Automation World June 2021 by PMMIMediaGroup

JUNE 2021 / www.AutomationWorld.com

20 THE MACHINE-TO-MACHINE MARKETPLACE 24 27 10 08 12 35

Supply Chain Optimization and the Future of Industry Using SCADA to Monitor Field Sites Securing Cannabis Across the Supply Chain The Rise of Flexible Feeding System Technology Proactive Strategy for Control System Maintenance Four Ways to Accelerate Digital Sales

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CONTENTS 3 AW JUNE 2021

JUNE 2021 | VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 6

20 24 27

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The Machine-to-Machine Marketplace

The convergence of technologies—especially Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and blockchain—is setting the stage for a new “machine economy” where self-sufficient systems autonomously execute transactions.

Supply Chain Optimization and the Future of Industry

Beset by cost and availability pressures on all sides, more companies are turning to sophisticated supply chain technologies to navigate the ever-changing production landscape.

Using SCADA to Monitor Jungle Field Sites

Pluspetrol replaced its aging SCADA systems with Inductive Automation’s Ignition platform to track multiple geographically dispersed sites in the Ecuadorian jungle.

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4 CONTENTS AW JUNE 2021

EDITORIAL

ONLINE 6

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

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS 8

The Rise of Flexible Feeding System Technology

BATCH OF IDEAS 10

Securing Cannabis Across the Supply Chain

PRODUCTION PERSPECTIVES 11

Artificial Intelligence for Mobile Robot Fleet Management

PERSPECTIVES 12

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

ART & PRODUCTION

A Proactive Strategy for Control System Maintenance Is Combining SCADA and MES a Good Idea?

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

NEWS 17

ADVERTISING

Safety Certification Issued for Industrial Collaborative Robot Technology Dell’s Edge Computing Strategy to Complement the Cloud PMMI News Expansion of Industry 4.0 Connectivity in Packaging and Processing

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

INDUSTRY-SUPPLIED CONTENT 29 Cable Design Considerations for Dynamic Applications

NEW PRODUCTS 32

Smart Mechatronics Platform Linear Position Sensor Graphics, Vision, and AI Computer I/O Slices for Temperature Control And more...

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Kurt Belisle Publisher kbelisle@pmmimediagroup.com / 815 549 1034 Jake Brock Brand Operations Manager jbrock@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1320 Sharon Taylor Director of Marketing staylor@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1710 Amber Miller Marketing Manager amiller@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1130 Janet Fabiano Financial Services Manager jfabiano@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1330

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

PMMI MEDIA GROUP

How Advances in Artificial Intelligence and 3D Printing Are Changing Manufacturing By Dick Slansky

ENTERPRISE VIEW 35

Four Ways Industrial Companies Can Accelerate the Digital Journey By Brian R. May

INTEGRATOR VIEW 36

Don’t Shortchange Your Industrial Network Investment in Your Race to Digital Transformation By Steve J. Malyszko

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

KEY INSIGHTS 38

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

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6 ONLINE AW JUNE 2021

PODCAST SERIES Moving Control System Maintenance to a Proactive Strategy In this episode of the “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast series, we connect with Bart Winters of Honeywell Process Solutions to learn about shifting your industrial control systems from a reactive to a proactive maintenance strategy.

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AUTOMATION WORLD TV From supply chain and workforce training to automated quality inspections, artificial intelligence capabilities are being added to automation technologies—changing how users interact with hardware devices and software applications. Watch this Take Five with Automation World video to find out more.

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

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8 EDITORIAL AW JUNE 2021

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS

The Rise of Flexible Feeding System Technology By David Greenfield

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

hen it comes to feeding individual parts into an assembly or packaging line, vibratory bowl feeders have long been the preferred method. Bowl feeders are known for their ability to consistently sort small parts in a particular direction for handling by another automated system or by humans in the assembly or packaging process. As widely adopted as robots have become over the past several years, there remains plenty of potential upside for robot investment. And that’s why it’s also a good point in time to assess the value determination of investment in such technology. One downside to bowl feeders is that they are designed to work with specific parts. This means that whenever a part is changed, the bowl feeder also needs to be changed to one designed for the new part. Doing so, of course, increases changeover time. Because of this lack of flexibility, a new trend in parts feeding is emerging that involves the integration of multiple automation technologies to create a flexible feeding system capable of performing the duties of a vibratory bowl feeder, but for many different part types. Another issue with bowl feeders for many manufacturers is the additional noise they create. “Bowl feeders are constantly vibrating, so they make a lot of noise,” said Rick Tomaszewski, strategic account manager for Omron Automation America. This issue, in addition to the changeover time requirements, is leading more manufacturers to explore different part feeding methods.

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Armo-Tool’s approach to flexible feeding

To help a Tier 1 automotive supplier address the speed and reliability issues it was facing with one of its bowl feeder systems, Armo Tool, a supplier of industrial tooling and automation based in London, Ontario, Canada, worked with Omron Automation and Taylor Fluid Systems, a local distributor, to develop a flexible feeding system using vision, motion, and robotics technologies. The automotive supplier produces brake lines for several different passenger vehicle models. Bowl feeders were used to sort endform fittings that attach to brake lines. The main issue created with the use of these bowl feeders was that constant changeovers of the unique fittings created an unacceptable level of downtime. This is, of course, an issue that is growing—across industries—as more manufacturers move to custom, on-demand production and batch size of one. Using Omron’s AnyFeeder flexible feeding system, along with rotary and linear servos, FH vision, e-Cobra SCARA robots, and a Sysmac controller, Armo Tool was able to create a new flexible feeding system for the automative supplier that delivered 99% efficiency at startup, versus 70% or less from the bowl feeder. In addition, changeover time was reduced to less than 10 minutes. When combined with a vision-guided robot, Omron’s AnyFeeder provides flexible part feeding that “exceeds the capacity of handtooled bowl feeders,” said Tomaszewski. “Its flexibility in feeding small parts of various size, shape, and material, allow for fast line changeover and significantly reduced tooling costs.” Tomaszewski noted that, in addition to reduced startup time, the new integrated system helps ensure the right part is selected every time. “For the plant manufacturing brake lines across multiple vehicle models, this is especially critical,” he said. “It’s imperative that the correct end-form fitting is attached to the correct brake line pipe. Affixing the wrong fitting could risk product recall and costly reviews.”

By using AnyFeeder, the automotive parts supplier can now run multiple fittings on the same end forming machine, according to Tomaszewski. “The solution incorporates poka-yoke, which guarantees they always run the right fitting onto the pipe or tube,” he said. (Poka-yoke refers to any mechanism in a lean manufacturing process that helps an equipment operator avoid mistakes. Its purpose is to eliminate product defects by preventing, correcting, or drawing attention to human errors as they occur.)

Benefits of vision integration

The use of Omron’s FH vision technology to guide pick and place actions performed by Omron’s e-Cobra 600 SCARA robots ensure accuracy, Tomaszewski said. The system uses vision to verify the correct part is selected, provide pickup coordinates from the randomly oriented parts on the bed, and correctly place them. The Omron FH vision system is designed for seamless integration with Sysmac PLCs, motion controllers, and robotic control systems. Christina Koroll, account manager at Armo Tool, said, “The added bonus to our customers is that new parts with completely different geometry can be added by easily programming the Anyfeeder at any time and it can also be repurposed at the end of a line’s life span to be used in upcoming projects.

Read about Epson Robots’ all-in-one flexible feeder systems at awgo.to/1193.

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REPAIR PARTS

LEVEL, PRESSURE & FLOW

ELECTRICAL

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10 EDITORIAL AW JUNE 2021

BATCH OF IDEAS

Securing Cannabis Across the Supply Chain By Stephanie Neil

sneil@automationworld.com Senior Editor, Automation World

racking cannabis from the farm to the dispensary is important to the safety of the entire marketplace. How to do it, however, has left many supply chain experts dazed and confused. But Applied DNA Sciences, a company that creates molecular tagging technology for supply chain security, anti-counterfeiting, and anti-theft technology, has an answer—at least a portion of it. The company’s molecular technology has been used in textile, pharmaceutical, fertilizer, and personal care products, as well as military applications. The company has two core competencies, one focused on large scale linear DNA production for diagnostics and vaccines, and the other focused on supply chain authentication. Its LinearDNA Biopharmaceutical system uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to deliver highly purified DNA, without the complications of plasmids used in cell therapies, vaccines, diagnostics, and gene therapies. On the supply chain side, Applied DNA has developed a platform, called CertainT, that provides manufacturers with marketplace integrity through its three pillar approach of tag, test, and track. According to company officials, in 2017 they started testing CertainT with cannabis products. The process starts with a unique molecular tag that can be applied to the flower or hemp via fog or electrostatic spray, and added to the formulation of oils, tinctures, tablets, or lotions. It can also be applied to labels and packaging. The tag

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serves as a definitive indicator of authenticity, origin, and provenance. As the product travels to the processor, they are equipped with a portable device used to test samples. “The way we’ve structured the tag, you can tell what country or state it comes from and also from what company,” said John Shearman, Applied DNA Sciences’ vice president of marketing. In addition, once it gets to the dispensary, an optical check with a UV light can identify the packaging tag—using Applied DNA Beacon technology— to make sure the product on the shelf is not counterfeit, he said. So that takes care of the tagging and the testing. For the tracking part, Applied DNA needed a partner. Earlier this year, the company teamed up with TruTrace Technologies, a developer of a blockchain-based track-and-trace platform it calls StrainSecure that is used for the legal cannabis, food, and pharma industries. The duo are working on delivering a complete cannabis product validation and authentication platform that links together the Applied DNA molecular tracking technology with TruTrace’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform to create a secure ecosystem for end-to-end traceability and transparency where all activity is captured and stored in a secure database. The integration of platforms is done through APIs to exchange data elements as part of the complete chain of custody from source materials to products on the shelf. “There’s integration between the platforms and the [testing] machine so everything is automated to give you a dashboard inside the CertainT portal of all the tests, [showing] if the batches passed or failed,” Shearman said. In addition, TruTrace’s blockchain-based software is designed to guarantee product quality and strain genetics as it progresses through the supply chains. “You take all of that rich information captured from the origin of the plant to the shelf and now you have true transparency to the customer.”

