Automation World March 2021

MARCH 2021 / www.AutomationWorld.com

26 HOW AUTOMATION ENABLES VIABLE RESHORING 30 34 52 36 6 18

Robotics Survey Finds Ups, Downs, and a Few Surprises OEM Digitally Transforms for Remote Support Evaluating Profitability Margins for Products BMW Outfits Robots with Artificial Intelligence RFID as an Industrial Cybersecurity Method Assessing Cloud Computing’s Value

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CONTENTS 1 AW MARCH 2021

MARCH 2021 | VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 3

26 30 34 36

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How Automation Enables Viable Reshoring

Supply chain disruptions related to COVID-19 have prompted manufacturers to consider bringing operations back to the U.S. But successful reshoring depends on disruptive technology.

Robotics Adoption Survey Finds Ups, Downs, and a Few Surprises

Last year proved itself a veritable rollercoaster of disruptions and developments, resulting in robotics adoption growing in some areas and shrinking in others, yet still painting a picture of continued growth for robotics ahead.

OEM Digitally Transforms Its Business for Remote Support

BID Group, a sawmill equipment manufacturer, adopts PTC’s ThingWorx IIoT platform and Vuforia augmented reality technologies to reduce customer downtime and eliminate asset component failures.

BMW Outfits Robots with Artificial Intelligence

To help produce its custom-configured cars more rapidly, BMW used Nvidia’s Isaac robotics platform to add advanced computing and visualization to its factory logistics robots.

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2 CONTENTS AW MARCH 2021

EDITORIAL

ONLINE 4

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

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS 6

RFID as an Industrial Cybersecurity Method

BATCH OF IDEAS 8

Users Unite as the Open Process Automation Journey Continues

PRODUCTION PERSPECTIVES 10

Injection Molding Machine Interface Bolsters Robot Integration

PERSPECTIVES 12

Developing a Sustainability Program Focus Can Artificial Intelligence Explain Itself?

OEM Redesigns Equipment to Incorporate XPlanar Floating Movers Assessing Cloud Computing’s Value

David Greenfield Director of Content/Editor-in-Chief dgreenfield@automationworld.com / 678 662 3322 Stephanie Neil Senior Editor sneil@automationworld.com / 781 378 1652 Aaron Hand Editor at Large ahand@automationworld.com / 312 222 1010 x1180 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@automationworld.com / 312 222 1010 x1470 Kim Overstreet Content Strategist koverstreet@pmmimediagroup.com James R. Koelsch, Lauren Paul, Jeanne Schweder and Beth Stackpole Contributing Writers

ART & PRODUCTION

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

NEWS 20

ADVERTISING

The Logistics of Supply Chain Visibility Increased Adoption, Acquisitions, and Partnerships Mark 3D Printing’s Advance Device-to-Cloud Communications Bypass the Purdue Model PMMI News Maximize Machinery with MaaS

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

INDUSTRIAL INTERNET OF THINGS 38

AUDIENCE & DIGITAL

Understanding Robots and Their Role in IIoT Growing New Business with Edge Computing Find Yourself with a Real-Time Location System Have Questions About IIoT? We’ve Got Answers The Best Way to Power Remote Wireless Communications

David Newcorn Senior Vice President, Digital & Data Elizabeth Kachoris Senior Director, Digital & Data Kelly Greeby Senior Director, Client Success & Media Operations Jen Krepelka Director, Websites & Digital Design Strategy

PMMI MEDIA GROUP

Kurt Belisle Publisher kbelisle@pmmimediagroup.com / 815 549 1034 Jake Brock Client Success 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 Sarah Loeffler Director, Media Innovation sloeffler@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 205 7925 Janet Fabiano Financial Services Manager jfabiano@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1330

NEW PRODUCTS 50

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FINANCE VIEW 52

Evaluating Profitability Margins for Products By Larry White

IT VIEW 54

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

The Challenges of Smart Manufacturing By John Clemons

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

KEY INSIGHTS 56

Automation World | PMMI Media Group 401 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 300, Chicago, IL 60611 Phone: 312 222 1010 | Fax: 312 222 1310 www.automationworld.com PMMI The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies 12930 Worldgate Dr., Suite 200, Herndon VA, 20170 Phone: 571 612 3200 • Fax: 703 243 8556 www.pmmi.org

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4 ONLINE

AW MARCH 2021

PODCAST SERIES What’s the Difference Between Standard and Inverter Duty Motors?

In this episode, we connect with Brent Kooiman, senior project engineer and design manager at Interstates, to learn about the differences between general purpose and inverter duty motors and the types of industrial applications each are best suited for.

awgo.to/1152

AUTOMATION WORLD TV Watch the latest AW TV report on how automation technology advances are elevating the importance of industrial networks and how industrial sustainability efforts have—and have not—changed since 2016. Subscribe to keep up with our latest video posts.

awgo.to/1143

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.

awgo.to/1056

AUTOMATION WORLD E-BOOK Automation World’s Field Guide to IIoT Implementation

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) promises increased productivity, better quality products, and more affordable operations. Automation World created “The Field Guide to IIoT Implementation” to answer your questions around IIoT and detail key benefits to integrating IIoT products, steps for applying application program interfaces to implement these products, and factors to consider before launching an IIoT initiative.

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SYSTEM INTEGRATOR BLOGS • How Workshops Can Help You Plan Your Control System Upgrade

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• Optimizing Asset Performance Through Procurement • Discussing the Data Layer in Regulated Environments • Solving Common Quality Management Challenges with Automated Workflows • The Benefits of a “Deny All” Approach to Security

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6 EDITORIAL AW MARCH 2021

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS

RFID as an Industrial Cybersecurity Method

By David Greenfield

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

C

ybersecurity has been a major automation topic ever since Ethernet networks began coming down to the plant floor. Most industrial cybersecurity discussions center on a combination of networking and software-oriented approaches to segment and protect critical production operations and systems.

Sometimes overlooked in these cybersecurity discussions is physical access to systems.

User authentication is one aspect of secure system access through which authorization data can be used to determine if the employee has the proper skill set and is currently trained and certified to access the manufacturing system hardware and software.

Chris Randle, vice president of industry solutions for Elatec Inc., a supplier of RFID read/write technologies, explains that authorized personnel typically include “plant engineers, maintenance electricians, and IT personnel who can access software running specific processes. The level of access each of these workers has varies according to the individual’s function in the plant. Engineers usually have full access to upload, download, and change controller and HMI software. IT personnel usually have only upload or download authorization for backup and disaster recovery purposes. Plant maintenance electricians typically have limited access to change software and only for process troubleshooting.

The specific authorization may vary from plant to plant, but identification of who accessed the software, who made changes, and at what time is logged in a database to track changes for review when necessary.”

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This diagram shows a method of authentication and access control to industrial automation software using an RFID reader combined with a network interface module.

An additional layer of security can be added with the use of RFID cards, which are already one of the most widely used form of authentication and access control.

“Authentication and authorization systems for access control to software in industrial automation applications in factories today require that they be easy to use, flexible, durable, secure, and stand up well to environmental elements,” said Randle. “RFID card systems address these application requirements better than magnetic stripe cards, smart cards (with embedded chips) and PIN pads.”

Because RFID cards are touchless, requiring the user to just wave the card within a few inches of the reader to be read, RFID authentication and access control is considered an easy step for users.

“RFID readers are used throughout the organizational ecosystem for multipurpose authentication using existing employee building entry ID cards,” said Randle. “Functionality such as time-based access control, access to manufacturing processes, access to automation controller and HMI software, and hazardous areas can

be added. Additionally, RFID readers can often read and write to more than one type of card.

Should plant requirements change, cards can be updated without issuing a new card.”

He also noted that, when enabled with network access, RFID readers can communicate using various communication protocols, including gigabit Ethernet, with information technology systems and industrial automation applications like industrial programmable controllers, HMIs, and robots. In addition, RFID card systems are considered more secure than other card-based identification technologies, as data transfer between cards and readers and message traffic between card readers and plant networks can be encrypted.

“RFID readers and cards can also execute a kill command if the card is lost or stolen,” said Randle. “Since the kill command deactivates the card, it prevents unauthorized access to sensitive data, hardware, and software that controls industrial manufacturing processes and hazardous areas in the plant.”

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8 EDITORIAL AW MARCH 2021

BATCH OF IDEAS

Users Unite as the Open Process Automation Journey Continues

By Stephanie Neil

sneil@automationworld.com Senior Editor, Automation World

D

espite the disruption to business that the pandemic has caused, the Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF) has not skipped a step in its effort to create a collaborative control architecture.

Since the formation of OPAF in 2017, the group—now comprised of around 135 members from suppliers, system integrators, academia, and end user organizations—has been on a mission to design and deliver a modular, scalable, and interoperable framework that can mix best-of-breed technologies and applications from a variety of industrial systems suppliers.

In the past two years the organization has rolled out the first developments of the Open-Process Automation Standard (O-PAS)—which is described as a “standard of standards,” as members emphasize that they don’t want to reinvent the wheel, but rather utilize what’s already in use for connectivity, security, systems management, and more.

O-PAS version 1.0, released in 2019, specifically addressed the issue of interoperability.

Version 2.0, announced last year, focused on configuration portability—the first step toward the ultimate goal of plug-and-play functionality for control equipment, OPAF said. In the next few weeks, version 2.1 will be released as a preliminary standard.

O-PAS vs. 2.1, announced in February during the ARC Advisory Group Industry Forum, is a continuation of configura-

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tion portability and control functionality.

This latest version has 12 parts, ranging from definitions of data types, function blocks, alarms, and security. In addition, it addresses the IEC 61131 programming language standard and the IEC 61499 standard for industrial automation application portability.

While the march toward a unified standard continues, the proof that OPAF is moving in the right direction comes from the user labs set up across the globe. During the ARC forum, attendees were taken on a tour of three user labs around the world, from the U.S. to the Middle East to Australia. This, I must admit, was one of the perks of having a virtual conference, as we were able to get a tour of each of these facilities from the comfort of a home office. And it was fascinating!

For example, energy and chemical giant Aramco, in collaboration with Schneider Electric, has built a test bed in the Saudi Schneider Electric Innovation and Research Center in Saudi Arabia. There, they test systems for multi-vendor interoperability, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics in real-world applications. The University of Western Australia’s Industry 4.0 Energy and Resources Digital Interoperability (ERDi) test lab is working with industry partners on proof of concepts, including how O-PAS will work in the mining industry. And ExxonMobil, together with Yokogawa Electric Corporation, has an open process automation test lab in Texas. It serves two purposes: first, to understand the open system technology with heterogenous parts and develop a design structure. Second, to get it to a field trial.

“Even though we did a pilot, it was research, not a production unit,” said David DeBari, a process control engineer at ExxonMobil.

The original proof of concept project, which included many OPAF member suppliers like Schneider Electric, ABB, AspenTech, Inductive Automation, ANSYS, and Wind River, was

built to demonstrate the feasibility of the architecture to deliver the targeted multivendor interoperability through standards without the use of gateways or translators, as well as prove interchangeability between different vendors’ components without having to change the underlying logic.

ExxonMobil, having been the company that initiated this widespread industry movement, very much wants to move to an O-PAS based system. How fast, however, has always been the underlying question. The good news is that there is slow and steady movement in the direction of an open process automation architecture. The bad news is that there is still a long way to go on this journey of designing, testing, and updating the standard. For that, more industry participation is needed.

To that end, OPAF is asking for your feedback—even if you are not a member.

