 22 mm panel-mount holes right along with other switches, buttons, and lights. They maintain IP65/67 water-, dust-, and oil-proof ratings, and feature push-in power supply terminals. A built-in Ethernet port facilitates easy connectivity to host devices like programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and human-machine interfaces (HMIs) using Modbus TCP. Three-color white/green/red LED lighting is visible from the front and sides to indicate standby, successful verification or error, respectively. Idec Corp., www.idec.com

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Input #209 at www.controleng.com/information

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January 2021

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INNOVATIONS

BACK TO BASICS: PROCESS SIMULATION Eckard Eberle, Siemens Process Automation

How digital twins help simulations Digital twins can help model-based technologies provide a basis for continuous process optimization and efficient plant operation.

magine being able to see the future with absolute certainty while operating your plant. The key to achieving this lies in simulations that are very close to reality. In a model such as a digital twin, the reality – in this instance comprising all the plant components and their characteristics and functionalities – is described using mathematical equations. The digital twin can map not only reality, but also “what-if ” scenarios to provide reliable predictions of a plant’s future behavior. It can do this because the model is bound by neither the technical limits of a device nor safety restrictions and the work of process optimization can therefore be completed in a safe, virtual environment. Because the simulations have no time limits, even accurate predictions of the plant behavior are no longer a pipe dream. In an ideal scenario, three “independent” digital twins collaborate on a single process plant: The digital twin of the product, the virtual image of the production plant, and the digital modeling of product and production performance. To understand the concept of a “digital twin” it is important to remember the depth of detail – the accuracy of the twin – is dependent on the intended purpose. Depending on the specific job, for example, production simulation, optimization of the production process, or solving economic problems, models of greater or lesser accuracy are required and useful.

A new manufacturing approach, lifecycle

New perspectives are emerging from the approach of integrating the individual models and software tools into a consistent, semantically linked system over the entire life cycle of a plant. A great deal of in-depth process engineering expertise, combined with many software systems, is required to produce these types of systems and models. It is therefore possible to use existing system knowledge and the latest published information to produce an initial digital process twin using simulation software. This is used to design the plant and its components – the so-called “conceptual design.” In this phase, all knowledge flows into a process flow diagram (PFD), the basis of the digital process twin. In the next engineering phase, the

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digital process twin is transferred to the system planning tool to form the basis of the digital plant twin. This is sequentially extended by further system-specific elements. The basic structure of the digital plant twin can then be created using plant engineering tools. Once the process engineering is complete, all the required information is transferred to the engineering system in a process control system. In addition to this, the field level is mapped in a simulation platform so the automation software can then be virtually commissioned. Virtual commissioning has many benefits – on the one hand, all the automation functions can be tested in advance while the simulation also can be used to prepare and train plant operators, particularly for critical scenarios which can be played out in the virtual environment without any risk to the actual plant. Training is therefore provided for both standard operation and plant behavior in the event of disruption.

More than reality using soft sensors

Soft sensors are an important application of a digital twin in the operating phase. They estimate process variables which are not available using a process model to optimize process control as required. This model is ideally the existing digital twin of the plant. Previous experience has shown model-based KEYWORDS: process simulation, technologies are the key for simuladigital twin tions, process optimization and accurate Digital twins can help plant managers forecasting. see the future of their plant with absolute certainty. Consistent use of the three digital All knowledge flows into a process twins of product, production and perforflow diagram (PFD), the basis of the mance mentioned earlier maximizes the digital process twin. economic benefits over the entire lifeDigital twin simulation benefits cycle of a process plant. These benefits increase if they are interlinked or can be increased if the simulation modtransferred within each other. els are interlinked or transferred within ONLINE each other. ce

M More INNOVATIONS

Eckard Eberle is CEO of Siemens Process Automation. This article originally appeared on Control Engineering Europe’s website. Edited by Chris Vavra, web content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, cvavra@

Go to www.controleng.com for more articles about digital twins and how they help manufacturers and control engineers.

CONSIDER THIS What benefits could your process facility gain from digital twins and simulations?

control engineering

January 2021

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he voice of the engineering community speaks loud and clear in the following pages featuring the corporate profiles of those companies participating in the 2021 Executive Voice program presented by Control Engineering magazine. Our thanks to these advertisers:

ABB Motors and Mechanical AutomationDirect Beckhoff Automation

Digi-Key Electronics Festo SEW Eurodrive, Inc. Stratus WAGO Corporation 12/28/2020 10:49:00 AM

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or over 40 years in the US and 80 years globally, Festo has been a positive force for manufacturers. Our passion is automation—intelligent automation solutions that transform the way people work—and the way companies compete. Ultimately, it’s about continuously stimulating progress. In big ways and in small ways.