Protecting consumers and brands from contaminants and counterfeiting is the ultimate benefit of the integrated platforms. “Partnering with Applied DNA is a natural progression of our go-to-market strategy to align ourselves with best-of-breed technology solutions to bring additional value to our customers and the industry as a whole,” said Robert Galarza, TruTrace’s CEO. “CertainT is the perfect technology complement to our platform—providing that extra level of true transparency and traceability the industry needs as we enter the next phase of legalized cannabis across the globe.”

“The duo are working on delivering a complete cannabis product validation and authentication platform that links together the Applied DNA molecular tracking technology with TruTrace’s softwareas-a-service platform (SaaS) platform to create a secure ecosystem for end-to-end traceability and transparency where all activity is captured and stored in a secure database.”

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EDITORIAL 11 AW JUNE 2021

PRODUCTION PERSPECTIVES

Artificial Intelligence for Mobile Robot Fleet Management By David Miller

dmiller@pmmimediagroup.com Senior Technical Writer, Automation World

“…Maestro operates as a central controller which monitors the position of all AMRs on the plant floor via vision systems and issues commands based on their positions. Because all navigation instructions proceed from Maestro, the sophisticated software intelligence and supporting hardware inside each individual AMR can be removed.”

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utonomous mobile robots (AMRs) have seen growing adoption in recent years as increasingly diverse tooling options have improved their value proposition and business models such as robots-as-a-service (RaaS) have shrunk their upfront costs while also granting adopters more scalability. However, as AMRs have become a more ubiquitous presence in factories and warehouses, new challenges have emerged. For one, safety has become a greater concern, particularly as higher payload AMRs begin to be integrated with robotic arms and other peripheral tooling that may affect their performance. In addition, as the size of AMR fleets grow, achieving effective coordination and interoperability could be a struggle. Currently, the issue of safety has begun to be addressed through new standards, and coordination concerns are slowly being improved via fleet management software. That said, new developments in artificial intelligence (AI) may provide a different set of answers to both problems. 634AI, a spin-out company of AI provider MusashiAI, was recently created to focus on the development of Maestro, an AI control tower which seeks to use a combination of computer vision and software intelligence to monitor and control the movements of various mobile assets on industrial plant floors. While AMR fleet management is one of Maestro’s primary functions, 634AI says it can be applied to a range of hardware, including forklifts, driven pallet jacks, and traditional automated guided vehicles (AGVs). According to the company, many AMRs on the market today operate as stand-alone robots with sophisticated internal intelligence supported by expensive onboard hardware. As a result, configuring them to work in tandem with one another can be a complex task for integrators, particularly

if AMRs from different vendors are being used within the same facility. In some cases, application programming interfaces (APIs) have enabled various AMRs to communicate with one another, but 634AI sees this approach increasing complexity. In contrast, Maestro operates as a central controller which monitors the position of all AMRs on the plant floor via vision systems and issues commands based on their positions. Because all navigation instructions proceed from Maestro, the sophisticated software intelligence and supporting hardware inside each individual AMR can be removed. According to 634AI, this will not only drastically lower the costs of AMRs, but will provide more effective and interoperable fleet management capabilities. “What has been happening in the AMR and the industrial floor automation industry over the last few years has been like spending millions on developing zero-gravity pens, when all we’ve needed has actually just been a pencil,” said Onn Fenig, CEO at 634AI. “Our motivation for creating Maestro was to give businesses a practical and affordable tool that will enable them to enjoy safer and smarter indoor mobility. We’re on a mission to make any indoor task autonomous and affordable.”

Watch this Take Five video to learn more about the artifical intelligence explosion in industrial automation at awgo.to/1195.

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12 PERSPECTIVES AW JUNE 2021

A Proactive Strategy for Control System Maintenance By David Greenfield

Editor-In-Chief/Director of Content, Automation World

t’s long been known that a reactive approach to industrial control system maintenance is not an ideal strategy. Working from a reactive stance, in which problems are corrected as they occur, results in unplanned downtimes, lost production costs, as well as potentially higher repair costs as problems are not detected early enough to avoid additional impacts. Moving to a proactive strategy, however, requires technology that can provide insights into control systems and their performance to alert users to the fact that specific maintenance or repairs are needed to keep the system in working order. To learn more about how industrial companies are moving from reactive to proactive maintenance strategies, we connected with Bart Winters of Honeywell Process Solutions for a recent episode of the “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast series (awgo.to/1194).

vance [of a failure] to prevent the emergency or the unplanned outage.” Explaining the technologies and processes typically involved with both reactive and proactive maintenance, Winters said, “In the control system arena, we see many cases where the users in reactive mode will wait until they have a server that runs out of memory, or they might have a disk space issue, or a network traffic issue, or something stops working, and they don't have any monitoring mechanisms to really detect those conditions and address those conditions proactively. Then they'll have to go reboot the server, investigate the situation, and do some troubleshooting. Some customers have implemented their own homegrown solutions for this, where they’ve built trending and monitoring tools to detect those types of conditions. But those systems still tend to alert after the fact—after the user has experienced an issue, rather than providing a

systemic or sustainable program to monitor those conditions that might pose a risk or a threat and be able to address them in a proactive manner."

The digital connection

Winters said that Honeywell thinks about proactive support and maintenance as part of the “digital transformation or a digital execution model, where we are in a position to collect the data, check the data, make sure it's within the recommended settings or ranges, and be able to respond to those conditions in advance.” The control system scope addressed by Honeywell’s approach to proactive maintenance looks at a company’s control system from an I/O health and network performance perspective, as well as the controllers, the HMI/SCADA system, and/or the distributed control system. “It’s basically the whole operational technology layer for maintaining the health of that system,” Winters said.

Proactive vs. reactive

Beginning our discussion with a focus on the differences between reactive and proactive maintenance strategies for industrial control system maintenance strategies, Winters said that the similarities between plant equipment like pumps and compressors, as well as the control system, help make the move from reactive to proactive easier. In essence, what this move in strategies is all about is “not waiting for a problem with a piece of the equipment on your control system— whether it's an I/O card or a network issue—to manifest itself and then you have to go fix that problem,” he said. “Now we're able to pick up leading indicators to detect that there's a condition that might be causing a problem and be able to respond to that proactively or in ad-

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Honeywell’s Enabled Service for industrial control systems allows users to assess, manage, and optimize systems and operations without having to be physically onsite.

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Proactive maintenance benefits

Whether its for control system maintenance or general plant equipment maintenance, Winters said, “We see that emergency or reactive work is 10 times more expensive than planned or proactive maintenance. With a proactive or a planned maintenance strategy, the time spent to both correct the problem, as well as the prevention of the loss downtime, is about relieving people's time spent looking for problems [and giving them time] to spend on solving problems.” Describing how Honeywell has evolved in how it helps users move toward proactive maintenance, Winters said, in the past, Honeywell provided what it called an “automation system assessment”—a periodic assessment in which Honeywell would perform several checks on a control system and then generate a report for the customer spotlighting the issues detected that require attention. Working with customers on these assessments over the years, Honeywell found that customers “see a lot of value in those services, but the challenge lies in turning it into a program that is continuously improving,” rather than just supplying a report listing issues that should be dealt with. “The essence of Honeywell’s Enabled Services program is that we're continuously collecting this information and it is associated with a number of metrics and thresholds we're trying to achieve,” Winters said. “For example, we're measuring KPIs (key performance indicators) to drive improvements and we're presenting this information in a dashboard so that the customer can see where the problem areas are to support workflow assignments to address these problems. One customer recently told us that this [Enabled Services] has transformed their distributed control system— maintenance and operation—because they now have a line of sight to the actual work that needs to be done on an ongoing basis. They're now able to focus their high-skilled resources on high-skilled tasks.” Winters explained that Enabled Services is a service level offering from Honeywell for its control systems. With this service, “we are uploading the site data, performance data, health data, and configuration and [system] inventory information into a cloud-hosted environment where we con-

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tinuously check the health of the control system in terms of performance parameters and we communicate that to the customer,” he said. “We're looking at your patching level and software versioning, as well as the configuration of your control system to make sure it's within the specified recommended best practices for how the system is actually configured to ensure it's operating properly. By doing this, we reduce the risk or likelihood of loss of control, or a loss of view event that could potentially cause a plant shut down.”

Safety connections

In our discussion, Winters noted that following the digital execution model provides specific insights from the DCS (distributed control system) related to worker safety. He said Honeywell has seen several industry studies that correlate worker safety or plant safety to higher reliability levels. The reason for this is that the ability to better plan maintenance often translates into fewer mistakes being made versus reacting in an emergency or an upset situation when the plant is down and you may have lost control or lost your view of the process. “In that case, you’re hurrying up and trying to do things that might end up causing other problems, such as reboot the wrong server or replace the wrong I/O card,” he said. “And if you're starting up from a shutdown situation, we know that steady state operations are a lot more stable and safer than doing plant startups.

To learn more about how industrial companies are moving from reactive to proactive maintenance strategies, check out the “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast episode associated with this topic at awgo.to/1194.

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14 PERSPECTIVES AW JUNE 2021

Is Combining SCADA and MES a Good Idea?

echnology convergence is well-known in nearly every sector. We’ve all seen it happen in the consumer tech sector, most notably as our cell phones transformed into smartphones that allow us to make and receive phone calls, visit websites, provide GPS travel directions, conduct video meetings, take high quality photos, and much more. This kind of convergence happens in the industrial sector too. A couple of high-profile examples include the programmable automation controller, which extends the capabilities of a programmable logic controller with broader industrial computer capabilities and, more recently, the growing combination of robot and vision technologies to expand and enhance industrial robotic picking and placing. This combination of existing technologies, particularly in industry, serves two purposes—to extend the capabilities of each technology beyond what each could do on its own and reduce the amount of systems operators or managers need to rely on for information. With respect to the latter purpose, it’s as much a technology consolidation as a combination. One early example of this can be seen in the evolution of MRP (materials requirement planning) into ERP (enterprise resource planning), as more front office and plant applica-

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By David Greenfield

Editor-In-Chief/Director of Content, Automation World

tions were combined with, what was originally, a production planning and scheduling tool. Now, we’re beginning to hear about the potential of combining MES (manufacturing execution systems) and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) technologies. To learn more, we connected with Sam Russem of Grantek (a system integration firm) for a recent episode of the “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast series (awgo.to/1202). We spoke with Russem about this because, not only is he aware of this technology consolidation, he’s worked with manufacturers who have done it.