They are asking for your stories related to what you are working on and what you need in O-PAS version 3.0. To submit your specific needs, go to: www.cognitoforms. com/opas1/userstories.

“While the march toward a unified standard continues, the proof that OPAF is moving in the right direction comes from the user labs set up across the globe.”

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10 EDITORIAL AW MARCH 2021

PRODUCTION PERSPECTIVES

Injection Molding Machine Interface Bolsters Robot Integration

By David Miller

dmiller@pmmimediagroup.com Senior Technical Writer, Automation World

“Often handled by smaller contract manufacturers, companies engaged in injection molding face a unique challenge when automating. On the one hand, the variable nature of their product runs mandates high flexibility; on the other hand, their size may limit their ability to engage in big CAPEX spends.”

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H

igh-mix, low-volume (HMLV) manufacturing has seen significant growth in recent years as lower margins, increased demand for customization, and supply chain uncertainty have altered day-to-day production realities. The result is a world where shorter product lifecycles are the norm and speed in production and delivery are king.

Injection molding of plastic parts and components figures prominently in the HMLV space. Often handled by smaller contract manufacturers, companies engaged in injection molding face a unique challenge when automating. On the one hand, the variable nature of their product runs mandates high flexibility; on the other hand, their size may limit their ability to engage in big CAPEX spends. Simply put, they need sophisticated equipment for less money.

In many cases, collaborative robots (cobots) have proven to be the remedy to this predicament. Typically deployed for machine tending, material removal, and other material handling tasks, cobots present a relatively low-cost option that is flexible, easy to integrate, and capable of working directly alongside human workers without any safety fencing, provided a risk assessment has first been performed.

The e-Series of cobots from Universal Robots has seen a high level of adoption by injection molders, with numerous case studies on the company’s website documenting the robots’ success at small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the plastics and polymers space. According to Universal Robots, the flexible nature of its e-Series cobots allow them to be redeployed throughout a plastics manufacturing facility to automate secondary processes, such as degating, grinding, spru removal, and polishing, as well as for the application of decals or labels to plastic parts.

Universal Robots is following these suc-

cesses by taking steps to make communication between its e-Series cobots and injection molding machines faster and more intuitive. The company’s recently released injection molding machine interface provides standardized connectivity between its e-Series cobots and injection molding machinery that employs EuroMap 67 and SPI AN-146 communication interfaces.

The interface can be installed in a cobot’s control box in less than ten minutes, and reportedly provides deep integration with the robotic system, including safety functionality, according to Universal Robots.

In addition, an injection molding machine interface template for Universal Robots’ Polyscope operating system is provided to simplify programming.

“Injection molding machines have many inputs and outputs to manage the complexities of the molding process,” said Joe Campbell, senior manager of applications development at Universal Robots. “Standardized interfaces allow for ease of integration and exchangeability. With the injection molding machine interface, we give the manufacturer the ability to set up, program, and control the entire application cycle through the cobot’s teach pendant. Combine this with the positioning flexibility and the additional degrees of freedom found in Universal Robots’ cobots, compared to traditional cartesian robots, and you have a very powerful solution.”

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12 PERSPECTIVES AW MARCH 2021

Developing a Sustainability Program Focus

By David Greenfield

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

T

oward the end of 2020, Automation World conducted a study of sustainability initiatives across industry to gauge the status of such efforts since we last conducted the study in 2016. One of the key findings of this project was that little had changed in the four years between the two studies.

As noted in the “Industrial Sustainability Focuses on Energy Management” feature article based on the research findings (awgo.to/ sustainability): In 2016, 59.3% of respondents said their companies have a sustainability program in effect. In 2020, 58.8% also answered yes. These responses are within the range of statistical error, meaning that the level of sustainability programs appears to have remained static since 2016.

During an interview for this article with Vikram Mankar, principal digital product manager for GE Digital, he agreed that the roughly

60% level of sustainability programs indicated by our survey response is a good approximation for the manufacturing industries as a whole.

“We are seeing different levels of maturity and awareness around production-related sustainability across the different manufacturing verticals,” he said. “Consumer-oriented industries, like food and beverage and consumer packaged goods, are further ahead in sustainability programs, as compared to non-consumer and heavy-industry verticals.”

Given the relative stasis of industrial sustainability projects over the last few years, we connected with Subrat Tripathy, chief business officer at L&T Technology Services Ltd., to find out how the company views the current state of industrial sustainability. L&T Technology Services is an engineering services company that address multiple areas, from mechanical design and security to cloud-

based product lifecycle management and asset management.

“A great example of industrial responsibility is the global power management giant, Eaton.

They have already resolved to go carbon neutral by 2030, for which they are investing $3 billion over the next decade,” said Tripathy. “In this quest, their carbon emissions from operations have reduced by 50% and by 15% from the value chain since 2018. Microsoft has taken it a step further by declaring their intent to not only go carbon negative by 2030, but also remove all atmospheric carbon the company has ever produced by 2050.”

Tripathy also highlighted sustainability initiatives at several other industrial companies, with a focus on suppliers of automation technologies and related industry services:

• Rockwell

Automation has declared its commitment to a carbon-neutral future through accelerating smart, safe, and sustainable manufacturing.

• Halliburton has announced science-based targets to reduce its emissions.

• ABB has announced various initiatives in the areas of e-mobility, electrification, and automation innovation, emphasizing its commitment towards a sustainable future.

• Total is set to use Honeywell UOP Technolo-

Worker inspecting recycled plastic in a plastics factory.

Source: Getty Images

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PERSPECTIVES 13 AW MARCH 2021

gy to produce renewable jet fuel and diesel at its zero-crude platform in France.

• Baker Hughes is set to acquire Compact Carbon Capture to help advance industrial decarbonization.

• Schneider Electric has collaborated with various partners and launched several green initiatives such as Carbon Neutrality and Co-Development of Energy-Efficient Solutions with STMicroelectronics and a decarbonization program with Station A. • Stanley Black & Decker is working on sustainable IoT connectivity with Ericsson and T-Mobile.

• Applied Materials has committed to 100% renewable energy sourcing worldwide.

• Emerson has announced its plans to modernize a TVA power plant for reliable clean energy and the Salto Grande hydroelectric power complex to ensure renewable energy supply in Latin America.

• Thermal Energy Partners and Schlumberger New Energy have entered into an agreement to create GeoFrame Energy, a geothermal project development company.

Another example announced recently involved Aspen Technology’s decision to join the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. According to AspenTech, the company will “work with fellow members to support innovation to build a more sustainable global plastic value chain. From industrial design to driving greater efficiency in operations, AspenTech solutions help producers reduce waste and emissions from plastic production and accelerate innovation to develop recycling plants and other new solutions for the circular economy.”

While taking note of the sustainability initiatives at large companies is inspiring and can help drive small to mediumsized manufacturers to move forward with their own initiatives, the problem for many smaller companies is knowing where to focus.

In the “Industrial Sustainability Focuses on Energy Management” feature article, GE Digital’s Mankar noted: “One of the biggest mistakes we have seen customers make is to start a sustainability initiative as part of a department initiative, typically environmental health and safety, which

2103_Perspectives.indd 13

is separate from production. Often this ends up being disconnected from the actual production metrics and gets measured purely based on monthly utility savings.

Then, when you just look at sustainability success as savings in utility bills, it does not seem like you have achieved much value for the effort you had to put in.”

To help ensure sustainability efforts have more tangible results, Tripathy suggested focusing on the following five areas: Smart Products. “Embedding sensors and controls in products and solutions leads to major benefits, including enhanced customer experience,” noted Tripathy. “But at the same time, these smart products also serve a bigger cause of providing data insights to the manufacturer, thereby reducing the effort spent on incremental upgrades to the products,” he said. “It also leads to greater control and cost reduction.”

Renewable Energy. “Renewable energy and energy storage solutions are shaping the future of industries,” said Tripathy.

“Greenfield and brownfield renewable plants can play a huge role in improving the sustainability quotient and has obvious benefits such as energy yield optimization and plant efficiency improvement.”

Electrification. After renewables, smart grids are the biggest contributors to the carbon neutral goal, according to Tripathy.

“They contribute to reduced carbon emissions through improved uptime, transformer health monitoring, data analytics, and real time insight into utility operations leading to improved demand forecasting and utilization of assets,” he said.

Strategic Sourcing. “There is a huge potential for carbon reduction in supply chain management and especially in the area of strategic sourcing and can lead to ~15% reduction of logistic costs associated with imports,” he said.

Additive Manufacturing. Tripathy noted that additive manufacturing “thrives on its versatility, reduced energy consumption, and minimal waste generation.

Subtractive processes, such as molding and forming, are prone to waste creation and also leave precious little that can be recycled or reused, whereas additive manufacturing uses only that amount of material required for production. This reduces waste and carbon footprint.”

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14 PERSPECTIVES AW MARCH 2021

Can Artificial Intelligence E plain Itsel

By David Greenfield

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

T

hough the use of artificial intelligence (AI) is increasing across the industrial automation spectrum, many in industry are still unclear about its application and benefits. This is not surprising considering that AI applications are not something most end users will ever knowingly directly interface with.

AI tends to work behind the scenes, processing inputs and actions to streamline the functions of the systems that employ it.

Even though you may not need to learn how to interact with AI, having a basic understanding of how it works will likely be as important as understanding how to setup a WiFi network in your home. We’ve all learned so much about Wi-Fi networks because of how much we depend on them. The same will likely be said of AI in the near future.

A few months ago, Automation World connected with Anatoli Gorchet, co-founder and chief technology officer at Neurala (a supplier of AI vision software), to better understand how artificial intelligence (AI) works in industrial inspection processes using machine vision. Following the publication of Gorchet’s insights, we learned about another AI term we were not familiar with—explainability.

This term refers to explainable AI, a set of techniques (including software code and a user interface) that creates a human-readable path from a given piece of data to a specific decision. “In essence, these techniques bottle that intuitive understanding that an AI PhD student develops, into an intelligible, replicable process that can be delivered to the end user,” said Max Versace, Neurala’s CEO and co-founder.

According to Versace, explainability is “critical for debugging. No matter how explainable AI turns out to be, nobody will ever deploy a solution that makes tons of mistakes.

You need to be able to see when AI fails and why it fails. And explainable AI techniques can help you determine whether the AI is focusing on the wrong things.”

As an example, Versace said to consider a deep learning network deployed on industrial cameras to provide quality assurance in a manufacturing setting. “This AI could be fooled into classifying some products as nor-

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mal when, in fact, they are defective. Without knowing which part of the image the AI system is relying on to decide ‘good product’ vs. ‘bad product,’ a machine operator might unintentionally bias the system,” he said. “If they consistently show the ‘good product’ on a red background and the ‘bad product’ on a yellow one, the AI will classify anything on a yellow background as a ‘bad product.’ However, an explainable AI system would immediately communicate to the operator that it is using the yellow background as the feature most indicative of a defect. The operator could use this intel to adjust the settings so both objects appear on a similar background. This results in better AI and prevention of a possibly disastrous AI deployment.”

Beyond this kind of application, explain-

ability also enables accountability and auditability, said Versace. It can help answer who designed the system as well as how it was built and trained.

“At the end of the day, humans are offloading key decisions to AI,” said Versace. “And when it comes to assessing trust, they take an approach similar to that of assessing whether or not to trust a human co-worker. Humans develop trust in their co-workers when at least two conditions are satisfied: their performance is fantastic and they can articulate in an intelligible way how they obtained that outcome. For AI, the same combination of precision and intelligibility will pave the way for wider adoption.”