We operate with a simple, yet powerful manifesto: That intelligent automation isn’t just about movement — it’s movement with purpose. And it’s not just about innovative products. It’s about products that come with expert advice and differentiated customer support. Our aim is to help you make your products faster, smarter and more precisely. That’s how they thrive instead of just survive. And when you win, we win.

United States Headquarters in Islandia, NY

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We are Festo. And our purpose is to help you turn the power of intelligent automation into a catalyst for transformation.

The automation system CPX-E is designed as a central control system for handling technology, with an EtherCAT® master controller and a motion controller with protection to IP20.

With a comprehensive line of more than 30,000 automation products, we can support the most complex automation requirements. • Pneumatic Drives • Valve and Valve Manifolds • Servo Pneumatic Technology • Handling & Vacuum Technology • Sensors and Machine Vision • Control Technology • Air Preparation, Pneumatic Connections and Tubing • Electromechanical Components In 2018, we acquired Fabco-Air Inc. and have since worked closely with its Florida-based facility to produce high-quality inch-dimension actuators. Through these joint efforts, we released new standard products—all while integrating the principles of quality and production that are synonymous with the Festo name. United States Headquarters in Islandia, NY www.festo.us • Phone: 800-99-FESTO customer.service.us@festo.com

input #12 at www.controleng.com/information

12/14/2020 11:55:52 AM

anufacturers face common employment challenges across the US, including aging workforces, changing skill needs, limited interest in working in manufacturing, and a lack of real-world learning experiences for students.

A number of years ago, we identified advanced tools and processes for the future of our industrial manufacturing. We also realized these resources require different skills and abilities than we have today. At a minimum, we knew we would need to invest in reskilling and retraining our current employees to prepare.

is different based on its size, employers, educational institutions, and economic development goals, in every location we are finding commonality and models that are becoming effective. We believe we must work together to change the perception of manufacturing. Many think of manufacturing as dark, dirty and unsafe. So, we bring students, parents and educators behind our walls where they see bright lights, clean floors and safe conditions. They see automation mixed with manual processes and robots working with humans.

Through high school apprenticeships, ABB is able to provide real-world learning which complements classroom training.

However, in order for the right people to be in place five and ten years from now, we looked to our communities. We established a strategic initiative within our business to create a pipeline of technically skilled young talent in the communities in which we operate. While each community

An initiative of this size can’t be done alone. Across the country, we are partnering with local education systems to rethink the way we approach recruitment and career and technical education of young talent. We work side-by-side with K-12 systems and 2 and 4-year universities and colleges.

We’ve worked with our educators to create a specific curriculum, develop concurrent credit programs, and provide college internships. We’ve also started a youth apprenticeship program in a couple of our locations. When an 18-year old student graduates from high school with a valuable career plan and

Jesse Henson President of ABB’s US Motors and Generators division

relevant skills and can go straight to work, she’s well prepared for the years ahead. With a tuition reimbursement program like we offer, we can help her get a college education when she’s ready for it, an opportunity most parents appreciate as well.

We need to continue to work together to help families and educators understand that manufacturing can be a rewarding career choice. The future of manufacturing is here. So is the talent. We need to continue to work together to help families and educators understand that manufacturing can be a rewarding career choice. It’s critical that we align the students of today with the jobs of tomorrow. Not only do we need them, but our customers do, too.

baldor.abb.com 479.646.4711

input #13 at www.controleng.com/information

utomationDirect takes the best ideas from the consumer world to serve the industrial market. As a direct seller of industrial automation products for more than 25 years, AutomationDirect is a leader in the industry that offers many customer services not typical with traditional distributors. The company’s online store provides complete product information and pricing so customers can make informed decisions on their automation purchases quickly and independently. AutomationDirect’s products are practical, easy to use and offer a low cost of ownership. The company offers quality products at prices up to 50 percent lower than those of more traditional distributors. Most product programming software is free, requiring no initial or upgrade costs and no software maintenance contracts. Product offerings include programmable logic controllers (PLCs), alternating-current (AC) drives/ motors, operator interface panels/human machine interface (HMI), power supplies, direct-current (DC) motors, sensors, pushbuttons, National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) enclosures, pneumatic supplies and more.