Differences and overlaps

We began our discussion by focusing on the differences and similarities between MES and SCADA to better understand where these systems are distinctly different and where possibilities for convergence make the most sense. “Both of these systems are software tools designed to perform a lot of different functions. MES is going to do things like manage your production orders and data relevant to them, analyze some of your raw production data, and turn that into more useful management information like trackand-trace information or summarize raw data into performance KPIs (key performance indicators),” said

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PERSPECTIVES 15 AW JUNE 2021

Russem. “It also needs to communicate in real time to your SCADA systems and work transactionally with business and ERP systems. On the SCADA side, that’s really defined by the ability to connect to plant floor equipment, particularly PLCs, sensors, and other shop floor devices; raw data records [from these devices] are often kept in that SCADA layer. Most importantly, SCADA is where you have the supervisory controls that let your human operators see what’s happening with the plant floor equipment and help to control it.” Since both systems are focused on device data acquisition and visualization, it helps to view them with respect to the ISA 95 or Purdue Model. “When you're talking about Level Zero of the Purdue Model, these are physical production processes that happen in real time,” Russem explained. “But up at the Level Four business systems, those are usually operating in terms of weeks and quarters. Therefore, a SCADA system at Level Two needs to be able to communicate a lot faster with PLCs. That’s why it can communicate at sub-second rates.

nitely an opportunity to streamline that human interface,” said Russem. “They're also, of course, both managing your production assets. They're just usually concerned about doing that at different scales. For example, think about the temperature of a batch tank. A SCADA wants to know the temperature of the batch tank tag and it wants to monitor that every second because if it starts to drift in a bad direction, the SCADA system is going to be where you’ll issue your correction and try to bring that temperature back into control. The MES is going to care about the temperature of the tank too, but it likely only cares if it actually went out of spec and it needs to know an exception for future quality review. So, while they’re focused on different aspects, they are both connecting to the same type of data.”

MES works on a slightly longer time scale; it is not usually going to be getting into sub-second level control data, it's more focused on hours, or shifts, or sometimes days or weeks. This difference in speeds affects the protocols that each of those systems use. SCADA needs to be interfacing with industrial protocols like OPC, EtherNet/IP, or Modbus, whereas MES has an even wider range of communication protocols it needs to support because it talks to SCADA systems—usually through OPC or database connections—but also to the business systems through a firewall using web services and other protocols.” Given these differences in communication speeds, it would be easy to dismiss the possibility of combining MES and SCADA, but Russem noted that the concept of “flattening the stack” helps explain the push toward combining the two systems due to the human interfacing nature of both. “If you can present your control layer and your management layer in a similar platform in a similar way, where it's kind of seamless between those two functions, there's defi-

What’s the benefit?

Russem contends that the main driver behind the idea of combining MES and SCADA is, ultimately, about reducing things like license costs and hardware overhead.

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5/26/21 11:04 AM

16 PERSPECTIVES AW JUNE 2021

Inductive Automation's Ignition SCADA screenshot (right) and a Sepasoft MES screenshot.

Another benefit he noted involves reducing the number of screens and process complexity that operators must deal with daily. “You walk up to these machines and there can be five different screens just to run a single piece of equipment. So, anytime you have an opportunity to streamline operations or bring things to a single control point to make sure that people don't need to be monitoring multiple screens to get the information they need to do their job, there are huge benefits.” Despite such benefits, Russem does advise caution if you’re thinking of combining MES and SCADA. “A combined MES and SCADA system can require a lot of compute power, as both are heavyweight systems on their own. By putting them all together, you're making a super system and you need to make sure that you have the physical compute power to monitor and maintain them. This is especially important for SCADA because it’s working in real time and is absolutely mission critical. You don't want slow network speeds to affect your ability to actually control your process.”

Real-world application

Referencing a manufacturer who has combined its MES functions into an existing SCA-

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DA system, Russem said, “In this plant, they had a comprehensive SCADA layer connecting to all their PLCs and it was the main terminal their line operators would use to run material through their process every day. Then they had a MES initiative, and they built that MES using the same SCADA platform. This SCADA system had a set of MES modules that could be added into the platform.” The system this manufacturer is using is Inductive Automation’s Ignition SCADA with Sepasoft’s MES modules. Sepasoft is a strategic partner of Inductive Automation. To have all of this within one system was very beneficial to the manufacturer, Russem said, as they developed this system with an agile approach of starting with SCADA and iterating on that over time to add production scheduling, OEE (overall equipment effectiveness), and SPC (statistical process control) to manage their risk at each of those stages. “The only downside we really saw was that the system got a bit bulkier, and there is a little bit of a risk to the business (as a result),” he said. “As they continue to add more features and more lines [to the system], there might be a place down the road where they're going to need to split that [combined system] into mul-

tiple servers to run it; at which point it might actually make sense to kind of split out their MES and the SCADA functions again. I'm not quite sure if we're going to get to that point. But we are looking at a horizon where it could make sense to split those again, and we'll see how it all works out.”

Listen to the full interview with Sam Russem in this episode of the “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast series at awgo.to/1202.

5/27/21 11:50 AM

NEWS 17

AW JUNE 2021

Safety Certification Issued for Industrial Collaborative Robot Technology By David Greenfield

Operator load station application using the FreeMove system and a Fanuc robot.

Editor-In-Chief/Director of Content, Automation World

ith the rise of collaborative robots (cobots) over the past decade, it looked like the robotics industry would be segmented into two divisions—one for the high-speed industrial robots with which we’re all familiar and the other for cobots. Some robotic technology suppliers would, of course, offer both types of robots while others would specialize in one area or the other. Then something interesting happened. Industrial robot suppliers began experimenting with the concept of bringing collaborative robot capabilities to industrial robots. I first saw this displayed as a concept project in a Mitsubishi Electric booth at a trade show five or six years ago. At the time, I thought this concept would proliferate quickly; however, I did not see it again until I attended the SPS (Smart Production Solutions) event in Nuremberg, Germany, in 2019. At this event, it was again at the Mitsubishi booth where I saw the technology on display. But this time it was not part of a concept display, but as part of a product introduction between Mitsubishi and Realtime Robotics. A few months later, on my last business trip before COVID-19 brought a temporary end to live industry events, I met with Veo Robotics and learned that they were devising a system that could be used to bring collaborative capabilities to any industrial robot. Veo does this

Palletizing application using FreeMove and an ABB robot.

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with its FreeMove system, which uses multiple camera sensors and an algorithmic computing platform to transform industrial robots into cobots. Veo has relationships with ABB, Fanuc, KUKA, and Yaskawa and its system is being applied and tested in the aerospace, automotive, household appliance, and construction equipment manufacturing industries. A key component in the acceptance of technologies that promise to make industrial robots collaborative is overcoming the safety concerns of those who could be working in close proximity to the robots. After all, if you’ve ever seen an industrial robot going through its high-speed paces in a caged environment, you know you don’t want to be anywhere inside that cage when the robot is operating. Such reservations about working so closely with industrial robots may now be on the

verge of disappearing as Veo Robotics has just announced that its FreeMove system has been certified for compliance with ISO 13849 for PLd, Category 3 by TÜV Rheinland. According to TÜV, ISO 13849 addresses the safety of all system technologies including mechanical, hydraulic, and pneumatic products. Where safety functions are to be performed by safety related parts of the control system (SRP/CS), EN ISO 13849-1 can be used to show compliance with the essential health and safety regulations of the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC. “This is a momentous accomplishment for the team and the automation industry overall,” said Veo Robotics’ CEO and co-founder Patrick Sobalvarro. “After spending the last four years visiting factories, working with our manufacturing customers, and building FreeMove, we are thrilled to be able to offer the fully safety-certified system.” He added that FreeMove is “the only solution on the market today that implements dynamic, 3D speed and separation monitoring.” In related news, Atlanta-based Factory Automation Systems (FAS) has joined Veo’s Certified Systems Integrator program. FAS will include FreeMove as part of its safety offering to customers. Mark Ligler, vice president of FAS, said, “Veo Robotics’ FreeMove is a first-of-its-kind safeguarding system that fills a need in the industrial robotics industry.”

5/27/21 11:50 AM

18 NEWS

AW JUNE 2021

Dell’s Edge Computing Strategy to Complement the Cloud

By David Miller

Contributing Writer, Automation World

he benefits of the industrial cloud, which grants users scalability, low-cost access to machine learning algorithms, and a single source of truth for their data, have become well known. However, edge computing—which is not opposed to, but works in tandem with the cloud—is also growing in importance. In fact, Gartner predicts that more than 50% of enterprise-generated data will be created and processed outside of data centers or the cloud by 2022. Edge computing refers to systems that push intelligence, processing power, and communication capabilities as close to the source of data creation as possible. The benefits of this are myriad: data coming out of plants can be aggregated and filtered via edge modules prior to being sent to the cloud to conserve bandwidth; sophisticated analyt-

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ics trained on cloud-based machine learning models can be delivered to the edge and applied in real-time; external data such as weather conditions, supply chain information, or real-time pricing can be used as a source of I/O for legacy controllers that lack cloud connectivity capabilities; and communication between multiple clouds can be facilitated. Focusing on these edge computing advantages, Dell Technologies has released two new edge products: • An updated version of its Dell EMC Streaming Data Platform, which can ingest real-time data from an array of industrial internet of things (IIoT) connected devices and use it to perform rapid analytics on-premises while also passing historical data onward to other higher-level systems such as the cloud for long-term storage; and • The Dell Technologies Manufacturing Edge Reference Architecture, offered in partnership with PTC, and which enables appli-

cation virtualization from numerous cloud systems. In other words, machine learning models trained on large, aggregated datasets from various cloud vendors can be delivered to the edge for low-latency application and updated in iterations. Both technologies are integrated with Dell’s Apex Private Cloud, which offers an edge framework as-a-service, meaning companies can side-step upfront costs and only pay for what they use. “The edge is quickly rivalling data centers and public clouds as the location where organizations are gaining valuable insights,” said Jeff Boudreau, president and general manager of Dell’s Infrastructure Solutions Group. “By putting compute, storage, and analytics where data is created, we can deliver those data insights in real time and create new opportunities for businesses.”