Explainability improves quality control in manufacturing by identifying and highlighting the exact spot where an inconsistency or anomaly in vision inspection datasets occur. Source: Neurala

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2/16/21 2/25/21 10:50 9:54 AM AM

16 PERSPECTIVES AW MARCH 2021

OEM Redesigns Equipment to Incorporate lanar oating Movers

By David Greenfield

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

I

first saw the XPlanar system from Beckhoff on display a few years ago at the Smart Production Systems event in Nuremberg, Germany, not long after it had been introduced for use in Europe. The system was not yet available in the U.S., but that changed this past fall when XPlanar made its U.S. debut at the PACK EXPO Connects event. (See a video report on XPlanar’s introduction at awgo.to/1144.)

As interesting as I found the technology after first seeing it in Nuremberg, the real test of any new technology is in its application. Though a number of companies have been using the technology since its introduction in Europe, we are now able to report on Plasmatreat’s use of XPlanar to transport workpieces in the company’s plasma pretreatment processes.

Plasmatreat is a global company based in Steinhagen, Germany, that manufactures plasma systems for high-efficiency surface treatment and environmentally friendly production processes.

If you’re unfamiliar with plasma pretreating, Plasmatreat explains it as a key technology for microfine cleaning, surface activation, and plasma coating of numerous kinds of materials—from plastics, metals, and glass to cardboard, textiles, and composites. Common applications of plasma pretreating include: in the automotive industry for headlights and other interior and exterior parts; in electronics for printed circuit boards and smartphones; in packaging for board, paper, glass, and metal materials; in consumer goods for appliances, furniture, and sporting goods; and in life sciences for disinfection and surface treatment.

The company’s plasma treatment units can surface-treat a variety of material samples in a two-stage process, explained Jochen Stichling, head of design at Plasmatreat. “During the first stage, the substrate is moved under a nozzle for cleaning and activation. During the second stage, a separate nozzle applies a functional coating.”

It’s in these stages where Plasmatreat is using XPlanar in one of its new plasma treatment machines. In this new machine, XPlanar re-

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XPlanar eliminates the need to move the plasma jet; instead, a floating planar mover carries the workpiece into position for precise surface treatment. Source: Plasmatreat places prior systems used to move workpieces and eliminates the need for six-axis robots and linear motors.

“We wanted a fast, fully programmable, wear-free system to transport the workpieces,” said Stichling. “And when it came to custom-programming of tracks and travel, there was no real alternative to XPlanar.”

XPlanar explained

According to Jeff Johnson, U.S. Mechatronics Product Manager at Beckhoff, the XPlanar system consists of planar tiles that can be arranged in any pattern, combined with contactless movers that float over them and provide fast, flexible, and precise positioning. The movers op-

erate jerk-free and are capable of traveling at speeds of up to 2 m/s, accelerating at 2 g, and being positioned with a repeatability of 50 µm.

Johnson explained that Xplanar is capable of doing this “silently and without wear or abrasion. The system not only supports movement within the x-y space, but it also provides additional functions to allow mover positioning with up to six degrees of freedom to raise and lower tiles up to 5 mm (when unloaded), with weighing capabilities available as an option; tilt up to 5° when transporting and handling liquids; and rotate 360°.”

The XPlanar system in the Plasmatreat machine consists of six 240x240mm planar tiles and a single planar mover.

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Pretreatment redesign

Johnson noted that it took less than two months to integrate the XPlanar system into Plasmatreat’s machine because Beckhoff was able to quickly supply the 3D data and the electrical connection information, enabling Plasmatreat to incorporate the XPlanar starter kit into its machine design.

Stichling added that the incorporation of the XPlanar technology from Beckhoff—a company known for its use of PC-based control—means that Plasmatreat’s entire plasma treatment cell in this new machine has now been “fully automated using PC-based control.” Stichling said this makes it “a complete system solution from a single source.”

Implementing XPlanar in its pretreating system allowed Plasmatreat to eliminate the need for plasma jets to be moved over the material to be treated. Because these jets are mechanically and electrically complex, the ability to move the workpieces with XPlanar, rather than moving the plasma jets themselves, reduces wear to the jets’ feed lines.

Another benefit, according to Stichling, is

that “a variety of material samples can be attached to the mover for treatment using simple adapters. We can easily add processing stations alongside the plasma jets—markers for good parts, for instance, or optical sensing heads to conduct full part inspections—and carry workpieces to them flexibly as needed. And XPlanar’s rapid acceleration also lets us move material samples at high speeds. With thin samples, for instance, this helps minimize treatment time with the fixed jet.”

Explaining the difference in plasma pretreating before and after XPlanar, Stichling said, “Conventional [plasma pretreatment] setups use a six-axis robot or linear motors to move a plasma jet around a stationary workpiece. From a cost perspective, XPlanar comes in somewhere between linear-axis and robotic systems. With flat parts that don’t require much vertical travel on the z-axis, [an application] where robotic systems are usually ideal, XPlanar offers an excellent alternative to gantry-type systems. XPlanar’s advantages in terms of lack of wear, easy cleaning, and

Jochen Stichling, head of design at Plasmatreat.

Source: Plasmatreat clean-room compatibility also play out here.”

Considering the success Plasmatreat has had incorporating XPlanar into its equipment so far, Stichling noted that XPlanar “has the potential to optimize plasma surface treatment in two key areas: direct integration of in-line testing for full inspections during the treatment process, and custom-programmable mover travel routes for end customers.”

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18 PERSPECTIVES AW MARCH 2021

Assessing Cloud Computing’s Value

By David Greenfield

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

F

ew people in industry today haven't yet been inundated with information about the use of cloud and edge computing for collecting and analyzing the massive amounts of data generated by industrial equipment. And though cloud computing was the main focus for these applications several years ago, over the past few years, edge computing has garnered an increasing share of the discussion. The reason for this stems largely from edge computing’s advantages of keeping data on site and not having to worry about the bandwidth

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and cost concerns generated by transmitting and storing those massive amounts of equipment data in the cloud.

Despite these benefits, cloud computing will still have a big role to play in industry's future, and not just for the biggest companies. To learn more about this, we connected with Brian Fenn, chief operating officer at Advanceon, a system integration and engineering services company. As captured in an episode of the “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast series, Fenn provided several insights into the benefits

of cloud computing for small and mid-sized manufacturers (awgo.to/1136).

Following are some of the key points discussed in the episode.

Cloud computing realities

When asked about his experience with Avanceon clients’ use of cloud computing, Fenn said that he believes well more than 50% of the company’s clients use cloud computing in some fashion. “Between cloud computing and virtualization, we've seen these [technologies] really take off inside manu-

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facturing IT departments as those technologies become more reliable and part of our everyday life…for smaller manufacturers all the way up to the big guys.”

Fenn explained that most applications of cloud computing among Avanceon’s clients involve using it “as an easy way to gain more visibility into their existing process.”

As an example, Fenn mentioned Avanceon’s work on an Internet of Things project for a chemical manufacturer using low-cost, wireless sensors to collect critical safety and environmental data. The aim of this project was to make this data accessible around their campus and send it to the cloud for analysis.

“We then coupled that [capability] with some notification software, that allowed the manufacturer to reduce physical shift coverage for their rounds at the plant during off hours,” said Fenn. “That system ended up saving them tens of thousands of dollars annually. So, whether it's visualizing near real time production information to improve issue identification and response time, or trending and analyzing key process parameters and equipment effectiveness, the cloud represents a quicker and less capital-intensive path for manufacturers on their operations management journey.”

Remote access

Fenn noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced manufacturers to re-evaluate how their employees work and interact with each other. The use of remote meeting technologies for day-to-day interactions has “helped open the doors and accelerate [industry’s] willingness to use these different [remote connection] technologies,” he said.

“We're seeing a lot more folks [who are now more] comfortable having that kind of connection and being able to work a lot more collaboratively and interactively. And we've seen that not only on the support side, but even on our implementation side as well, where [there can be] safety considerations and we need to ensure we know what's going on in the field with regard to starting and operating different equipment.”

Security

In any discussion of remote access technology and/or cloud computing, security remains a major concern for many manufacturers.

Fenn mentioned that he does see attitudes beginning to change, in that more users see cloud computing applications for their man-

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ufacturing options as being similar to their use of online payment methods.

“As those products matured and became more robust, more and more people began integrating them into their everyday interactions because of the numerous benefits they offered,” Fenn said. “Similarly, suppliers have matured their offerings and approach to security. And more people are familiar with using cloud-based applications for other functions—whether it's for time and expense systems, customer relationship and project management applications, or even the traditional office software like email, word processing, and spreadsheets. And so, as a result, more manufacturers are utilizing these technologies because of the benefits they offer over a local system.”

He added that the cloud has also “greatly lowered barriers to entry for these noncritical solutions by eliminating or reducing hurdles relative to infrastructure, hardware, maintenance, and capital. And it's also lowered switching costs and made it easier to move the solution—and your data as well— from one provider to another. If you're not satisfied with the results, the obvious attraction in the lack of upfront capital costs has encouraged more folks to give these solutions a try, as it's lowered the return needed to justify such an expenditure."

Cloud or edge?

Since there's no way to really discuss cloud computing without also touching on edge computing, we asked Fenn to explain any reasons why a manufacturer would want to use the cloud versus performing these kinds of applications on site with edge computing technologies.

Fenn said that, while cloud and edge computing technologies do function in different ways, using one doesn't preclude you from using the other. “In fact, they can actually complement one another quite effectively between real time data processing and exchange, and historical and feature analysis and perspective,” he said.

The main benefits behind choosing a cloud-based technology are the near infinite storage and computing resources. “But there's also inherent latency and bandwidth constraints that makes speed an issue [with cloud computing],” said Fenn. “So, while the cloud is well suited for housing, analyzing, and presenting data and information, the edge is in many ways the opposite.”

He explained this means that, while edge computing has limited storage and computing resources, “it's also able to quickly process commands and interface at the device level. So it's good for gathering communicating data as well as control,” he said.

Fenn also noted that “some solutions can use both paradigms in concert. For instance, you might have an edge device that's gathering data and doing some real time calculations around process key performance indicators and sending all that information up to the cloud. That data is then stored and analyzed serving as the basis for different reports and displays. At the same time, you could have manual or algorithmgenerated control schemes or parameters pushed down to the edge.

Bottom-line benefits

When asked to explain the main benefits to cloud computing—specifically for the bulk of manufacturers who are not large global operations—Fenn said: “Cloud computing really excites me because it democratizes these kinds of non-critical applications. As a result, there are more and more opportunities for small and mid-sized manufacturers to take advantage of better insight into their manufacturing operations and start to unlock efficiency and quality constraints that have remained largely invisible to date [because of] the limited tools and manpower those organizations could commit to those types of initiatives.”

He explains further that, where earlier data analysis models required large upfront investment in hardware and customization, cloud computing makes it easy to quickly set up a proof of concept regarding a specific problem. This allows for a quick return on investment in such an area to then justify a piecemeal expansion that “not only continues to provide value, but also introduces these insights and subsequent modifications at a cadence that's more successful from a change management and human element perspective,” Fenn said.

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20 NEWS

AW MARCH 2021

The Logistics of Supply Chain Visibility

By Stephanie Neil

Senior Editor, Automation World

T

he pandemic has put pressure on manufacturers to pivot production in order to accommodate new product needs. Those new product needs require additional raw materials, added components or controls for machinery, and are under more pressure to deliver to end-users as e-commerce surges. To make matters more difficult, all of this is taking place amid closed borders, trade wars, and a disconnected multimodal transportation system.