The automationdirect.com online store is one of the most exhaustive in the industry

order history and making payments. Customers can also obtain return authorizations online for quick and easy product returns or exchanges. AutomationDirect’s phone technical support staff has garnered top honors in service from industry magazine readers 15 years in a row. And, with tens of thousands of active customers, the company’s online technical forum taps into that knowledge base by encouraging peers to help each other with applications and other questions. Other online help includes frequently asked questions, application examples and product selection guides.

They Guarantee It AutomationDirect’s corporate headquarters near Atlanta, Georgia

Award-Winning Services Satisfy Customers

AutomationDirect has always maintained a huge inventory, allowing them to ship orders fast with free two-day shipping available for any order over $49. Shipment confirmations, any back order status and estimated delivery information are communicated electronically to keep you informed.

AutomationDirect wants you to be pleased with every order. That is why they offer 30-day money-back guarantee on almost every product they sell (see Terms and Conditions for certain exclusions).

Their online store is one of the most exhaustive in the industry – all technical documentation can be downloaded free of charge, as well as software and firmware updates. Hundreds of instructional videos, as well as numerous PLC training courses are available for free. Online access to your account allows viewing and changing account information, viewing input #14 at www.controleng.com/information

1-800-633-0405 www.automationdirect.com customersupport@automationdirect.com

emands to quickly reach the best decisions based on real-time data insights have never been greater. Of course, the responsibility to apply the right technologies to make all this happen often falls at the feet of controls engineers.

Implement Analytics – and Stay in Control of Your Big Data

Fortunately, there are ways to implement big data analytics in ways that aren’t too far out of the comfort zone of PLC programmers if they use PCbased control systems and software platforms like TwinCAT from Beckhoff. As PC-based control platforms have evolved into the age of IoT, the walls have come down in terms of what the roles are for automation controllers in machines and plants.

TwinCAT also protects and enhances the intellectual property of machine builders and manufacturers

As far back as the mid-90s, one PC-based controller could assume the combined roles of PLC, motion controller and HMI. This eliminates the previously existing costs and inefficiencies from relying on multiple hardware, software and networking platforms.

Fast-forward to today and it is just as possible for one Industrial PC (IPC) to assume the roles of IoT gateway, edge computing device and data analytics platform. While deploying analytics on board machine controllers is more typical in edge computing, additional analytics code developed in the same environment can also run concurrently in cloud services, such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services (AWS). IT communication standards are also at play in manufacturing environments today, such as MQTT, as are standards more commonly associated with industrial applications, such as OPC UA. This means that scalability is assured. There are many benefits to running analytics software directly on the machine controller to supplement higher-level, standalone platforms that run in the cloud. However, the skillset of the typical controls engineer may not heavily overlap yet with the latest IoT technologies. By applying data analytics tools in the same engineering platform as the one used for PLC, motion control and HMI, engineers will shorten their learning curve and stack the deck in favor of successful implementations when many are rolling out pilot projects for their first true IIoT and Industrie 4.0 concepts.

input #15 at www.controleng.com/information

Daymon Thompson Automation Product Manager, USA

Demands to quickly reach the best decisions based on real-time data insights have never been greater. Software platforms like TwinCAT also protect and enhance the intellectual property of machine builders and manufacturers, without giving away a new revenue stream or competitive advantage to an IoT services provider or other third-party. Using PC-based control technology, analytics code can run within the overall machine control code for online and offline analyses and not miss any functionality or connectivity that would otherwise be delivered by a big tech company. For additional information: www.beckhoff.com/IoT

Beckhoff Automation 952-890-0000 beckhoff.usa@beckhoff.com

igi-Key Electronics, a global Internet-based distributor of electronic components, is an authorized distributor of more than 11.5 million components, including over 2.6 million in stock, from more than 1,500 trusted suppliers. The company’s reputation extends worldwide through the continuous choice of Digi-Key’s customers as the provider of the widest range of electronic components in the industry, ready for immediate delivery. With this wide range of products available in both design and production quantities, Digi-Key is the best resource for designers and buyers alike.

Center expansion that will allow the company to expand inventory even further to meet current and future demands of customers. It will also allow for searching out new and innovative technologies and products from new and existing electronic component suppliers, allowing Digi-Key to continue being a one-stop-shop for customers in all industries. The company recently launched the Digi-Key Marketplace to give customers access to even more products and services in applications including bare PCB boards, industrial automation, test and measurement,

Dave Doherty

President and Chief Operating Officer

inventory, and just-in-time shipping, as well as a newly updated BOM manager.