5/26/21 10:59 AM

PMMI NEWS 19 AW JUNE 2021

By Sean Riley, Senior Director, Media and Industry Communications, PMMI

dvancements in automation, both machine and software, are moving manufacturing toward a smarter factory. With this expansion comes such challenges as determining return on investment and finding skilled labor and the internal resources to assess automation needs, according to the “Automation Timeline: The Drive Toward 4.0 Connectivity in Packaging and Processing” infographic and white paper from PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies. See this infographic at awgo.to/1204. Many consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies rely on OEM and technology provider partners for troubleshooting, maintenance training, design and modification, installation and start-up, staff training, and overall expertise. As this automation timeline advances, PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO 2021 (Sept. 27-29, Las Vegas Convention Center), arrives at a critical time when CPGs and OEMs need to foster strong partnerships to overcome automation challenges, implement low maintenance design, and improve the reliability of packaging and processing machines. Current automation levels in the packaging and processing industries are at 64% for automated equipment and 21% for semi-automated. The white paper associated with the infographic shows that, although COVID-19 impacted automation plans, manufacturers recognize that they can improve operations and the broader enterprise by expanding automation strategies and components. Some of the tools in place driving the future of automation include the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), device integration as more machines feature data acquisition capabilities, and the expansion of robotics for secondary packaging and palletizing. Additional drivers include incorporating artificial intelligence and predictive analysis to bolster maintenance. As manufacturers continue to adopt greater levels of technology and connectivity, a robust cybersecurity strategy is essential. Trends such as remote access and IIoT connectivity make

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manufacturing more efficient, but they also create new points of vulnerability that bad actors can exploit, as highlighted in PMMI’s 2021 Cybersecurity: Access Your Risk white paper (awgo.to/1205). Solutions to improve cybersecurity, combat cyberattacks, navigate the automation timeline, and safely add connectivity to operations will

be on display at PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO 2021. To register and learn more about the packaging solutions that will be on display, the educational and networking opportunities, and the virtual component of the show, visit packexpolasvegas.com.

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5/27/21 11:50 AM

20 MACHINE AUTONOMY AW JUNE 2021

The convergence of technologies— especially Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and blockchain—is setting the stage for a new “machine economy” where self-sufficient systems autonomously execute transactions. By Stephanie Neil, Senior Editor, Automation World

magine the day when the packaging machine on the plant floor automatically detects that it needs more materials and it alerts the supplier—ordering and paying for product and scheduling delivery, all without relying upon any human intervention. Or a factory floor where machines self-organize and self-optimize themselves to heighten productivity, reduce waste, and increase product quality. This is the day that the Industry 4.0 movement is working toward. In this future state of manufacturing, data and services are shared beyond the factory walls in a global inter-company communication infrastructure and payment network. Some of it exists now. “Communication amongst machines to route around failures is already happening,” said Stephen Mellor, chief technology officer of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) and executive vice president of the Object Management Group (OMG). “In fact, it’s what the internet was invented to do in respect to network nodes. In a factory, say, data would be gath-

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ered by nodes in the edge and they would make decisions on how to re-route around the failed machine.” So while we’ve not completely entered the age of the machine economy, defined as a network of smart, connected, and selfsufficient machines that are economically independent and can autonomously execute transactions within a market with little to no human intervention, we are getting close. The building blocks to create the factory of the future are here, including the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain. This trifecta of technology has the potential to disrupt the industrial space, but it needs to be connected with a few more things, such as digital twin technology, mobile robots, a standardized way for machines to communicate, and smart services, like sharing machine capacity in a distributed ecosystem. More importantly, there needs to be a framework to enable this ubiquitous interconnectivity. While technology companies build the machine-to-machine applications,

there are industry efforts underway focused on building the underlying architecture and ecosystem of partners.

A framework for machine autonomy

IIC (a program from the OMG) is a global not-for-profit partnership of industry, government, and academia that has been working on several architectures including the Industrial Internet of Things Connectivity Framework (IICF), the Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA), the Business Strategy and Inno-

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MACHINE AUTONOMY 21 AW JUNE 2021

vation Framework (BSIF), and the Industrial Internet Security Framework (IISF). The IICF defines a reference architecture for opening up data otherwise locked in a plethora of domain-specific connectivity technologies used in IIoT systems, by using gateways to one of a few core connectivity standards that can provide syntactic interoperability without compromising the fidelity of the functional and non-functional aspects of the domainspecific technology. The IIRA, a standards-based architectural template and methodology, enables Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) system architects to design their own systems based on a common framework and concept. It addresses the need for a common architecture framework to develop interoperable IIoT systems for diverse applications across a broad spectrum of industrial verticals in the public and private sectors. The BSIF provides a high-level identification and analysis of issues that any enterprise will need to address to capitalize on the opportunities emerging from this current revolution that is the IIoT. And, addressing the cybersecurity chal-

lenge is critical to the success of the IIoT, Industry 4.0, and the Industrial Internet revolution. To that end, IIC members have developed IISF, a common security framework and an approach to assess cybersecurity in IIoT systems. It is the most in-depth cross-industry-focused security framework comprising expert vision, experience, and security best practices, according to IIC. These are just a few of the IIC research and development projects that will move the industry forward. “At seven years old, we have published several seminal documents that establish the machine economy landscape,” said Mellor. “We began several years ago with testbeds. As the name suggests, these were testing technologies and business models. We are now focused on deployments in industry that allow the target company to digitally transform their business.” For example, a testbed in Cork, Ireland, called the International Future Industrial Internet Testbed (INFINITE), is developing software-defined infrastructures using big data that makes it possible for multiple virtual domains to securely run via one physical network. In phase one of the testbed,

Source: IOTA

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22 MACHINE AUTONOMY AW JUNE 2021

In this scenario the product travels on AGVs that are also used to replenish workcells with parts. As with smart conveyors, this allows machines, robots, and human operators to be accessed in any sequence by each product on its journey. Hybrid scenarios are also possible and indeed form the majority of real-world cases

Source: Siemens three geographically dispersed data centers are interconnected into a reconfigured Dell network. In phase two, INFINITE is applied to a use case called “Bluelight,” which allows ambulances to securely connect to a hospital’s system and relay information while in route, so hospital staff are prepared to take over the care of the patient once the ambulance arrives. The ultimate outcome is to use smart data to improve the emergency services. According to the INFINITE testbed notes: “Consider the scenario where an emergency service vehicle is dispatched to an incident. The response time is critical. What if the real-time GPS data generated by the emergency service vehicle can be combined with other real-time data from diverse sources such as: current traffic levels for all routes to the incident, location of roadwork, diversions, and road closures. By combining and analyzing these diverse raw datasets in real-time in order to provide valuable and intelligent route planning and insights for the emergency service vehicle, response times will improve, leading to better life enhancing outcomes.” This same concept could be applied to the plant floor. “Fleets of machines would gather data that is sent to a data center that can be compared and contrast and then change the operating parameters of non-optimal machines,” Mellor said.

A machine marketplace

To perform financial transactions, machines

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will need to have their “wallets,” which is something that the IOTA Foundation has been working on since 2017, when the nonprofit initiative was founded. This international consortium of European universities and technologists came together to create a protocol layer for IoT that defines how devices transact with each other using trusted data across the technology stack in a virtual industry market place. Today, while the premise is the same, the execution is different. “The vision of IOTA is the same for the machine economy. To provide a public protocol or better public infrastructure of automation and machines is still important. But we’ve refocused IOTA more to infrastructure,” said Holger Köther, director of partner management at IOTA Foundation, noting the organization has spent the last year and half rewriting the IOTA technology stack (node, libraries, wallet) from scratch while keeping the IOTA vision and current market requirements in mind. In March, IOTA announced the beta launch of its Firefly wallet, giving cryptocurrency wallets a new benchmark in security and usability. At the core of Firefly are two new, open-source libraries, one for wallet application development and the other for security. It is also lightweight and uses the Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA), which is natively supported by most IoT devices, Köther said. In addition, a reengineered distributed led-

ger technology (DLT), called Tangle, enables secure micropayments between machines. It is open, feeless, and scalable, designed to support frictionless data transfer, and is not based on blockchain which has cost and scalability limitations, according to IOTA, which has a goal to build an entire ecosystem for machine communication that can apply to different industries. “The overarching story is that IOTA is developer-friendly….and provides a DLTbased system that is resilient and scalable,” Köther said. In addition, the IOTA is working with the Open Management Group to certify the IOTA protocol and standardize how it works. As the architecture and standards get sorted out, others are developing areas that will be an important part of the equation, like the digital twin. “To have the ability to send requests which can be fulfilled basically means having a digital twin of that product that has been designed, validated, and the part program processed for a particular machine. That is an important part of the equation,” said Alastair Orchard, vice president of Siemens Digital Enterprise. To achieve the Industry 4.0 dream where cyber-physical machines can understand their own capabilities, negotiate with other machines, and can design any product, full digitized manufacturing is required And, of course, not every machine is intelligent. “We are working on and deploying a tran-

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MACHINE AUTONOMY 23 AW JUNE 2021

In discrete manufacturing, the bill of process may be published to an execution engine that matches equipment capabilities to each operation and guides the product on its unique journey through the factory. Source: Siemens sitional technology where we take the manufacturing blueprint called the bill of process, which is like a recipe that contains all of the information needed to manufacturing something, including the materials, the tolerances, the set points, and part programs,” Orchard said. “If [the machines] are not intelligent, we do have the possibility with our edge technology to create an intelligent wrapper around them, and then use the manufacturing blueprint to broker conversations between machine wrappers.” A digital twin of the machine knows where all the product parts are to deploy a system where the bill of process is executed, distributed into edge boxes, and products are driven through the factory, communicating with brownfield machines through intelligent wrappers. “Key to this is logistics, either a smart conveyor or AGV to move product between machines. In this way we actually are able to kickstart fully autonomous and flexible manufacturing even though the machines themselves aren’t this super cyber-physical intelligent entity that we’ve been dreaming of.” The ability to flexibly move things and capture that data across the supply chain is another area to tackle, according to IBM. “In today’s supply chain everything is siloed,” said Vijay Pandierajan, director of operations at IBM Sterling, noting that there are so many steps in the process that it’s hard to reconcile everything—especially if a shipment didn’t arrive. “We have business transaction intel-

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ligence that maps out all of the documents you are supposed to get and sequence it.” Business transaction intelligence, part of IBM’s Supply Chain Business Network, enables companies to garner deeper insights into supply chain data to help them better manage, for example, order-to-cash and purchase-to-pay interactions. The technology does this, in part, using machine learning to identify volume, velocity, and value-pattern anomalies in supply chain documents and transactions. “It’s a simple example of AI,” Pandierajan said. “AI won’t [solve] everything, but it will make you more capable as a human.”

capacity. “There are so many areas of experimentation in our German machining factories, where each machine understands its own costs, its own schedule, its own maintenance, and communicates any windows of opportunity it has on a permission blockchain which others can subscribe to and request unused machine uptime capacity to machine their parts,” Orchard said. It is an early example of how machines, using IoT, AI, and blockchain, may completely disrupt the manufacturing business model in the factory of the future.