COVID-19 has hit the supply chain very hard when it comes to logistics, which has created the need for more visibility and data sharing for everything in-transit. This big picture problem is why the recent announcement from Boston-based Tive to deliver an open network for connecting shippers, logistics service providers (LSPs), brokers, and customers is so important.

Tive, a provider of multi-sensor trackers and software for real-time location tracking, condition alerts, and analysis, launched the Open Visibility Network, which reportedly breaks down the silos between supply chain

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visibility providers to enable the collection and sharing of shipment data across platforms. To work across multimodal transportation networks, there must be an ecosystem of players, and the first partner in the Open Visibility Network program is project44, a provider of supply chain visibility technology for shippers and logistics service providers.

The goal is to create an open, collaborative platform that combines insights and data among supply chain participants. “Today, project44 has a ton of data. And we have a ton of data produced from trackers,” said Krenar Komoni, Tive’s founder and CEO. “We are putting technology providers like Tive and project44 together to provide better data. We want to benefit customers [by giving them] full visibility.”

For example, Kodis, a fourth-party logistics (4PL) company provides a nationwide network of warehouses, including the data analytics to help businesses improve productivity and control supply chain costs. Kodis and project44 work together, combining data and insights from the transportation management system that Kodis uses with project44 telematic data. Now, leveraging the Open Visibility Network, Kodis users gain additional

in-transit visibility to Tive data from shipment trackers at the load level, which is not specific to carriers.

“In the past this has been a fragmented space with everyone focused on their own [platform],” said Vernon O’Donnell, chief product officer of project44. “We are trying to standardize and remove information asymmetry, [to] create parallel ecosystems.”

While the Open Visibility Network is about connecting what’s happening to materials, ingredients, medicine, and products in-transit, this is just the beginning, Komoni said. The goal is to achieve 100% visibility across all modes of transportation, across all geographies, and across all types of carriers. “We are just getting started.

First, we need to make sure things are going from point A to point B with open collaboration, and then we’ll go inside the four walls,” he said, noting the future need to integrate with enterprise reources planning and supply chain management software, as well as warehouse management systems.

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22 NEWS

AW MARCH 2021

Increased Adoption, Acquisitions, and Partnerships Mark 3D Printing’s Advance

By David Miller

Senior Technical Writer, Automation World

3D

printing, or additive manufacturing (AM), has been gaining traction in industry for some time now, particularly as it has moved beyond prototyping and into actual production applications.

For instance, many manufacturers have begun using AM to rapidly 3D print spare and replacement parts for onsite equipment to speed repairs, cut costs, reduce unplanned downtime, and save valuable warehouse space by avoiding the need to stock parts in advance. In the automotive and aerospace industries, its chief benefit has been in producing innovative and lightweight components that cannot be achieved via traditional manufacturing techniques—a development that has been a boon as vehicle manufacturers strive to increase fuel economy without compromising the safety or structural integrity of their automobiles and aircrafts.

Perhaps more pertinently, AM has been a vital ingredient in many COVID-19 relief efforts, as manufacturers have raced to produce respirators, face masks, and other personal protective equipment (PPE) at unprecedented speeds.

For example, in March 2020, automotive manufacturer Ford teamed up with 3M and GE healthcare to expand their output of PPE, using 3D printing to both rapidly generate respirator designs using components they had on-hand amid supply chain breakdowns as well as to scale production of simpler goods such as face shields.

Growing adoption

This uptick in the deployment of AM technologies during the pandemic is highlighted in a recent research report from Essentium, a provider of industrial AM services. The study found that during the COVID-19 pandemic, 57% of manufacturers increased their use of 3D printing for production parts to keep their supply chains flowing. Similarly, AM investment plans have changed substantially at many major companies, with 24% of respondents indicating they plant to go “allin,” while another 25% intend to ramp up their

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use of AM to fill supply chain gaps. Overall, the report indicated that AM use has more than doubled in the past year for 70% of the manufacturing companies surveyed.

“The results of this survey show we’re at the beginning of radical change,” said Blake Teipel, CEO and co-founder at Essentium.

“Additive is ready for prime time, and manufacturers are using it to save manufacturing costs while building stronger supply chains that can withstand the worst type of unforeseen events—such as the pandemic.”

Mergers and acquisitions

In addition to the rising adoption rates observed by Essentium, mergers and acquisitions in the AM space signal excitement among some suppliers of AM products and services for further growth to come.

The recently formalized acquisition and merger of Betatype with Oxmet Technologies, which began at the end of 2019, is a prime example. The new corporate entity, called Alloyed, plans to bring together the expertise in advanced process controls and performance previously provided by BetaType with the knowledge of physical metal AM production capabilities specialized in by Oxmet. The company is focused on multi-scale materials and multi-physics modeling, prediction and analysis of thermomechanical fatigue and failure, and the optimization of complex AM processes.

Software partnerships

The software element involved in AM’s growing success cannot be neglected either. Better CAD modeling has improved the ability of end-users to reverse engineer parts, and digital simulations have been invaluable in improving the accuracy and repeatability of various 3D printing applications. Also, cloud computing has allowed databases of parts and components to be digitally stored and shared across space.

Siemens in particular has been a trailblazer in this space, with its previously released AM Path Optimizer and NX CAD convergent modeling software. These software products have seen high growth, not only keeping pace with the 25% annual AM market growth forecasts, but exceeding it over the past three years, according to Siemens.

Following on the success the company has seen here, Siemens recently announced that it plans to partner with Sintavia, Morf3d, and Evolve Additive Solutions to expand its digital portfolio.

Sintavia, a metal additive manufacturer, will work with Siemens to connect all phases of the AM process in an end-to-end manner for optimal efficiency. By driving operations through Siemens software, Sintavia hopes to be able to deliver AM parts more quickly and cost effectively.

Morf3d, an additive engineering service provider, has signed an agreement with Sie-

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NEWS 23

AW MARCH 2021 mens to leverage its AM software to accelerate the delivery of metal-based products across a range of industries. The company has expertise ranging from design optimization for prototyping and AM part qualification to industrial-scale production.

AM machine developer Evolve Additive Solutions, whose technology applies polymers onto rollers to enable high-speed, high-accuracy, and high-volume thermoplastics molding, will equip its machines with Siemens’ AM software to optimize build preparation. This will include part slicing and nesting, global production planning, scheduling, and execution.

Remaining challenges

Although AM is seeing increased use across industry, some challenges remain. For instance, material costs for 3D printing remain high, and issues with quality assurance, low reproducibility, and the need for expensive post-processing steps abound. In addition, a high degree of expertise is necessary to operate 3D printers themselves, with proper material selection and process-

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five years, 37% noted that further material ing vital to ensuring that the parts printed can innovations will be critical to overcoming properly withstand the stresses they will be obstacles facing 3D printing, while 24% subjected to. Currently, with few standards felt that unreliable materials were their in place, AM is still more suited to batches of biggest barrier. one than the machine-to-machine variability larger scale production would entail.

However, industry continues to move toward solving these issues. America Makes, a national accelerator for AM managed and operated by the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining is currently engaged in standard-setting and alignment efforts.

Essentium’s survey also highlights these concerns. Even as 84% of respondents felt Morf3D and Siemens are working together that companies investto accelerate the adoption of metal additive ing in AM will have a manufacturing for disruptive innovations clear competitive advantage in the next such as this light weight bracket.

2/25/21 8:55 AM

24 NEWS

AW MARCH 2021

Device-to-Cloud Communications Bypass the Purdue Model

By David Miller

Senior Technical Writer, Automation World

D

uring a recent Endress+Hauser digital press event, the company focused on its cloud-based Netillion industrial internet of things (IIoT) ecosystem. A key point of this press conference was to address industry’s continuing caution about moving operations data to the cloud as part of an IIoT initiative.

Endress+Hauser’s managing director Rolf Birkhofer stressed that industry’s transition to the cloud will ultimately offer users far more benefits than disadvantages.

A key aspect of this assertion is that cloud

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ecosystems require less installation effort due to their centralized nature, Birkhofer said. Plus, these ecosystems offer users continuous real-time access and an evergrowing array of applications powered by big data.

The Netillion ecosystem

Endress+Hauser’s Netillion is a digital ecosystem that enables field instrumentation to be integrated into a cloud-based service platform to boost efficiency, ease asset management, and perform predictive maintenance. Since 2018, all Endress+Hauser field devices and sensors have been made compatible with Netillion.

Birkhofer noted that the platform works

with devices from other manufacturers as well, though universal compatibility cannot be guaranteed.

Direct connection of field devices to the cloud, such as with Netillion, is gaining traction as more technology suppliers offer new devices and platforms.

The broad level of connectivity fostered

by Netillion requires field devices, such as sensors, to contain some level of onboard computing power to collect and transmit the continuous time-series data that feeds Netillion’s analytic capabilities.

Endress+Hauser also provides an assortment of edge devices to enable the twochannel communication that powers Netillion’s analytics. These devices include the

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PMMI NEWS 25 AW MARCH 2021

company’s Field Xpert, Fieldgate, and Fieldedge. By allowing dedicated sensors to connect directly to the internet and send data to the cloud without first passing through the various layers of the hierarchical Purdue model, Endress+Hauser says potential latency issues caused by excessive bandwidth consumption can be avoided.

Once data is collected and processed by Netillion, users can download diagnostic information to their smartphone or tablet to monitor values, reconfigure threshold limits, or engage in predictive maintenance.

An application programming interface eases the processes of integrating the Netillion database with applications from other vendors.

And while the complexity of the Netillion ecosystem may seem daunting to some, use case examples provided

by Endress+Hauser help make its value proposition significantly more clear. For instance, Endress+Hauser’s Micropilot FWR30 wireless radar-level sensor can reportedly be installed inside an intermediate bulk container used for the safe transportation and storage of fluids in ten minutes or less. From there, it can continuously and instantaneously transmit level readings to the cloud for access via the Netillion application from any location.

German steel manufacturer Salzgitter Flachstahl was the first company to adopt Netillion. Its adoption of the technology featured prominently in the press conference. Salzgitter Flachstahl reports significant productivity gains since integrating its operations into the platform. At present, the company has connected all of its field devices to the cloud and is identifying the data necessary to begin engaging in predictive maintenance.

Because the data accumulated from Salzhitter Flachstahl’s operation will be used to train Netillion’s algorithms, subsequent adopters of the platform will be able to benefit from the company’s experience.

Cybersecurity concerns

To address industry’s security concerns about sending production data to the cloud, Birkhofer explained that the two-channel system used by Endress+Hauser’s edge gateways effectively address this issue. He said the gateways only “listen in” to channel the data through a firewall and proxy server, meaning that the devices themselves are not directly connected to the internet.

In essence, field-to-cloud connectivity via the company’s gateways are a one-way street—data goes out, but no data can be sent back into the devices.

Birkhofer added that EuroCloud, a vendor-neutral digital competence organization, is in the process of granting Netillion an ISO/IEC 27001 information security management certification. This soon-to-beawarded certification for Netillion requires the platform to undergo a rigorous audit, Birkhofer said.

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Maximize Machinery with MaaS

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

W

hile predictive maintenance has existed as a buzz word in recent years, PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, recognized the need for an industrywide definition and recently released an in-depth 2021 Predictive Maintenance White Paper (awgo.to/1153). It defines predictive maintenance as monitoring a machine or machine component to determine when it is likely to fail and to take action to stop it, thus avoiding unplanned downtime.