Digi-Key is the preferred supplier for Industrial Automation, Control and Safety products. They carry a broad line of products from advanced controls such as PLC, HMI and temperature controllers to accessories such as wire duct, safety switches and safety light curtains. With excellent technical resources and same-day shipping, Digi-Key will get you the parts you need when you need them. Digi-Key is investing in the future with the construction of a 2.2 million square foot Product Distribution

IoT solutions and virtually all things related to technology innovation; while providing these added solutions through a singular shopping experience. They also offer a vast selection of online resources including a range of EDA and design tools, reference design library, on-demand multimedia library, a comprehensive article library, and community forums, among others. Digi-Key also offers numerous Supply Chain solutions such as a complete set of APIs, bonded input #16 at www.controleng.com/information

Digi-Key prides itself on the ability to provide the best possible service to customers. A customer can request electronic components or reach the talented team of technicians and application engineers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year by phone, fax, e-mail or through the website. From prototype to production, Digi-Key has the resources and products to take your design to the next level! Find out more at www.digikey.com.

sales@digikey.com • 1-800-344-4539 www.digikey.com

s a world leader in drive technology and a pioneer in drive-based automation, SEW-EURODRIVE has established a reputation for quickly solving the most difficult power transmission and motion control challenges. We introduced the gearmotor in 1931. Since then, we have been bringing the best in drive technology to our customers worldwide. SEW-EURODRIVE offers much more than just components. We offer the expertise and electronics to drive them. Being a single source partner radically sets us apart from others. Our products are designed to work together. No finger-pointing! Furthermore, we make it very easy for engineers to do their own automation using our exclusive solution modules. No experience or programming required – perfect for new engineers. Your team will appreciate our value when they are able to be home with their families at nights and weekends instead of troubleshooting an application. If you are short-staffed or cannot keep up with new technology, let us know. We can provide a complete engineering package from start to finish, including project planning, software, components, commissioning, and worldwide support. Our team of automation experts understand the latest technology and can solve even the most complex motion control challenges.

Your team will appreciate our value when they are able to be home with their family at night and on weekends.

Innovation

In addition to engineering excellence, SEW-EURODRIVE is also known for innovative new products. MOVIGEAR® is an all-in-one mechatronic drive solution for horizontal material handling. It combines the gear unit, motor, and electronics in one highly efficient and hygienically designed unit. In fact, it recently reduced energy consumption by 40% at a major expansion of the LAX airport. MOVIGEAR also eliminates excess inventory since it allows the use of a single ratio to replace several different ratios.

PT Pilot simplifies the choices and identifies a custom solution for each application

Online Quotation

Our PT Pilot® online drive selection tool quickly selects the perfect drive for your specific needs. PT Pilot simplifies the choices and identifies a custom solution for each application within minutes. This powerful and intuitive program includes all technical documentation and CAD files. Don’t know your HP? No problem! Our application calculator will figure it for you. Plus, you will get an immediate net price that we guarantee. Visit ptpilot.com

Flexibility

Our products are based on a unique system of modular components that can be assembled in literally millions of different configurations. So, every drive solution is custom built to our customer’s exact specifications. Our five regional assembly centers in the U.S. stock millions of dollars of our modular inventory for quick delivery of drive solutions and spare parts. SEW-EURODRIVE…Driving the World

input #17 at www.controleng.com/information

864-439-7537 www.seweurodrive.com

dge Computing is transforming monitoring, control, and automation across discrete, batch and process manufacturing as well as infrastructure and building management by enabling companies to deploy a distributed IT architecture that delivers computing power where it’s needed most: business-critical assets and processes at the operational edge. By deploying Edge Computing where operational data is generated, organizations are solving previous limitations related to bandwidth, latency, remote operation, and security at edge locations, while eliminating downtime, gaining insight, driving operational excellence, and operating safely.

David C. Laurello Stratus President and CEO

Stratus Delivers Zero-touch Edge Computing for Business-Critical Applications Stratus is the leader in zero-touch Edge Computing platforms that are simple, protected, and autonomous, enabling teams to digitally transform operations to drive predictable, peak performance with minimal risk. The company has a 40-year history of innovation with its technology roots in pioneering fault tolerance, high availability, and data redundancy to ensure that business-critical applications always run for its 25,000 customers worldwide. Today, organizations rely on Stratus Edge Computing to run their businesscritical applications at the operational edge – plant floors, distribution terminals, access control and monitoring points, stranded assets, and more.