Culture and capacity

Indeed, ultimately what the machine economy is trying to accomplish is to create a better human experience. Yet, people are the biggest bottleneck to the autonomous marketplace. “The biggest obstacle is culture,” said IIC’s Mellor. “The average age of the industrial plant is 19 years. These are huge investments that last for decades. The organizations that run these facilities are very cautious. Even a 0.5% chance of failure can cost millions of dollars.” But we do have the technology, and the critical steps to move toward the machine economy are happening now. You can see it at Siemens, where a proofof-concept M2M marketplace is underway with the goal of machines selling their own

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24 SUPPLY CHAIN AW JUNE 2021

SUPPLY CHAIN OPTIMIZATION AND THE FUTURE OF INDUSTRY Beset by cost and availability pressures on all sides, more companies are turning to sophisticated supply chain technologies to navigate the ever-changing production landscape. By David Miller, Senior Technical Writer, Automation World

fter March’s Suez Canal blockage and last year’s bout of empty store shelves during the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, the integrity of supply chains is on everyone’s mind. Yet even before these recent debacles, similar disruptions had begun to creep into view. In many ways, current trends merely represent the result of long-gestating issues. “I believe it’s nothing short of historic the amount of pressure that we’re dealing with. It’s everything from soaring freight rates, capacity shortages in containers, driver shortages, imbalanced carrier networks, warehouse labor and space being in short supply, and then natural disasters like COVID-19 or even environmental events,” said Jonathan Foster, principal consultant at Proxima, a procurement consultancy group. “2020 was the year of disruption. It’s coming from everywhere, and the amount of pressure we’re seeing is unprecedented.” To get a better understanding of how these issues are impacting the Automation World audience, we conducted a survey to shed light on how industrial companies are using supply chain automation technologies to adapt to these constraints.

Overall adoption

According to the survey, only 44% of respondents are currently using some form of supply chain software. When asked “If your facility does not use supply chain software, is your company planning to add it?” 15% responded “Yes, in the next year,” 46% responded “In the next few years,” and the remaining 39% indi-

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SUPPLY CHAIN 25 AW JUNE 2021

cated that it was not in their near-term plan at all. While supply chain software suppliers expressed some surprise that, in such a globalized business landscape, more than half of respondents still have not adopted advanced supply chain software products, they ultimately conceded that it is in line with their experience working with clients. To have 56% not using supply chain software “does seem like a big number,” says Shaun Phillips, director of product management at QAD DynaSys (QAD’s supply chain software). “But frankly, if I did a survey of our entire installed base and asked them which system our solution replaced, I would expect that close to 60% of them would say Microsoft Excel. Even among the customers we’ve sold to in the last month, a large portion of them are still at that stage.” The reason for this is that supply chain automation largely subsists on the collection of data from Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)-enabled sensors and devices. As such, companies that are still lagging in their overall digital transformation may not possess the infrastructure necessary to fully leverage a more sophisticated supply chain software product. Beyond that, while supply chain software that can automate data collection and communication or allow end-users to engage in more precise demandplanning may allow them to optimize their production workflow, older software systems can still satisfy their fundamental needs when push comes to shove. Still, some industry sectors have been faster to evolve than others. According to Phillips, manufacturers of consumer electronics have been strong adopters of supply chain software because their notoriously slim profit margins require them to cut costs any way they can. By better matching supply to demand, they can maximize the amount of product moved while limiting excess stock. As a result, they can improve their time-to-market for shorter, more varied product runs. In addition, highly regulated fields, such as food and beverage and pharmaceutical production, have been among QAD’s most prominent clients, Phillips says. For these companies, while reducing costs and improving lead times remain important goals, their primary emphasis in revamping their supply chain systems is increasing quality and traceability. In these cases, better software can assist in automating the collection and communication of plant-floor data to the various participants in a given supply chain, allowing them to ensure that products which may have a finite shelf-life reach their intended destination on time while also meeting stringent quality requirements.

End-to-end visibility aimed at giving companies more granular insight into warehouse inventories and plant material capacities is becoming increasingly common in supply chain management.

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Integration trends

To better understand why some companies are shifting toward more sophisticated supply chain planning, it’s important to understand the two often-contradictory goals they are tasked with achieving. On the one hand, shrinking margins require them to run their operations more efficiently. This means that they must limit costs, which often entails adopting just-in-time models to minimize freight and inventory expenses. However, increasingly prevalent disruptions— whether they be natural disasters or geopolitical shake-ups that limit trade—render this model challenging, as they require companies to hold more safety stocks to increase their resiliency. As a result, software that grants users predictive capabilities or allows them to engage in complex, parallel planning for multiple

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26 SUPPLY CHAIN AW JUNE 2021

Pathmind allows end-users to leverage an additional layer of artificial intelligence that can be used in conjunction with other software products via a Rest application programming interface. “what-if” scenarios is expected to continue gaining traction in the future, says Chris Nicholson, CEO at Pathmind, a supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) simulation models for supply chain data. These software products, driven by end-to-end data visibility and machine learning algorithms, allow end-users to ensure that they are prepared for a variety of potential scenarios while still limiting their freight and inventory costs as much as possible. The growing need for end-to-end visibility is particularly relevant for plant-level operators and systems integrators because it often requires more integration between supply chain software and manufacturing execution systems (MES) to extract granular data such as equipment health and material availability that can help to more accurately gauge a facility’s true capacity. Collecting and communicating this data to supply chain partners in real time can assist them in more effectively coordinating their own procurement and inventory activities. “A normal enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that is integrated with supply chain capabilities might take in orders and then create requisitions or releases for customers. Then, maybe they could also schedule things on the shop floor taking into consider things like material availability,” says Andrew Robling, senior product manager at Epicor, an ERP, MES, and supply chain software provider. “When it comes to getting data off the floor—as far as what was actually produced—that tends to be more of an MES task. The MES has integration to machines, so it can automate that collection of data.” This uptick in MES integration was borne out in our survey, which found that 68% of respondents had connected their supply chain software to their MES in some way. Moreover, while 61% of respondents indicated that this integration was via ERP, the remainder specified that the integration was directly to their MES.

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Evolving capabilities

Going forward, supply chain planners may not only be reaching for more data inside plants, but outside of them as well. According to Phillips, increasingly inventive uses of big data to engage in more precise demand planning will continue to become more commonplace. As an example, he notes the case of a company that manufacturers a consumer good requiring the import of raw materials. This company found that by purchasing public domain customs data on the quantity of their primary material inputs being brought into the U.S., they were able to make deductions about the activity of competitors in their geographic region. Similar cases also abound in industries that produce building materials, where information from banks pertaining to the issuance of mortgage loans can be used to predict demand based on new construction starts. Because this type of demand forecasting relies on large quantities of rapidly changing data from disparate sources, it’s likely that supply chain software products offering it will be cloud-based. Moreover, having more data in the cloud is likely to fuel synergistic growth with another trend sweeping over the supply chain software market: machine learning. According to Nicholson, machine learning allows companies to make use of data in a way human analysts simply can’t. For instance, one company using Pathmind’s software was able to take order data for multiple products coming from its ERP and group them together based on material commonalities. After doing this, orders on similar batches of products could be grouped and routed through CNC machines together to minimize deliveries between them and reduce material wastage. The same sort of large-scale coordination could be applied to delivery trucks moving products across a distribution network, Nicholson notes.

“AI offers expansive visibility. It means you can see more than any individual actor or even isolated system could see because it offers real-time visibility across so many different machines and systems,” he says. “It’s like a control tower. Imagine trying to run an airport without a control tower by telling all of the individual planes to land as safely as they can.” Ultimately, even with trends such as reshoring on the rise, global supply chains will still play a major role in manufacturing. As such, the manufacturing industries will need to be prepared for a world in which complex supply chain planning plays a greater role in their overall operations. According to Phillips, many companies are having what he calls an “Amazon moment.” “Amazon was the first to come up with the idea of using lead times to better serve market segments. If you order something, you can get it the next day or even later in the afternoon. They made supply chain capability into a market strategy,” he says. “What supply chain software can bring to a company is changing. There was a time when it was seen as a necessary evil that was just a cost center needed to synchronize industry flows, but now it’s becoming a competitive differentiator. Now, you can actually use your supply chain to reduce costs, improve service levels, reduce wastage, and guide where you grow and defend your market.”

Read more about AI for Supply Chain Optimization at awgo.to/1197.

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CASE STUDY 27 AW JUNE 2021

A new SCADA system gives Pluspetrol greater insight into its remote operations.

Using SCADA to Monitor Jungle Field Sites Pluspetrol replaced its aging SCADA systems with Inductive Automation’s Ignition platform to track multiple geographically dispersed sites in the Ecuadorian jungle.

By Jeanne Schweder, Contributing Writer, Automation World

jungle isn’t a place you normally associate with modern automation technology, but for Pluspetrol it was the best way to solve a long-standing problem: How to easily access process information generated by five field sites in the Ecuadorian jungle from its headquarters in Quito. Pluspetrol is a private, independent gas and oil supplier with a presence in Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, the United States, Netherlands, Peru, Suriname, and Uruguay. By replacing its aging SCADA workstations with Inductive Automation’s Ignition, a web-based control and monitoring platform featuring tools for building HMI, SCADA, and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) systems, the company was able to make a 20-year jump into the future in just days.

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The five geographically separated sites in Ecuador have a combined total of 18 workstations, each with its own SCADA system, that have been running for 20 years in a stand-alone architecture. This system forced each control station to establish an individual connection to the controllers, causing traffic and data loss on the network, which would repeatedly saturate the controllers due to the number of responses they had to generate for each station. Maintenance and updating of the SCADA applications in the stations was uncontrolled, leaving outdated applications without standards and unreliable data which resulted in errors. Process information could only be accessed by personnel in the field, who had to generate reports in Excel, limiting its use for administrative and process purposes.