In the broadest sense, there are two categories of technology that must be implemented to create a predictive maintenance solution.

One of these is the hardware. Increasingly, the key category of hardware in any predictive maintenance solution consists of smart sensors.

These sensors are constantly growing in capability, and will increasingly include advanced processing capacity.

The key pre-requisite to deciding where to deploy smart sensors for predictive maintenance within specific machines is understanding which data is useful. OEMs and integrators believe that run-time, current/voltage draw and speed are the three most useful data types for performing predictive maintenance. However, run-time for predictive maintenance assumes that equipment is most likely to fail in the latter part of its life, which is often not the case.

Gathering data is the easy part. The second key technology for predictive maintenance is software and analytics to understand the data. Since most machine builders don’t possess the ability to write this software in-house, this stage usually requires a predictive maintenance specialist.

The benefits to predictive maintenance are pretty obvious: reduced downtime and increased machine lifetime. So why isn’t everybody doing it? If taken to its full potential predictive maintenance could radically extend the average lifetime of a machine. This will mean new business models are essential for OEMs to maintain revenue streams.

The most promising business model candidate so far is Machines as a Service (MaaS). Essentially, it involves pricing based on performance goals set between the OEM and the end user (such as the number of items processed). If there is one hindrance to stop the widespread adoption of an MaaS business model for predictive maintenance, it is the aversion that many companies have to allowing remote access.

MaaS requires the continued growing acceptance of remote access, which has increased in use during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Companies have learned that remote connectivity is usually no less secure than on-site connectivity. Remote connections and cloud storage are not as insecure as is usually assumed with expert third-party providers such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services. These are companies that have huge teams of cybersecurity experts dedicated to protecting their customers.

For more information on MaaS and the key barriers to its acceptance, download the full white paper at pmmi.org.

2/25/21 8:57 AM

26 RESHORING MANUFACTURERS AW MARCH 2021

COVID-19-related supply chain disruptions have prompted manufacturers to consider bringing operations back to the U.S. But successful reshoring depends on disruptive technology.

By Stephanie Neil, Senior Editor, Automation World

I

n January, President Joe Biden ordered government agencies to take action and require the wearing of masks in airports, on commercial aircraft, ferries, and all public transportation, while encouraging “masking across America.” And, if we are going to be buying more face masks, why not purchase other products that are also “made in America?”

When the pandemic reached the U.S. early last year, about half of the world’s disposable masks were produced overseas in China. And as COVID-19 became a global healthcare crisis, face masks became essential and countries imposed restrictions on exports, which increased the worldwide shortages of masks and raw materials, according to the U.S. National Institute of Health’s National Library of Medicine.

“All it took was stopping the supply of disposable masks produced overseas from coming to the U.S. for us to be critically impacted,” said Raphael Kryszek, founder and CEO of Intrepid Protect, a manufacturing start-up focused on producing face coverings made at a new state-of-the-art facility in Los Angeles, Calif. It was the PPE shortage, a dependence on foreign sourcing of goods, and a lack of quality-control standards that prompted Kryszek to make manufacturing in America a viable option. It is also his way to create jobs and help bolster the U.S. economy.

And Kryszek is not alone when it comes to setting up shop stateside. According to a recent Thomas Industrial Survey assessing the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 on North American manufacturing, there is heightened interest in reshoring and hiring—mainly as a result of rethinking supply chains.

Of the 746 manufacturing companies surveyed in May and June of 2020, 69% are looking to bring production back to North America, 38% are actively hiring, and 55% said they are likely to invest in automation, specifically as it pertains to production performance, process control, and product testing and quality. “With the growing appetite for reshoring and onshoring, respondents shared the

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top products they are looking to source domestically: metals (15%), machining tools and parts (13%), fabricated materials (13%), and PPE (12%),” the Thomas report states.

“Clearly, the pandemic has been an accelerant to reshoring, as well as nearshoring,” noted Paul Wellener, a vice chairman at Deloitte LLP, and the leader of the company’s U.S. industrial products and construction practice.

“Nearshoring is getting into your time zone, like utilizing manufacturing in central or south America if you are in the U.S., and reshoring is bringing production back into your country. But as things come back to the U.S., it is not coming back in the same way as it’s being done in another part of the world. There is technology being added to help continue to drive the cost targets, quality targets, and safety targets that manufacturers have.”

According to Wellener, automation and robotics play a significant role as a way to offset labor costs, but machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, 3D printing, and supply chain management (SCM) are also aiding in the effort to reshore manufacturing.

Intrepid Protect, for example, uses servo motors and absolute and relative encoders on the assembly line and relies heavily on AI and machine learning to ensure quality control and predictive maintenance to optimize operations and accelerate the delivery of mask inventory at the lowest cost. “There are a lot of moving parts on the assembly line, and they fail due to wear and tear. But we’ve seen huge improvements due to AI and predictive maintenance cycles, which has increased productivity, efficiency, and reduces pricing due to our ability to minimize waste and minimize faulty products,” said Kryszek. “We didn’t reinvent the production of three-ply masks, what we did was streamline and automate it by adding technology to improve different parts of the assembly line.”

The high price of production

In recent history, the U.S. has had an $800 billion/year trade deficit. The U.S. has been dependent on imports primarily because the cost to manufacture here is

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Bright Machines’ Microfactory uses computer vision, machine learning, cloud computing, and robotics to get products to market faster.

just too high. According to Harry Moser, founder and president of the Reshoring Initiative, his data shows that U.S. manufacturing costs are often 20% higher than European manufacturing and 40% higher than China and other low labor cost countries, which makes offshore manufacturing more appealing from a cost-competitive standpoint. And the price is too high mainly because the dollar is too high, he said.

In addition, in the U.S. there aren’t enough engineers and the country lacks the quantity and quality of skilled manufacturing trades people relative to the opportunities, hindering productivity growth that could overcome the impact of the U.S. dollar, Moser said. Plus, the U.S. has too many regulations, high corporate tax rates—which until 2017 were 35% when most of the world was around 22%—and there are no value-added taxes (VAT) here, whereas other countries apply it. “These are important things that we concentrate on, and reversing those over 10-to-20 years would balance the trade deficit and get us out of the problem we’re in,” Moser said. “We call it leveling the playing field, and if you do that then it is a lot easier to get companies to decide to bring work back.”

With that said, Moser agrees that the latest interest in reshoring is driven significantly by COVID-19. “From March 2020

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through the end of the year, about 60% of reshoring cases mentioned COVID-19 as one of the factors causing them to reshore.

Some of those cases involved COVIDrelated products, like masks, gowns, and ventilators, and others were related to the company recognizing that whatever it makes, it is too dependent on China or offshore sources, and COVID-19 has educated it to not be so dependent.”

In addition, from a longer term perspective, growth and productivity is the only way to raise living standards. The average U.S. manufacturing growth rate for the last ten years is 0.4%, Moser said. So the lack of applying automation due to concerns that robots will take jobs, for example, has not helped U.S. productivity. In contrast, China’s productivity is growing at 6% per year.

“If we don’t invest in automation, we don’t increase our competitiveness,” Moser said. “Some people are afraid of automation because they’ll lose their jobs.

But, throw away that statement, because the U.S. will lose more jobs to Chinese automation if we don’t automate than we will to U.S. automation if we do. Since we are competing, you have to automate the best you can just to stay even.”

But automation, too, must change to help manufacturers compete. Moser points

to Bright Machines, a San Francisco-based manufacturing technology startup that is transforming this space with its modular system for electromechanical product assembly.

The future is bright

The Bright Machines’ Microfactory for assembly, testing, and inspection, is designed to get products to market faster by leveraging intelligent software and adaptive hardware, using computer vision, machine learning, cloud computing, and robotics.

The platform is focused on hardware standardization and common interfaces that map to a common data model. On top of that, there is a set of algorithms and microservices combined via an API gateway for a common set of apps that take the manufacturer through all stages of automation, such as line planning, configuration of robotic cells, deployment, and service and support. Key to this is an AI-powered software layer that configures, monitors, and manages machines and operations.

“We are automating automation,” said Bright Machines’ chief product officer Abhishek Pani. To that end, Bright Machines will work across a variety of controllers and different components through an abstraction layer that makes it PLC agnostic. “There are a bunch of things happening through different

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vendors, but it is how we bring it together in one common interface and one common workflow and a common software tool.”

To understand how the Bright Machine Microfactory works, and the speed at which this all comes together, look at Argonaut Manufacturing Services, a U.S.based contract manufacturer for the biopharmaceutical, diagnostics, and life sciences industries. With a focus on molecular diagnostics and parenteral drug products, the company currently has many active programs in the COVID-19 area, partnering with companies on the manufacturing and supply chain side.

For example, the company produces kits for COVID-19 testing and collecting of the swabs and the liquid that preserves the sample to be tested. The company does both filling and packaging of materials, which can involve different chemicals in different tubes that make up a kit. “We work with Bright Machines as an enabler to significantly automate the process to increase our scalability in the areas of filling and finalizing these kits,” said Eric Blair, chief commercial officer at Argonaut. The benefit is the modularization that fits well into the operational budget. “It enables us to take what tends to be a capital-intensive process and turns it into taking the key parts and building it out for specific needs in shorter periods of time.”

This is important for reshoring because there’s a need for innovative diagnostic testing and drug discovery here in the U.S., and to do it quickly and at scale while mitigating supply chain risk. To do that, many companies will look to contract manufacturers, like Argonaut.

Inventory made easy

Another technology that can speed up supply chain operations and on the assembly line is additive manufacturing, otherwise known as 3D printing, which is a way to fabricate an object by sequentially layering material, such as plastics and metals, in successive crosssections. It has been used by manufacturers to make parts while eliminating tooling costs and shortening lead times.

Part of the evolution of additive manufacturing is introducing new materials, like carbon composites, a strong lightweight material. Arris Composites, founded in 2017, is a pioneer of next-gen composites for

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mass market applications, including aerospace, automotive, and consumer products.

The company developed continuous carbon fiber composites that can be combined with other materials in a high-speed process that brings 3D printing together with the traditional high-volume manufacturing method of injection molding.

The Arris Additive Molding technology is capable of manufacturing complex geometries using continuous fiber and it can integrate hardware with advanced electronics.

So, for example, a smartphone enclosure could have the electronics embedded within the structure. In addition, combining additive manufacturing and injection molding creates repeatability for production volume at lower production costs—producing parts that are stronger than titanium at about one-third of the weight.

Skydio, a U.S. drone manufacturer, worked with Arris to redefine airframe designs using the Arris Additive Molding carbon fiber manufacturing technology. It resulted in taking 17 parts in an assembly and consolidating them into one single, multifunctional structure with a 25% weight reduction, better strength and durability, and an improved appearance.

“Industrial design teams at consumer products companies are excited about the cosmetic latitudes we give them to make beautiful products,” said Ethan Escowitz, CEO and founder of Arris. But the beauty of it all goes beyond aesthetics. “The ability to collaborate with customers and take the functional requirements for a single part or an assembly of parts and design something better is the key.”

Skydio is a success story in that the drone company figured out how to innovate from the ground up and manufacture on U.S. soil.

A lesson other companies looking to reshore can learn from. “One of the most important things about reshoring is that it requires rethinking how something is made,” Escowitz said. Sometimes companies just look at a bill of materials to figure out what is made overseas that could be made here. “I think there are more disruptive reshoring opportunities that are more interesting…like taking advantage of new manufacturing technology…looking at the architecture to make a more desirable product, and picking the right location based on the customer supply chain.”