Simple, Protected, and Autonomous Edge Computing for Operations and IT ztC Edge, Stratus’s flagship and award-winning Edge Computing platform, is a secure, rugged, highly automated Edge Computing platform that is purposebuilt for edge environments. • The zero-touch Edge Computing platform can be quickly installed at a single location or across multiple locations without needing specialized skills. • It provides application reliability and self-monitoring that drastically reduces unplanned downtime and ensures continuous availability of applications. • ztC Edge significantly reduces the IT footprint and cost through zero-touch operation and application virtualization, allowing teams to run multiple applications concurrently on a single platform.

Stratus headquarters, Maynard, MA

Stratus Customers Innovate at the Edge Stratus ensures business-critical operations that treat 200 billion gallons of water annually, support 275,000 miles of pipeline, 200 million tons of beverage manufacturing, and rail transportation that serves 45 million passengers annually. As organizations focus on operational excellence at the edge, they turn to Stratus solutions to reliably, securely, and remotely turn data into actionable intelligence at the edge, cloud, and data center. Contact Angela.Poretti@stratus.com, 1-800-787-2887 for sales inquiries.

Built to integrate with existing infrastructure, ztC Edge can be mounted in a production environment, without the need for climate-control, and carries a Class 1 Division 2 UL certification to operate in the most demanding environments. www.stratus.com input #18 at www.controleng.com/information

he challenges of 2020 have been unlike any other year. We continuously shifted and adapted to ensure the well-being of our employees, while at the same time, taking care of our customers. With nine manufacturing facilities around the world, this was no small feat. We are extremely proud of how our employees responded and very appreciative of our channel partners and customers’ willingness to maneuver through this difficult situation with us. Adapting without interruption speaks volumes to the type of organization WAGO strives to be. During these unique times, we were able to launch a number of significant products. Some examples include our I/O SYSTEM FIELD, extending our I/O offering outside the control cabinet; PRO 2 power supplies, which offer industry leading efficiency and modular fieldbus communication; and Lean managed switches, designed specifically for control engineers. In addition, new channel partners and services were established to better serve our customers.

Dean Norton VP of Marketing

generation automation protocol, Time Sensitive Networking (TSN). Combining TSN with the manufacturer-independent communication protocol OPC UA will allow fast, easy and secure use of information across different systems. In fact, WAGO has products today that are “Made for TSN” preparing them for the protocol’s official release. ASRS system at WAGO Corp.

Looking to the first half of 2021, new product introductions continue with the expansion of our TOPJOB® S terminal blocks, as well as power supplies with additions to our ECO and PRO 2 family. You can also expect to see a new line of Edge controllers and computers, along with Cloud Services. Expanding our channel and service offerings will again be essential for WAGO. Perhaps the most exciting issue on the horizon is our continued participation in the industrial revolution known as the Digital Transformation. This transformation poses many challenges for the manufacturing industry. Networking, analytics, increasing productivity and new business models are all topics facing companies today. WAGO is well positioned to help our customers meet these challenges head on. Our decision years ago to utilize Linux as the foundation for our automation products led to considerable flexibility in meeting customers’ IoT requirements, such as the implementation of MQTT and Docker. We continue down this digital path with our leadership position on the next

This roadmap keeps us on target with our corporate vision: to be “the backbone of a smart connected world.” We strive to be both an essential and reliable partner, providing a stable foundation on which others can build. Creating the right connections and ensuring their long-term reliability, will result in a stable yet flexible foundation on which innovations and partnerships can emerge and grow.

Info.us@wago.com 1-800-DIN-RAIL (346-7245) www.wago.us

input #19 at www.controleng.com/information

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1-800-YASKAWA yaskawa.com

input #20 at www.controleng.com/information

For more info: https://www.yaskawa.com/ga500

Fed up? Problem: You want to use the latest automation technology. However, the complexity is overwhelming. Solution: MOVIKIT® software modules! They empower you to perform complex automation tasks easily and without experience. No more long hours. No more complex programming. Positioning? Synchronization? Torque sharing? Winders? Yes, and even more! Simple is good...

seweurodrive.com / 864-439-7537 input #21 at www.controleng.com/information

CE_21_01

Articles inside

Using IIoT for a more energy-efficiency pump environment

Think Again: Hot topics in

International: Manufacturing digital transformation may start with consulting

Technology Update: How robots help additive manufacturers add precision

Eight tips for process automation success

Technology Update: Direct-drive vs geared-rotary servomotor: A quantifica- tion of design advantage: Part 2

How advanced digital twin technolo- gy narrows the indus- trial skills gap