System migration requirements

Part of Pluspetrol’s approval for the software migration of what was one of Ecuador’s larg-

est SCADA systems, the company required Ignition to work in parallel with the old SCADA applications work for a month. It also required that there be no downtime during the move to the new platform operations. As part of this process, system integrator Automation Solutions Ecuador (ASE) had three days to start up Ignition at full operation, along with migrating 10 core PLCs with 2,000 I/Os in the main facilities and at the well sites. During the three-day migration, controllers were upgraded without altering the commands and animations of the application. The project involved 4,000 tags, 300 screens and 10,000 alarms, as well as 25 clients, a number that continues to grow. The tags created for the new controllers were saved in a database and their addresses were updated by means of scripting. Then, the old control stations were replaced by Ignition control stations and the scan classes were adjusted for each connection.

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The new control architecture consists of a client-server SCADA system, with two Ignition redundant gateways installed in each main location, and three stand-alone satellite gateways on each remote site. This gateway network configuration allows information to be transmitted from the different locations to the two main redundant servers where the application is running.

Data sharing and access control To share process information with all areas of the company, the main servers were configured within a DMZ that links the control network with the administrative network, providing access to system information from any point of the company's network, both nationally and internationally. Applications are accessible throughout the company while maintaining proper levels of control and access. The access levels are currently controlled through active directory integration. This also enabled ASE to provide performance indicators through levels of access and control to the

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managerial board. If there’s ever a loss of communication between locations, no information will be lost due to the store-and-forward configuration in each server, assuring reliability and real results in the data. Application development and maintenance are also more organized and efficient. Each business unit can request modification of their apps individually, and these changes are published immediately across the entire system. This is the first time in Ecuador that an Ignition platform has been used to control and monitor an entire oil extraction process, its transport and delivery to the national pipeline, as well as generate reports to local and corporate levels. The system also reports data to Ecuador’s national hydrocarbon regulation and control agency, ARCH, to achieve transparent connectivity with different platforms from different vendors. Pluspetrol’s primary goal for the control migration was to convert process data into useful information for decision-making in the areas of operation, development, and man-

agement, at national and international levels of both the company and the Ecuadorean regulatory agents. Consequently, historian displays were adapted to allow searching for detailed information in the database. With the migration of the SCADA system, the old control stations’ operating systems and hardware were updated to help reduce time lost in the maintenance of obsolete devices. Now that Pluspetrol’s SCADA is no longer a black box, all of the workstation and server hardware and software are managed by the IT department—bringing IT and OT closer together than ever. Additional business needs addressed by this update include the first real-time maintenance KPIs (key performance indicators) dashboard, as well as the first reservoir and power generation process monitoring apps for management.

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INDUSTRY-SUPPLIED CONTENT 29 AW JUNE 2021

Cable Design Considerations for Dynamic Applications Answers to questions about the types of industrial cables used in a variety of automation applications. Q: How are drag chain and torsion-rated cables designed and manufactured differently from each other?

A: In many ways, with respect to the environment each cable will be installed in, they are very similar. Before those details are discussed, let’s talk about the most basic material found in the majority of industrial cables, the copper strand. The key thing to remember is that all copper strands, no matter how they are drawn, how many are used per conductor, or how they are stranded together, have memory. For example, think of a wire coat hanger. If you bend it in a particular direction and then attempt to bend it back to the original position it will not be exactly as it was

before. The same applies to copper strands in a multi-conductor industrial cable. This is fine for a stationary or fixed applications, but it creates the most basic of challenges for a cable manufacturer when that cable will be bending millions of times in a 2D (drag chain) or 3D (robotic) application. When designing and manufacturing these 2D- and 3D-style cables, managing the memory of each strand and conductor plays a major role in design efforts. The more demanding the mechanical application, the greater the cable’s performance characteristics must be. That means progressing from simple bunch or unilay construction for stationary cable to concentric with a short lay length (2D) or concentric with a longer lay length (3D). As the per-

By Keith Wilkerson, Business Segment Manager – Robotics, Helukabel

formance needs increase, cables also switch from PVC to PP insulation, and to PUR or TPE jacket compounds.

Q: What are some of the cable design considerations for drag chain-rated cables?

A: There are many characteristics to consider and each machine’s drag chains require a full understanding of the application. To design a new cable or recommend a standard catalog cable, your solutions partner should be asking a lot of questions. This will yield the best results. Some of these questions are related to the mechanical parameters—acceleration, travel speed, travel length, and cycles per day. There are environmental considerations as

Cables and hoses are routed in conduit around the robot to protect them against the robot’s movements and application environment.

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well, which include ambient operating temperature, whether the machine is indoors or outdoors, and the presence of chemicals or particulates that may come in contact with the drag chain, such as welding slag or diesel fluid (seen a lot in the wood processing industry). Some of the desired properties of any industrial cable would be a wide temperature range, sunlight resistance, high oil resistance, minimal elongation, high tensile strength, good abrasion resistance, small bend radius, low capacitance, and flame propagation. It is possible to produce cables to meet many if not most of these criteria but the cost to produce such a cable would not be accepted by the market. Since a one-size-fits all is not desirable for most OEMs and end users due to the cost, it is critical to match the best solution based on the overall application with total system cost as a secondary consideration.

Q: What are some of the cable design considerations for torsion/robotic-rated cables?

A: Torsional (3D robotic) cables are required to endure many of the same environmental factors as drag chain cables. As previously mentioned, understanding the entire scope of the application is needed in order to make the proper recommendation or design

the best solution. Although the flexing of the cable along its entire length is not present in a torsional application as it is with a drag chain application, there is the added rotational stress applied to the cable. This is demonstrated on an articulated robot when axis four rotates in one direction and axis six rotates in the opposite direction. A cable manufacturer must now consider the memory of the copper strands as it relates to that additional stress. With this in mind, we should understand that the torsional value (+/- XXX°) is one of the most critical parameters of a torsional cable. When comparing cables from various suppliers, use this as the base line for comparison. A cable that is +/- 180° per meter may be acceptable for a four-axis palletizing robot, but it may not be best suited for a welding robot in an automotive plant. Also, stating a cable is designed to “withstand torsional applications” is simply not enough to determine if it is the proper solution for the application.

Q: How does acceleration, travel speed, and torsion requirements all impact the material selection and/ or development of new compounds for cables?

A: Cables in highly dynamic applications must withstand acceleration forces up to 50 m/s² and rapid, unforgiving decelerations (the whiplash effect). It seems counter-intuitive but utilizing materials with a certain amount of stiffness is crucial to longevity. If you compare standard tray cable with class 6 stranding to a drag chainrated cable of the same construction, you should notice the “high performance” cable will seem to have more of a rigid feel even though they both utilize pressure extruded jackets. Choosing the wrong material could increase overall weight per foot and shorten the lifespan of both the cable and the cable management system (drag chain/dress pack).

Q: What are some of the main failures you see in the field for both drag chain cables and robotic cables in dress packs?

A: The majority of dress pack failures, about 85%, are cable and hose failures. This ranges from broken strands causing intermittency issues with a fieldbus or control cable to catastrophic failure of the cable at high stress points along the length of the cable. As for drag chain cables, the most common failure is “bird caging.” We will go into further detail related to these modes of failure later in this Q&A.

Robots can be stationary or combined with drag chains to make them move along a path in various industrial manufacturing applications like automotive, material handling, and food and beverage.

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Q: What is the number one design flaw you see in the field with drag chain applications?

A: Many engineers are somewhat designed into a corner. The drag chain is not a high priority component in the design process. But at some point, the cables and hoses need to get from the panel to the X axis over to the Y axis and then on to the Z axis, in the case of a gantry robot. What design engineers are left with may be a physical envelope that does not allow for the proper geometries needed to manage the fill package correctly. Machine repairs and upgrades can be a source of this issue as well. There have been instances where an electrical contractor has fished a PVC-jacketed Ethernet cable through the drag chain on top of a TPE-jacketed servo cable, while completely ignoring the safety factor needed for free movement because “there was room.” Whether the fill package was originally designed with too much content or it happens over numerous machine repairs or upgrades, a drag chain stuffed full to the brim will have a decreased lifespan and much more downtime.

Q: What other systemic design flaws do you encounter in the field?

A: There are several but I’ll only go over a few I see the most in my travels. Uneven weight distribution is the most often design flaw next to an overfill situation. Over time this may lead to the drag chain leaning to one side. This will cause undue stress on the individual links of the drag chain, thus reducing the lifespan of the drag chain itself, especially in a long travel, gliding application. Next on my list is the lack of internal separation. This can cause a myriad of issues. The rule of thumb for separation is to create a cavity with 10% safety factor for cables and 20% safety factor for hoses. This means if a cable has an O.D. of 20 mm, the inside dimensions of the cavity it travels in should be 22 mm x 22 mm. Adding internal dividers and separators does increase the initial cost of a drag chain, but over the lifespan it will reduce total cost of ownership and downtime. Another systemic design flaw that causes a good share of downtime and failure is the physical placement of each component. Going back to the example in the previous question, PVC and TPE jackets have different levels of abrasion resistance (a.k.a. friction coefficients). Placing dissimilar

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jacket types next to each other without the proper separation as mentioned before, can cause the cables to possibly bind and wear prematurely. Finally, the last design flaw is one that is a pet peeve of mine. It’s typically found in older drag chains in an MRO situation… zip ties… everywhere. The only “strain relief” needed is at each end of the drag chain.

Q: What are some of the best key practices when designing and building a plug-and-play drag chain solution?

A: I would recommend this above all else; determine what your fill package will consist of first. Even if you are not sure about some of the other parameters the fill package will drive the mechanical envelope the drag chain must operate in. Matching all components properly to the application is another key. An example would be using cables that are rated for an acceleration of 5 m/s² when the real-world acceleration is 20 m/s². Will the cable work? Possibly, but for how long? Confirm the bend radius of the drag chain will accommodate each cable/hose bend radius. Cables that are constantly stressed longitudinally beyond their specified bend radius will fail prematurely. The last one I will mention relates to the use of support and guidance systems, sometimes referred to as guide

troughs. These are sort of like a seat belt for your drag chain. They keep the drag chain properly aligned (no snaking), ensuring there is proper support and a uniform, obstruction free path in which to operate.

Q: What are some of the best indicators that an end user can look for to determine if their drag chain is beginning to fail?