Making it in America

Deloitte’s Wellener notes that what is coming back to the U.S. shores are high-value products—like the Skydio drone, highly engineered items, and components that go into larger subsystems. So there is a balancing act for companies considering what to reshore and how to make investments at the right time.

To that end, the Reshoring Initiative offers a free online tool, the TCO Estimator, that helps companies quantify all offshoring costs and risks. The tool helps account for all relevant factors—overhead, balance sheet, risks, corporate strategy, and other external and internal business considerations—to determine the true total cost of ownership.

Using this information, companies can better evaluate sourcing, identify alternatives, and even make a case when selling against offshore competitors. In addition, the Reshoring Initiative created the Import Substitution Program (ISP) to convince and facilitate importing companies to produce or source more domestically. Customized versions of ISP are available for U.S. manufacturing companies, technology suppliers, trade associations, economic development organizations, and manufacturing extension partnerships.

Moser estimates that consistent use of the program would increase domestic manufacturing by about 10%.

For companies like the Intrepid Protect, the labor costs, capital equipment costs, material costs, and technology costs all factored into the equation when deciding where to build a facility. “It was a challenge,” Kryszek said. But making masks in America was always the goal. “The founding principle of the project was to help the American supply chain and the American labor force.”

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30 ROBOTICS AW MARCH 2021

Last year proved itself a veritable rollercoaster of disruptions and developments, resulting in robotics adoption growing in some areas and shrinking in others, yet still painting a picture of continued growth for robotics ahead.

By David Miller, Senior Technical Writer, Automation World

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proved to be a uniquely tumultuous and challenging year, beset not only by the unprecedented disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic impacts, but the uncertainty that so often accompanies election years as businesses are forced to hold their breath on major decisions until the policy environment they will have to navigate over the next four years becomes more clear. Accordingly, a recent survey on robotics adoption conducted by Automation World shows some industry verticals seeing a huge uptick in robotics due to the need to socially distance, reshore supply chains, and increase throughput, while others saw investment stall as demand for their products cratered and their decision-making process became paralyzed by political and economic uncertainty.

Still, given the turbulent dynamics of the prior year, the general consensus among robotics suppliers—much of which is borne out in our survey data—is that strong growth remains expected in their space and robotic adoption should see continued acceleration in the near future.

Adoption to date

Like collaborative robots (cobots), mobile robots may also see their growth accelerate as many move beyond fixed applications and toward more flexible robotic systems.

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Of the respondents surveyed, 44.9% reported that their assembly and manufacturing facilities currently use robots as an integral part of their operation. More specifically, of those with robots, 34.9% have adopted collaborative robots (cobots), while the remaining 65.1% use only industrial robots.

With a few caveats, robotics suppliers interviewed for this article concur that the results of the survey were consistent with the overall landscape they see. However, they did note that adoption is clearly more advanced in some areas of industry than others.

For instance, automotive manufacturing in particular has seen a high penetration of robotics, having automated long before many other industry verticals. According to Mark Joppru, vice president for consumer segment and service robotics at ABB, this is not only because of the automotive industry’s ability to make high CAPEX investments, but also due to the rigid and standardized nature of automotive manufacturing, which can be accommodated by fixed robotics technologies.

Similarly, packaging has seen automation growth for the same reason, though many of the packaging machines that move products along lines would not qualify as robotics in the eyes of some.

All the same, much use has been made in recent years of robotic arms, sometimes on mobile carts, at the beginning and end of packaging lines, where they perform material handling tasks, such as loading, unloading, and palletizing. It is in these end-of-line applications for which further growth of robotics in packaging is expected to take greater hold.

Meanwhile, smaller job shops and contract manufacturers— whose high-mix, low-volume (HMLV) production environments often require more flexibility—still have a long way to go when it comes to robotics adoption. Joe Campbell, senior manager of applications development at Universal Robots, feels that this is where much of the next wave of adoption is to be found. In fact, Campbell posits that overall adoption figures to date may be even lower than the 44.9% our survey detected, as he feels many of the small

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and medium enterprises (SMEs) his company serves are liable to fly under the radar, remaining essentially invisible to trade associations, industry surveys, and other data.

"There's a large chunk of the market that's really been underserved by the whole automation community, and we continue to uncover every week more and more [SMEs] that have very little automation, if any. They have no robots, and so that's a big growth area going forward," Campbell says. "A lot of surveys that associations and other publishers do might not be touching these people.

They don't go to trade shows, and I don't know how many automation publications they're looking at, but these small companies have growth potential."

The COVID-19 effect

While many have opined that COVID-19 would accelerate robotics adoption, one of the biggest surprises of our survey was that 75.6% of respondents indicated that the pandemic did not drive any purchase of new robots within their facilities. Furthermore, of those who did bring in robots in response to the pandemic, 80% purchased five or less.

These findings do not, of course, mean

that COVID-19 has had a wholly negative effect on robotics adoption, as several suppliers note. Rather, it may imply that the degree to which the pandemic has accelerated robotics is highly variable between different industries and applications. In some cases where manufacturers did purchase new robots throughout 2020 it may have been in response to other factors that were only indirectly tied to COVID-19, such as the need to increase throughput in verticals that saw a surge in demand or quickly meet labor requirements in fields where supply chain disruptions forced reshoring.

For example, Scott Marsic, senior project manager at Epson Robotics, points out that his company has seen strong adoption from medical equipment and device manufacturers facing soaring demand amid the need for personal protective equipment (PPE). Marsic stresses the primary interest in robots from these industries has been focused on increasing throughput rather than using robots to space out production for social distancing purposes. At the same time, the automotive industry—though already wellautomated and a typical source of new robot purchases—has seen demand crater as lock-

downs have reduced transportation demand exponentially. As a result, these companies have put large CAPEX spends on hold.

“I’ve put about 2,000 miles on my car in the past 10 months. I'm not getting oil changes or new tires,” Marsic says. “My demand is down and, if you look at automotive manufacturing, they've followed suit. If the demand is not there for automotive components, they won't invest in more automation. On the other side, if you look at fields where demand has gone up, like medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and even consumer packaging, they're seeing [increased] demand, and that's where the robots are being sold."

The logistics and warehousing spaces have also seen an uptick in robotics adoption for similar reasons, says Melonee Wise, CEO at Fetch Robotics. With more homebound consumers ordering all manner of goods online, demand has spiked.

On the topic of adopting robots for social distancing purposes, the overall response of those surveyed was fairly weak, with only 16.2% of respondents indicating it as a factor driving their decision to purchase new robots. More prominent reasons for robot

Automotive manufacturing is one of the industry verticals where extreme demand drop-off amid the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns has caused robotics adoption to slow, rather than speed up.

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Small job shops and contract manufacturers in the high-mix, lowvolume space may represent the next frontier of growth for robotics with collaborative robots (cobots) in particular proving popular due to their flexibility. purchase included cutting labor costs at 62.2%, increasing capacity at 54.1%, and navigating a lack of available workers at 37.8%.

On a related note, of those who did purchase robots in response to COVID-19, 45% indicated that they purchased cobots, while the remaining 55% opted for industrial robots. As cobots have often been held up as the best robotic solution for social distancing due to their ability to flexibly work alongside humans when attempting to space out a line or work cell, their lower-than-expected adoption rates among those responding to the pandemic may further highlight that concerns related to labor cost and availability, quality, and throughput are greater.

Forecasting future adoption

Looking ahead, the expectations of robotics suppliers are bullish, with many believing that with the elections over and increased availability of COVID-19 vaccines on the horizon, much demand will return in industries where market skittishness has slowed robotic adoption. Meanwhile, those industries already seeing an uptick are expected to plough ahead at an even faster pace.

As a potential caveat to suppliers’ high expectations, our survey results were a bit more modest, with slightly less than a quarter of respondents reporting that they plan to add robots in the next year. Of those respondents, 56.5% plan to purchase cobots and 43.5%

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plan to purchase typical industrial robots.

However, some suppliers suggest that the lower expectations apparent in the survey results might be misleading. For instance, Wise feels that, with installations of traditional fixed robotics systems sometimes taking as long as 9-15 months, many respondents who indicated they do not plan to add more robots in the next year may already have projects underway. In addition, Joppru notes that though only 23% of respondents plan to add robots, some may add a substantial amount, meaning that overall growth for the industry could be significantly higher.

In terms of the factors driving specific robot purchases, 52.8% said ease of use and 52.6% said end-of-arm-tooling options, while only 38.5% were interested in specific collaborative capabilities. This result seems to imply that flexibility, rather than collaborative safety features themselves, may be driving end-users’ growing preference for cobots.

This is most certainly reflected in the HMLV space where manufacturers are dealing with a challenging combination of high labor costs and labor shortages on the one hand, and shorter product lifecycles mandating rapid changeover and an increased degree of production variability on the other.

Doug Burnside, vice president of North American sales and marketing at YaskawaMotoman, notes the paradox of dealing with rapid changeover using a manual workforce is

actually easier, as human beings are, by their nature, adaptable. It’s only when automation is brought in that the process becomes more challenging. However, increasing flexibility enabled by the integration of vision, artificial intelligence, and more diverse and modular tooling options are helping to surmount these challenges.

Elsewhere too, there are some areas where robots may prove themselves useful that haven’t yet begun adoption. According to Joppru, ABB has had preliminary discussions with the oil and gas industry about integrating new types of robots into their field operations, though the realization of these projects may be years off.

“In oil and gas, there’s still a lot of manual processes that happen where three guys grab a pipe, and then they put a chain around it, grab a new pipe, and attach it so that they can drill another 20 feet,” Joppru says. “Could we automate that with some robotic arms that would eliminate a dull, dirty, and dangerous job? That’s one example, and we’ve had discussions with customers about this being a new area of penetration for robots that we just haven’t been able to go after yet.”

With that in mind, even should job shops, contract manufacturers, and SMEs become as robot-laden as the biggest automotive manufacturers, there will still be plenty of room for expansion in the future.

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34 CASE STUDY AW MARCH 2021

OEM Digitally Transforms Its Business for Remote Support BID Group, a sawmill equipment manufacturer, adopts PTC’s ThingWorx IIoT platform and Vuforia augmented reality technologies to reduce customer downtime and eliminate asset component failures.

By Jeanne Schweder, Contributing Writer, Automation World

G

uiding your business through a digital transformation is no walk in the park, as many companies have learned the hard way. The BID Group, a North American supplier of forest products equipment, had tried a do-ityourself approach to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) for several years before managers acknowledged it was time for a reset.

The first technology company BID worked with on its digital transformation was still in the process of building an IIoT platform, leaving BID managers dissatisfied with the lack of progress. So BID chose to restart the process, this time working with PTC. PTC was able to augment the initial development work done for BID by using PTC’s ThingWorx Industrial IIoT Platform. With this addition in place, BID was able to make significant strides in just a few months using IIoT connectivity to improve productivity and profitability for its customers.

Now the company is moving forward with the next stage in its transformation, deploying a number of PTC’s Vuforia augmented reality (AR) products to boost frontline worker efficiency, safety and agility, and improve remote customer assistance and troubleshooting.

“As part of our digital transformation initiatives, we have prioritized the use of IIoT and AR to help create smarter, more connected products and services,” says Chris

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Wells, BID senior vice president of aftermarket service and reliability. “By incorporating PTC’s AR offerings, we expect to unlock new opportunities to service our clients in a more efficient and interactive manner. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it abundantly clear that these technologies are essential to business continuity.”