A: A clear indicator that you may have an issue is when frame stays are missing or appear to be partially unsnapped from its link. This indicator is tricky because it could be a symptom of a deeper, unseen systemic issue. Maybe you have a drag chain that looks “twitchy” as it moves from the retracted to the extended position. I see this issue quite often. The possible causes could be one or more links are beginning to fail or there is debris in the drag chain and/or guidance system. Look for cables that begin to crossover their neighbors or show signs of cork screwing. This is one sign that should be looked at sooner than later, similar to the low tire indicator on your car. These issues should be evaluated by an experienced field support representative to determine your best course of action for repair, redesign, or replacement.

Helukabel tests its drag chain-rated cables in chains of various lengths and acceleration rates for multi-million cycles.

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Smart Mechatronics Platform

Bosch Rexroth, bosch.com The Smart MechatroniX platform combines linear motion technology components with electronics and software, resulting in plug-and-play software modules for a variety of applications. The platform’s Smart Function Kit offers quick and intuitive commissioning and configuration for processes such as joining, pressing, and handling. It works according to the plug-and-produce principle by combining preselected mechanical and electronic components with software. The modular toolbox consists of an electromechanical cylinder, a force sensor, a motor, a servo drive, a motion controller, and a software package that enables commissioning and operation as well as process analysis.

Linear Position Sensor

Harold G. Schaevitz Industries, hgsind.com The ILPS-18S Series of spring-loaded inductive linear position sensors is designed for dimensional gauging and position measurements in commercial, industrial, and military applications. With their compact design and strong stroke-to-length ratio, ILPS-18S sensors are suitable for test stands, test laboratories, automated assembly machines, processing and packaging equipment, robotics, and automotive test applications. Other features include: Measuring ranges from 13mm to 100mm; service life rated to over 100 million cycles; and axial termination with either M12 connector or integral cable.

Graphics, Vision, and AI Computer

Abaco Systems, abaco.com The GVC1001 is a graphics, vision, artificial intelligence (AI), and image processing computer. Using Nvidia’s latest AI and deep learningenabled Nvidia Jetson AGX Xavier system on module, it is able to meet the demands and challenges of very low SWaP graphics, vision, AI, and sensor computing applications within industrial platforms. The GVC1001 computer also features dual 10GigE ports for gigabit Ethernet camera or other sensor inputs. These can be used standalone or partnered with Abaco’s 24-port gigabit Ethernet switch, the RES3000 for GigE camera or other sensor aggregation. In addition, the unit provides dual 1GigE ports for additional gigabit Ethernet cameras, control plane functionality or other sensors; dual CAN ports to transmit and receive data; and USB 3.0, USB 2.0, UARTS, audio I/O, and GPIO.

I/O Slices for Temperature Control

Trio Motion Technology, triomotion.uk Trio Motion technology has launched two new I/O slices that enable OEMs to measure and control temperature as well as connect three-wire devices within a compact footprint. The new P367 thermocouple slice expands Trio’s motion controllers with temperature measurement and control. 16-bit resolution ensures flexibility in applications ranging from temperature measurement and monitoring to control of hot melt glue and sealing applications. Four thermocouple inputs and outputs can be used to control a heater or other switched load. In addition, Trio is releasing the P362 Power Connect module which enables integration of sensors, relays, and output devices. The module simplifies connection of three-wire sensors into the I/O system and removes the footprint and cost required for additional terminals.

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NEW PRODUCTS 33 AW JUNE 2021

Presence Sensing Safety Light Curtain

Rockwell Automation, rockwellautomation.com The Allen-Bradley 450L GuardShield safety light curtain is reported to be the first of its kind to provide CIP Safety over EtherNet/IP. CIP Safety over EtherNet/IP enables smart safety within a connected enterprise and provides detailed data from the plant floor. The 450L GuardShield light curtains support linear, star, and DLR networks and are suited for applications where safe and frequent access to the machine is required. Patented technology allows each transceiver to be used as a transmitter or receiver via a plug-in module. The 450L-E option provides advanced functionality, such as integrated laser alignment, cascading, blanking, and integrated muting.

Two-Plate Ring Absolute Encoder for Harsh Environments

Netzer, netzerprecision.com The VLX-60 is a new member of the VLX series of electric encoders, a product line based on Netzer Precision Motion Sensor proprietary technology. Features of Netzer electronic encoders include: low profile (<10 mm); hollow shaft; high resolution; low weight; holistic signal generation; digital interface for absolute position; low profile and weight; auto calibration options; and high tolerance to temperature extremes, shock, moisture, EMI, RFI, and magnetic fields. Due to the absence of components such as ball bearings, flexible couplers, glass discs, light sources, and detectors, Netzer electric encoders deliver virtually failure-free performance in nearly all conditions.

Managed Industrial Ethernet Switches

Antaira Technologies, antaira.com Antaira Technologies has recently expanded its family of 802.3bt industrial PoE (power over Ethernet) switches with the LMP-C602G-SFP-bt(-T)-V2 series. This series of light Layer 3 industrial managed Ethernet switches feature a 48 to 55V DC high voltage power input and a 12 to 48V DC wide voltage power input. Each industrial switch is designed with four gigabit Ethernet ports and two dual rate SFP slots. The LMP-C602G-SFP-bt-V2 is IEEE 802.3bt compliant (PSE: 90W/port) and has a built-in PoE DIP switch which can control certain Ethernet ports to enable or disable the PoE function.

Fanless Rackmount Servers

Stealth, stealth.com The new Fanless 2U Rackmount Servers come in two models: The SR-2950 and the SR-2960. Fanless by design, their systems operate without noisy cooling fans that can draw in dirt and dust, potentially causing catastrophic failures. The design is also space-saving, featuring an extruded aluminum chassis that provides heat dissipation. The SR-2950 and SR-2960 can be installed into a standard 19in rock cabinet or used as standalone workstations. The SR-250 comes equipped with a dedicated Nvidia GeForce 1050 or 1050TI graphics card. In addition, the SR-2960 features Intel 9th Generation Core i3, i5, i5, and Xeon processors.

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34 INDUSTRY VIEW AW JUNE 2021

How Advances in Artiﬁcial Intelligence and 3D Printing Are Changing Manufacturing By Dick Slansky Senior Analyst, ARC Advisory Group

op technology investment areas for aerospace manufacturing include advanced analytics, cloud computing, modeling and simulation, IoT platforms, optimization of production processes, and predictive analytics. Artificial intelligence (AI) and subsets of AI like machine learning (ML) will drive much of this technology in actual implementation. Earlier research into AI and cognitive computing has resulted in real solutions being applied to real-world processes. In addition to robotics, additive manufacturing, and other disruptive technologies, the aerospace and defense (A&D) industries were relatively quick to recognize the potential of AI and readily embraced the science and technology it has spawned. Both industries have developed and implemented their respective roadmaps for digital transformation. Automated systems have historically been an important element of the A&D industry from the cockpit to the factory floor. We’ve seen a steady progression from the first use of autopilots and other automated systems toward future autonomous avionics systems. Automated factory production systems have evolved from programmed control systems to machines and production systems based on predictive, prescriptive, and even autonomous self-healing systems enabled by AI/ ML algorithms. In the factory production areas, ML is helping to improve and optimize the production process in several ways. These include

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reduced occurrence of equipment failures to keep the production rate humming and reduce expensive downtime. ML-based algorithms can access and analyze large volumes of data from vibration sensors in machines to detect and predict machine anomalies and failures. Moreover, ML can be prescriptive to determine how to best fix and prevent problems. Ultimately, ML algorithms can orchestrate a complete self-healing autonomous production environment of machines and assembly lines. AI and ML are being used to determine the optimal production processes in aerospace manufacturing. Prescriptive analytics combine big data, mathematical statistics, logic, and ML to reveal the origins of the most complex production problems empirically and then suggest decision options to solve them. ML-based production intelligence systems use pattern recognition technology to analyze existing production data for both product and process and identify patterns of what works (best practices) and what does not (risk situations). These patterns are translated into a form of human-readable rules that are then applied to manufacturing operations for best practices. Aerospace manufacturers are using this method to optimize advanced composite manufacturing processes.

The rise of additive manufacturing

Today, the A&D industry is the largest user of additive manufacturing (AM) produced parts. From the commercial duopoly of Boeing and Airbus to defense OEMs like Lockheed Martin, thousands of AM “fly away” parts are used in the manufacturing of aircraft. For example, Boeing’s latest windbody model, the 777X, has more than 600 printed parts in the aircraft, with more than 300 printed parts in the huge GE9X engines. It is billed as the most powerful and efficient engine for a twinjet wide body aircraft today. The Boeing 777X is competing with the Airbus A350 XWB in terms of size, performance, and number of AM parts. The A350 already features more

than 1,000 printed parts. Boeing has made a major push into AM and has filed for patents related to the 3D printing of replacement aircraft parts, which could have serious implications to the company’s operations going forward. They want to create a parts library to store AM part definition files, including a database and a parts management system instead of storing parts at their various distribution hubs, or requiring parts to be shipped to them, causing extensive delays. Instead, the company can just pull up a specific AM file for a part that is needed and have it fabricated within minutes or hours, wherever they have a printer available. Currently, the company has more than 350 AM standard parts spanning 10 different aircraft production programs with around 20,000 printed parts currently being used on their aircraft. The other area of A&D manufacturing where AM is making a significant impact is in the tooling used to support production line assembly and installation. Using a new generation of big area additive manufacturing (BAAM) printers, large tooling fixtures and jigs can be fabricated as single large parts in reduced time, eliminating multiple part assemblies. Currently, AI is an integral part of the design process for AM in aerospace. In designing parts for aircraft, achieving the optimal weight-to-strength ratio is a primary objective, since reducing weight is an important factor in air-frame structures design. Today’s PLM solutions offer function-driven generative design using AI-based algorithms to capture the functional specifications and generate and validate conceptual shapes best suited for AM fabrication. Using this generative functional design method produces the optimal lightweight design within the functional specifications.