BID saw a 9.4% increase in call volume for remote support through its 24/7 service center in the 25-weeks ending December 1, 2020, compared to the same period in 2019.

“We attribute this to the COVID-19 situation driving more clients to look for alternate methods of support to the traditional onsite technician. This trend is increasing, and we do not foresee this changing,” adds Wells.

“It’s why we’re implementing new technology-based approaches around remote support, remote monitoring, and remote work instructions that leverage IIoT and AR.” Remote service has been a growing trend among OEMs. With travel restricted by the pandemic and customers wanting to keep visitors out of their plants, many machine builders are beginning to rethink their reliance on field-deployed service teams. “AR is an ideal tool for providing remote assistance,” explains PTC’s Ken Rawlings, vice president, solution management for connected prod-

ucts. “You can digitally mark-up a shared view, identify problems with a component or in a process, and virtually walk a technician stepby-step through the corrective procedure so they can fix it right the first time.”

AR also allows OEMs like BID to capture digital references of equipment or procedures, which can be used for training or by their technicians or a customer’s maintenance team when they’re troubleshooting a problem.

“With an aging workforce, you’re often relying on younger, less experienced workers to identify and fix problems,” says Jon Kadane, PTC’s product marketing director for connected products. “AR provides on-demand access to visualizations of critical information and allows technicians to interact with the system in context, using visual cues to guide them through tasks more proficiently.”

Driven by analytics

As an OEM, BID’s priority since its founding has been to make the highest quality sawmill equipment. But it is unique in that, over the past five years, the company has shifted its business model to providing customers with turnkey sawmills. BID has been involved in 18 installations in less than two years, according to Wells, most of them new facilities and many of them in the southeastern U.S.

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Panoramic view of sawmill line.

By shifting from making sawmill equipment to delivering a complete facility, the company’s focus has invariably widened to optimizing mill performance. Adopting IIoT technologies has been critical to BID’s successful business transformation and its ability to meet customer demand for maximum productivity and profitability.

A sawmill has a very complex manufacturing process, combining a raw material stream of great variability with the multiple steps required to turn a log into lumber. Faced with commodity pricing that varies minute to minute, it’s critical for sawmill owners to achieve optimum productivity if they are to be profitable. New mill owners are now requiring the real-time operational view that IIoT technology can deliver when they place an order with BID. “One of the most valuable features of PTC’s software is that it enables us to properly orchestrate the data our machines generate, so that everyone has a single place to look for real-time information from the manufacturing process,” explains Sefton Jubenvill, BID vice president for digital transformation. “We were able to quickly prove the concept at one of our sites, then use the platform to meet several commercial commitments within two or three months.”

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The ability to deliver quick time-to-value returns for their digital investment is attracting many new customers to BID, whether it’s for a greenfield facility or an existing one that involves multiple suppliers’ equipment. “We’ve seen up to a 30% increase in machine center throughput where our IIoT insights are used to drive operator behavior, as well as up to a 10% increase in factory efficiency when our digital system, which we call OPER8, is implemented across the entire factory floor,” says Wells.

The OPER8 system collects and analyzes data in four key areas: production health, such as key performance indicators and realtime, minute-to-minute changes in operator behaviors; throughput health, which deals with the performance and productivity of equipment and operators; asset health, which monitors leading process indicators such as vibration or temperatures and detects imbalances in a process; and quality health, where improperly functioning equipment could cause product defects.

“We’ve achieved downtime avoidance of up to four hours per incident,” explains Wells, “eliminating targeted and specific asset component failures through the application of asset health real-time condition monitoring and analytics. This is made possible through additional sensors and instrumentation.”

Monetizing data capture

Data capture and contextualization have now become an integral part of BID’s equipment package. As a result, software suppliers like PTC are key to delivering on BID’s promise of performance. “We’ve become an OEM supplier, just like companies that provide pumps or motors,” says Rawlings. “Our IIoT technologies are another sub-component built into the system. By providing an enterprise-wide view and putting streams of data into context, our software is able to provide the right insights to the appropriate person or function. It’s a way for OEMs to monetize data capture and provide a higher level of service.”

Adds Kadane, “ThingWorx tools allow OEMs to configure rather than code, enabling easier integration of equipment and systems for greater scale and impact. And since data is fully contextualized for both machine builder and customer, decisions can be made in real time, rather than at the end of a shift, to better control processes. Being able to visualize operations makes for faster and repeatable troubleshooting, with less downtime and greater throughput.”

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36 CASE STUDY AW MARCH 2021

B

To help produce its custom-configured cars more rapidly, BMW used Nvidia’s Isaac robotics platform to add advanced computing and visualization to its factory logistics robots.

By David Greenfield, Editor-In-Chief/Director of Content, Automation World

uilding cars at BMW involves the handling of millions of parts flowing into a factory from more than 4,500 supplier sites. One factor increasing the factory logistics challenge for the BMW Group is the customizability offered by the company. With an average of 100 different options available, this translates into 99% of customer orders being unique to each customer.

“Ultimately, the sheer volume of possible configurations became a challenge to BMW Group production in three fundamental areas—computing, logistics planning, and data analysis,” said Jürgen Maidl, senior vice president of logistics for the BMW Group.

To better handle logistics within its factories, BMW now uses four types of material handling robots and a smart transport robot. These robots were developed using Nvidia’s Isaac robotics platform.

According to Nvidia, its Isaac software development kit provides these robots with neural networks capable of “addressing perception, segmentation, and human pose estimation to perceive their environment, detect objects, navigate autonomously, and move objects. These robots are trained both on real and synthetic data using Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) to render ray-traced machine parts in a variety of lighting and occlusion conditions to augment real data.”

STR in Isaac Sim with dolly.

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Nvidia Isaac robotics platform working in sync with robot.

Hanns Huber, with BMW Group’s Communications Production Network, explained how the five different types of robots the company outfitted with Nvidia’s technology support factory logistics in production operations.

He said that, after delivery to the plant, parts are transported to the assembly line in containers of various sizes. Stationary SplitBots take full plastic boxes from the pallet in the incoming goods area and place them on a conveyor system that transports the boxes to a warehouse. The SplitBot also makes sure the containers are lined up correctly for automated storage. Using Nvidia’s artificial intelligence (AI), the SplitBot can detect and process up to 450 different containers.

Mobile PlaceBots unload tugger trains and place boxes loaded with goods on a shelf.

These robots use Nvidia’s image recognition system to classify the small load carriers and determine the ideal grip point from the combined input of sensors, cameras, and artificial intelligence. These technologies allow the PlaceBots to move autonomously in a predetermined area.

Another logistics robot, the PickBot has a robotic arm that it uses to collect various small parts from supply racks. Like the SplitBots, the PickBot uses Nvidia’s AI technology to calculate

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the right grip point.

The robotic manipulation arm of the SortBot takes empty boxes and puts them on a palette to be sent back to the supplier area.

These SortBots are deployed in series production to stack empty containers on pallets before they re-enter circulation.

BMW’s autonomous Smart Transport Robots (STRs) can identify obstacles such as forklift trucks, as well as humans, to more accurately and quickly suggest alternative routes as needed. They can also learn from the environment and apply different responses to people and objects.

Huber noted that all of these robots have been developed by BMW in the past five years, with most being deployed and tested in BMW factories since 2019. “The robots are trialed during our development process at various BMW plants in Germany, as well as at our logistics laboratory in Munich,” he explained.

The STR was developed by BMW’s logistics innovation team together with Fraunhofer Institute Dortmund,” Huber added.

BMW’s work with Nvidia on this project began in 2019. “A BMW Group team of engineers worked on implementing the Nvidia technology with the robots,” Huber said. “The complete implementation was done in-house at BMW. Two teams from both sides—BMW

Group and Nvidia—worked closely to customize and adapt a suitable solution. The first STR with Nvidia technology was deployed as a proof-oftechnology in our logistics laboratory in Munich in May 2020.” The first production test was expected to go live by the fourth quarter of 2020 or early 2021.

Nvidia notes that the real and synthetic data generated during the testing of these robots are used to train deep neural networks on Nvidia’s DGX AI infrastructure development systems. The robots are then continuously tested in Nvidia’s Isaac Sim simulators for navigation and manipulation development, operating on Nvidia’s Omniverse platform, where multiple BMW Group personnel in different geographies can all work in one simulated environment.

Huber said that, incorporating Nvidia’s AI technology into BMW’s robots allows BMW to “optimize our robotics and material flow, as well as take simulations in the planning process to a new level.”

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38

AW MARCH 2021 / SPONSORED CONTENT

Understanding Robots and Their Role in IIoT For a half century now, robots have been the centerpiece of Industry 3.0—the age of pre-digital automation.

They will be just as critical, if not more so, as the world transitions to the digital automation age of Industry 4.0.

By Kevin Tardif, business development specialist - electric automation, Festo

T

he image of the large, six-axis articulated robot welding car and truck bodies became fixed in the popular imagination in the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, articulated robots have spread throughout and beyond heavy industry with many improvements to the robot itself, as well as the development of more end effectors (end of arm tooling) to address the wider need for flexible automation.

Articulated robots are used in sectors as diverse as healthcare, food and beverage, steelmaking, and warehousing—wherever there are repetitive or environmentally or ergonomically challenging tasks that can be accomplished faster, more reliably, and/or more cost-effectively.

axes. A three-axis robot has three degrees of freedom and performs its functions through the X-Y-Z axes. These small robots are rigid in form, and cannot tilt or rotate themselves, although they can have attached tooling that can swivel or rotate or adapt to the shape of a small payload. Four- and five-axis robots have additional flexibility to rotate and tilt. A

six-axis articulated robot has six degrees of freedom—the flexibility to move objects in any directions or rotate them in any orientation. The latter type is generally chosen when an application requires complex manipulation of objects. The seventh axis allows extended reach in one axis; in other words, it allows displacement of the six-axis articulated robots.

Robot basics

Initially, this robot revolution provided major manufacturers like automakers with even greater economies of scale but offered nothing to most small- and medium-sized businesses. More recent developments in cartesian robotics (linear), SCARA and delta robots—along with collaborative robots— have made automation accessible to businesses of almost any size.

Each type of robot comes with benefits and limitations. For new adopters of robotics, it’s important to understand those possibilities and pitfalls.

Robots come with 1-7 axes, each axis providing a degree of freedom. A two-axis cartesian gantry typically plots on the X-Y or Y-Z

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Cartesian Robots

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Articulated robots

The popularity of six- and seven-axis articulated robots reflects the great flexibility that six degrees of freedom permit. They are easy to program, come with their own controller and movement sequences, and I/O activation can be programmed via a user-friendly teach pendant. On the hardware side, industrial articulated robots can be relatively small or massive. They can have substantial reach, over three meters with certain models.

The articulated robot also has issues which can restrict its utility or boost its cost profile. A small-sized articulated robot is easy to install; its base only need be bolted to a frame or floor. But it can only lift so much or reach so far.

Where the job requires a larger robot, civil engineering may be required to ensure the structure can handle the weight and torque caused by the load offset. The longer the reach, the greater the payload it can manage, the more space and engineering it requires, the more it costs.

An articulated robot also has singularities, i.e., locations and orientations in the surrounding space it cannot access. These spatial limitations require more complex safety precautions since the robot will often be used in zones where workers are present, even just occasionally. Expensive devices, such as zone scanners or safety mats are often necessary, and more advanced functionalities are then required, such as Safely Limited Speed (SLS), or Safe Speed Monitor (SSM). The fact

it requires its own controller to handle the inverse kinematics can also represent a double dip from a hardware perspective since, in certain cases, the robot controller will need to communicate with a higher-level PLC on the production line.