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ENTERPRISE VIEW 35 AW JUNE 2021

Four Ways Industrial Companies Can Accelerate the Digital Journey By Brian R. May Managing Director, Industrial North America, Accenture

xpectations for engaging B2B customers digitally have never been higher. Given this trend, industrial companies need to expand their digital sales capabilities now. Here are some thoughts on how to build momentum. We’ve long known that digital sales represent the future for industrial companies. But the speed of growth we’re seeing in this new way of interacting with customers is remarkable. Already representing 26% of total U.S.B2B sales, digital commerce is expected to keep accelerating over the coming years, closing in on a third of all industrial B2B sales in North America by the middle of this decade. Industrial B2B customers are expecting a different type of experience across the entire engagement lifecycle—from searching for product information to influencing product engineering to transacting buys to servicing products. Standards and expectations have been driven ever upwards by the digital commerce giants. The ability for industrials to respond to these expectations will differentiate the leaders from the rest of the pack. Expectations are now blurred between the B2B customer’s consumer life and their industrial buying life. People know what a “good” buying experience looks like as consumers—whether that’s the way products are displayed and recommended or the ability to complete a streamlined transaction end to end online—and they don’t simply forget that when they come to work. So, the challenge for industrials is to make sure a digital transformation of sales delivers against these higher customer expectations while simultaneously driving efficiencies and margin benefits.

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Learn from the leaders

Accenture’s new High Voltage Digital Sales report shows how some industrial companies are racing ahead with this transformation. By examining what makes these leaders tick, we’ve identified several capabilities which can provide a template for all industrial companies to aspire to. First, these leaders have moved away from a reactive and sequential approach and are able to interact digitally with customers across the end-to-end buying journey. Second, they’re better at providing proactive and personalized recommendations to increase sales. Third, they’re able to use their data to generate predictive customer-specific insights at scale. And fourth, leaders will typically have more standardized and automated sales processes than their peers (and, what’s more, are planning to invest further in this area). Finally, many leaders have also managed to bridge their organizational silos between sales, marketing, and after sales, and establish close cooperation across the whole front office. This, however, is an area where U.S. industrial companies may be lagging. Accenture’s research shows just 40% have achieved strong collaboration between sales and marketing (compared with 45% globally).

Four ways to accelerate a digital sales transformation

So, what practical steps can U.S. industrials take now to emulate the leaders and move their digital sales to the next level? There are four key areas to focus on. #1. Embrace the ecosystem. The biggest barrier to digital sales transformation uncovered by Accenture’s research is a lack of internal or external technology implementation capabilities—91% of respondents from North America cited this (compared with 78% globally). One solution can be to combine an internal “center of excellence” with an ecosystem of partners who can not only implement the right technology platforms (such as a digital customer lifecycle management solution) but also drive the operational and organizational changes that go with it. #2 Know your customers. Recommendation engines can be an invaluable tool for B2B

sales, especially for less complex products. In fact, leading companies attribute as much as 8.5% of all sales to recommendation engines. However, you need the right customer analytics to deliver targeted recommendations at scale—and so investments in this area need to be prioritized and accelerated. #3 Measure your successes. It goes without saying that a sales transformation needs a solid business case—this is vital in securing sufficient budget and leadership confidence. But an often-overlooked aspect is choosing the right performance measures. The goal is to have a targeted set of key performance indicators (KPI) that are easy to measure and can demonstrate what the transformation is delivering. Good examples of this are online configurator visits and online sales margins. Choosing hard-to-measure KPIs or having too many to manage is a surefire way to lose focus. #4 Let employees be advocates. Handled badly, digital transformation programs can run into resistance from employees accustomed to existing ways of working or fearful of what automation means for their livelihoods. However, when done well, a transformation can engage, enthuse, and incentivize the workforce with a renewed focus on customer value. A key way of achieving this is to enlist employees themselves as advocates, demonstrating the benefits of better collaboration, re-skilling, and the ability to concentrate on selling higher value products.

Seamless digital B2B sales at scale

The above steps should help industrial companies ramp up their digital sales efforts. The leaders are showing it doesn’t need to be a three-to-five-year program—it’s achievable in the here and now. By injecting more urgency into a clearly targeted transformation, companies can start delivering the seamless end-to-end consumer-grade buying experiences their customers increasingly expect and demand.

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36 INTEGRATOR VIEW AW JUNE 2021

Don’t Shortchange Your Industrial Network Investment in Your Race to Digital Transformation By Steve J. Malyszko P.E., Chief Executive Officer, Malisko Engineering

any clients we engage regarding manufacturing automation have some aspect of digital transformation in their project plan or initiative. Harvesting real-time data, and lots of it, from the process cells and work cells is a key element of their deliverables. It should also be a crucial component of the specifications, design, implementation, and investment made during the project’s cost-justification, schedule, and approval. Too many times attention to the robustness and security of the network infrastructure is trivialized and the corresponding investment is underestimated. We’ve seen where this can prove costly in the long run for reaping the full benefits of data harvesting related to digital transformation. To create a better posture for the success of your digital transformation campaign, let’s examine areas where mitigation efforts are needed. For starters, let’s list some of the significant landmines you may want to avoid or remediate: • The most common issue we run across is having a poorly documented and piecemealed existing plant network. In other words, not thinking about standardization, organization, or future confusion when adding to or expanding the OT network. The sooner this is acknowledged and corrected the better. • At times there might be a lack of mutual understanding between IT and OT of the objectives, challenges, and limitations each group is tasked with on a daily basis. Encouraging and promoting good idea-sharing can pay tangible dividends.

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• Sometimes budgets for plant-level technical resources do not provide adequate funding to train and equip internal resources to support managed OT networks. • IT ownership of the OT network can be good for the organization. When this is the case, it is critical for the stakeholders of any automation project to communicate early and often with IT to ensure the project budget, schedule, and scope to sufficiently cover the technical and support requirements for the expanded/reconfigured OT network. It’s never too soon to involve IT on an OT network planning and coordination project. • Many digital transformation initiatives focused on plant floor operations are facilitated by the company’s continuous improvement (CI) group. Vital to the success of a CI’s initiative is getting buy in, cooperation, and consensus with all stakeholders. This includes, but is not limited to: CI, IT, plant engineering, production, and maintenance. CI initiatives related to manufacturing automation generally require a sizable amount of real-time data from the control systems of every process cell and work cell. Critical to the success of a CI initiative is early, frequent, and routine collaboration on the specifications, requirements, and implementation needed to achieve CI’s objectives in a secure environment. • Implementing a physical and logical digital transformation initiative is typically done by way of a staged migration of the OT network that follows an overall strategic plan. It’s crucial that the plan minimizes production interruptions and avoids reworking previous migration steps already completed. In addition, the stakeholders need to create an overall map for the OT network near the beginning of the initiative to maximize potential staging due to production interruption restrictions or annual capital budget constraints. • Continue to adhere to OT network best practices throughout the life cycle of the network. All too often, we see a client initially implement a robust, secure OT network as part of a larger project, only to see subsequent smaller additions not follow

best practices. The majority of existing manufacturing facilities consist of a very wide variety of control system platforms ranging from legacy “hard-wired” through PLCs, DCSs, and proprietary control systems. Implementing a comprehensive digital transformation on the plant floor brings challenges which need to be addressed during the design, planning, and costing of the project. With that in mind, here are a few points to consider. • Above all, production cannot be interrupted nor affected during this initiative. • Legacy equipment needs to be dealt with through the use of communication bridges to ethernet or control platform upgrades. • From the OT network view, plant floor equipment, PLCs, DCSs, VFDs, servos, inspection equipment, and network switches—many previously unmanaged—need to be logically segmented and IP addressed following industry standards and best practices. • The logical network segmentation plan and all connected nodes need to be clearly identified and approved by all stakeholders before being implemented. • Once installed, configured, and operational, all network devices and nodes need to be audited and fully documented for future reference. Change control policies are a must have. It cannot be stressed enough that a great deal of attention needs to be given to the OT network design, architecture, configuration, security, implementation, and support for a digital transformation initiative for it to be highly successful and give the stakeholders a good return on their investment. Early discussions among the stakeholders combined with a robust, secure, and collaborative design will greatly increase the probability of success for the IIoT ready network layer needed today, as well as in the future.

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ADVERTISER INDEX 37 AW JUNE 2021

COMPANY

TELEPHONE

WEBSITE

PAGE

AutomationDirect

800.633.0405

www.ProductivityPLCs.com

Beckhoff Automation

952.890.0000

www.beckhoff.com/xplanar

CIMON, Inc.

800.300.9916

www.cimon.com

Digi-Key Electronics

800.344.4539

www.DigiKey.com/automation

Endress + Hauser

888.ENDRESS

www.us.endress.com/calibration-usa

Galco

888.526.0909

www.galco.com

Hammond Manufacturing

716.630.7030

www.Hammondmfg.com

Healthcare Packaging EXPO

312.222.1010

www.HCPELasVegas.com

Inductive Automation

800.266.0909

www.demo.ia.io/automation

Opto22

800.321.6786

www.opto22.com

PACK EXPO Las Vegas

312.222.1010

www.PACKEXPOLasVegas.com

Telemecanique Sensors

800.435.2121

www.tesensors.com/XXSonic

Cover

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38 KEY INSIGHTS AW JUNE 2021

All of the areas with the highest expected levels of increased spending are for technologies closely associated with digital transformation. For example, in the batch industries, where increases in spending on data acquisition and analytics is expected by 80% of respondents, only 42% expect an increase in spending on motors, drives, and motion control technologies. David Greenfield on automation investment trends in the batch manufacturing industries. awgo.to/1188.

The duo is working on delivering a complete cannabis product validation and authentication platform that links the Applied DNA molecular tracking technology with TruTrace’s software as a service platform to create a secure ecosystem for end-to-end traceability and transparency where all activity is captured and stored in a secure database. Stephanie Neil on securing cannabis across the supply chain. awgo.to/1189.

Maestro operates as a central controller which monitors the position of all autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) on the plant floor via vision systems and issues commands based on their positions. Because all navigation instructions proceed from Maestro, the software intelligence and supporting hardware inside each individual AMR can be removed. This capability is said to not only drastically lower the costs of AMRs but provide more effective and interoperable fleet management capabilities. David Miller on the use of artificial intelligence for mobile robot fleet management. awgo.to/1190.

By removing all the upfront programming requirements, universal I/O simplifies machine design and system building while also delivering data processing and network connectivity options not commonly associated with traditional I/O. Natalie Craig on the benefits and potential drawbacks of universal I/O. awgo.to/1191.

Every MES vendor’s product will have similar capabilities. Some will work better for discrete manufacturing, others for process-focused industries. Some will be tightly coupled to automated systems, while others are good for manual operations. By internalizing and capitalizing on the concepts in the program, MES project teams will be better prepared to work with and evaluate their short list of vendors. Chris Rickey of Rockwell Automation on the benefits of MES/MOM certification. awgo.to/1203.

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