Cartesian robots

A cartesian or linear robot consists of an assembly of linear actuators and sometimes a rotary actuator at the end of arm. The cartesian robot is fully adaptable; strokes and sizes of each axis can be customized to the application. Its reach and payload are independent of each other, not intertwined. The linear axis comes in a number of designs which further adapt it to the function it performs. For example, toothed belt actuators allow high velocities while ball screw actuators permit high precision and high feed force, with pick rates up to 100/min fairly typical.

The adaptability of these handling systems makes them price-optimized for a wide range of straightforward applications where the dexterity of an articulated robot isn’t required. That can involve extremely light to very heavy parts placement, sorting or boxloading, device inspection, and much more.

Another major advantage and differentiator of the cartesian robot is its excellent space economy. It allows full access to the footprint it occupies. There is no dead space or singularities. Safety requirements are less stringent and hence less costly since the robot’s reach is limited to its small working zone.

Collaborative Robot

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Since the actuators are moving along the workspace coordinate system axis, interpolation of the motors position is not mandatory to determine the robot end-of-arm position in space. In other words, no calculation of inverse kinematics is needed. The system PLC can often be used to control each axis directly, without the addition of a second controller.

The cartesian robot’s main limitation is comparative inflexibility. It will easily accommodate linear movement in three axes, and a fourth, rotative axis. However, one has to add a motion controller to perform more complex synchronized tasks, such as CNC. Cartesian robots are rarely used in washdown environments, as they don’t provide sufficient protection against water ingress.

Finally, cartesian robots, if used without a separate motion controller, may require more programming time than other robot types. Teach pendants are less common, so programming of sequences must be done in the PLC, with each axis addressed and commissioned individually.

SCARA robots

SCARA (Selective Compliance Articulated Robot Arm) robots have been designed and optimized for light applications. They are a streamlined version of articulated robots.

They are very adept at functions like inserting components in spaces with tight tolerances while maintaining their rigidity in such movements, which makes them a cost-effective choice in pick-and-place applications as well as small parts handling. Programming and commissioning is relatively easy and fast, using the manufacturer-supplied teach pendant.

A SCARA robot requires a dedicated robot controller and is generally restricted to three axes. It may be the optimal solution where its full capability—three or four degrees of freedom—can be used. If the job only requires two (horizontal and vertical movement, for example), the SCARA robot cannot be reduced to a two-axis system, making it less attractive than a cartesian gantry-style robot from both the cost and performance standpoint. Like the articulated robot, the SCARA robot footprint also extends further than the working zone, resulting in a loss of functional space in and around the unit.

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Delta robots

The delta robot is mainly renowned for its speed, with pick rates up to 300/min. Its mounting type puts it above its working zone, limiting the loss of footprint. It is often paired with a vision system to pick pieces randomly placed in more complex sorting and packing applications. Just like the articulated and SCARA robot, it will generally be provided with a teach pendant for easy programming.

The payload capacity of a delta robot is generally much lower than alternative technologies, and its inverse tripod design makes it less robust than the other robot options.

The delta robot has a limited working envelope, as its design does not allow long reaches.

Like cartesian and SCARA robots, delta robots are generally limited to four axes and cannot provide the flexibility of an articulated robot.

Collaborative robots

By allowing a direct collaboration between a worker and robot, collaborative robots (cobots) are adding a dimension to our understanding of how automation can be

SCARA Robot

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Delta Robot

integrated into industry.

A cobot can be an articulated, cartesian, SCARA, or delta robot, although most would be categorized as articulated. They come with payload capacity of 4-35 kg. The difference between cobots and other robots is their built-

in safety features that allow direct interaction with humans without protective shielding, safety curtains, or other safety features.

Since they don’t need fixed external safety barriers, some cobots can be mounted on mobile platforms to go wherever they are needed. It is important to note that a safety evaluation of the application has to be done and, while the cobot itself might be safe, if the tool being used on its end of arm is sharp, an external safety barrier likely would be needed.

The greatest value of cobots is where they can free a skilled employee from the menial aspects of their job to concentrate exclusively on the high value aspects. For example, in complex device assembly requiring a deft human touch, a cobot can perform simple handling or manufacturing tasks in support of the worker, who can then focus exclusively on the part of the job that makes full use of their skills or knowledge.

The proliferation of various robot technologies has enabled businesses of all sizes to access the benefits of Industry 4.0 and digital automation. The best choice of robot usually comes down to the one that is the best fit— not just in terms of an application’s technical requirements, but also from the standpoint of related issues like productivity, plant safety, space utilization, cost, and more.

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Growing New Business with Edge Computing Industrial companies’ innovative approaches to market demands, enabled by industrial edge devices, illustrate how edge device technology is enabling manufacturers to be more adaptive and profitable.

By Josh Eastburn, director of technical marketing, Opto 22

A

s industrial edge devices become more common for building connected systems in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and automation, they are creating new business opportunities for system integrators and manufacturers. By simplifying the traditional architectures required to connect field assets to software systems, edge devices make many applications more affordable and practical.

Let’s look at a couple of real-world examples.

problem with this system was that it could only deliver updates every 10 minutes and the data was locked in the vendor’s private storage system.

Then Martins heard about Opto 22’s groov RIO edge I/O module and decided to tran-

ther approach.

Rather than installing additional sensors, Martins used groov RIO’s 10 software-configurable I/O channels to capture existing sensor data in parallel with the wash system’s PLC. Using Node-Red—IBM’s open-source

Easy EaaS

Equipment-as-a-service (EaaS) involves renting out or providing access to equipment and collecting payment periodically, rather than selling the equipment outright. This payment model enables end users to pay for costly or infrequently used equipment as an ongoing operating expense, which can open new markets for machine builders.

Martins Electrical Service, a Pennsylvaniabased system integrator, was hired to design a new EaaS option for an automated truck wash system. Shumaker Industries, the manufacturer of the wash system, wanted to add a remote monitoring option for customers interested in a rent-to-own arrangement.

However, the programmable logic controller (PLC) they used didn’t have the ability to perform the database transactions needed to record monitor usage.

Initially, Martins experimented with a proprietary remote monitoring system—wireless sensors that pumped data into a cloud database through a local IoT gateway. The

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Martins’ monitoring system uses groov RIO to grab existing I/O signals, send them into cloud storage, and generate useful alerts and reports.

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NACI used Opto 22’s groov edge devices and SNAP I/O to address a variety of integration scenarios.

IoT platform embedded in groov RIO—they organized the I/O data into timestamped sets associated with a vehicle number. They then connected a 4G cellular router to the groov RIO module and pushed the data structures into cloud-hosted storage rented from MongoDB. This arrangement allowed them to deliver a scalable monitoring system without worrying about vendor lock-in or IT infrastructure maintenance. And by simply grabbing existing I/O signals, they avoided the need to communicate with or modify the manufacturer’s existing PLC controls.

To complete their EaaS design, Martins built a web-based dashboard that let Shumaker visualize the wash system in operation with one-second resolution. The system also generates email and text alerts in Node-Red, including a monthly report on the number of trucks processed by each system, which Shumaker uses to calculate billing.

“Since it’s an edge device, with security built in, groov RIO is perfect,” says Leslie Martin, an automation technician at Martins.

“It’s a small add-on, so it’s easy to make an option for customers.”

From concrete to enterprise

Another example of rapid development with edge computing comes from system integrator equipment manufacturer Northeast Automation Company Inc. (NACI).

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Responding to increased demand for hand sanitizer in the early months of the COVID19 pandemic, NACI was hired by Emerald 66, a co-packaging and distribution company, to help them set up an automated bottling and packaging process.

With nothing but investor money and an empty denim processing plant, Emerald 66’s goal was to go as fast as possible. The company understood they were competing against low-paid, high-volume workforces operating manually and believed they could use technology to do more with a smaller, better-paid workforce.

The quickest way for Emerald 66 to build a new packaging process was by acquiring a variety of equipment at auction, leaving NACI the task of integrating it into a cohesive system.

NACI decided to make Opto 22’s groov products the focus of their strategy, so they could capitalize on the flexibility offered by edge devices. They used groov EPIC edge programmable industrial controllers to supervise the process lines, control equipment not already managed by a control system, and manage database transactions.

In addition, NACI used groov RIO edge I/O modules as a rapidly deployed remote I/O solution. As each new piece of equipment came online, NACI dropped in a powerover-Ethernet groov RIO module and used its software-configurable channels to identify the kinds of signals the unit provided. Next, the module was used to mirror the I/O signals in

parallel with any existing PLCs and to integrate that data into the groov EPIC control system.

This integration required no modifications to the control systems already in place, allowing NACI to move very quickly. In three months, they had 15 pieces of equipment up and running.

From here, automation of applications grew from processing a high volume of one-gallon, single-formulation containers to working with a variety of sanitizer chemistries in different batch sizes and packaging form factors—from small two-, four-, six-, and eight-ounce containers, hand pumps, and spray bottles, to large jugs in excess of one gallon.

Fortunately, NACI’s decision to use a loosely coupled process line made it easy to modify individual segments without interrupting data collection and integration. In combination with on-site panel building and 3D printing capabilities, NACI’s investment in edge-oriented automation allowed them to retool very quickly. Emerald 66 was able to break even on their initial investment within six months.

As Emerald 66 continues to diversify its business, it has also found a valuable niche in original equipment development for overseas export. In one example, using groov EPIC and RIO, NACI took an inline mixer design from concept to implementation in about five days, including a mobile operator interface they built using the EPIC’s embedded groov View HMI server. By their estimate, they implemented the controls in about four hours for a system Emerald 66 will sell for $50,000.

“The fluidity and dynamics of modern manufacturing requires extremely fast response to changing market demands,” says Tom Coombs, principal engineer at NACI. “With groov EPIC and groov RIO, Opto 22 puts dynamic manufacturing data at the edge of the production line and into enterprise systems simultaneously in real-time.”

Keys to agility

The key to rapid automation development in both of these cases stems from the flexibility provided by industrial edge devices.

With embedded general-purpose computing, networking, and storage, edge devices are able to assimilate automation functions traditionally requiring multiple devices and more

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Opto 22’s groov EPIC and groov RIO industrial edge devices simplify traditional automation and speed up development of connected systems.

complex configuration.

Martins used groov RIO to process I/O data, open a secure connection with cloud services, execute database transactions, and generate reports. In an Industry 3.0 technology stack, all of this would typically require a local PC running multiple applications, meaning more complex and costly security, licensing, and maintenance procedures.

NACI used groov RIO and EPIC in combination to address a variety of integration needs while simultaneously building central data collection and process improvement capabilities. Because each component of the system is capable of handling sensing, control, data processing, and database transactions, the system could be expanded and reconfigured dynamically to keep up with the pace of change.

Given the economic pressures and increased pace of tech adoption that continue even as the world slowly exits the pandemic era, it is likely that designers will look more frequently to edge computing in search of this kind of competitive advantage.

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Find Yourself with a Real-Time Location System Launched in 2020, omlox is the world’s first interoperable standard for location technology in industrial environments.

By Michael Bowne, executive director, PI North America

O

mlox is an open standard for a realtime location system (RTLS) in industry. The focus of omlox is to define open interfaces for an interoperable localization system. The standard enables interoperability and flexibility among different trackable providers within single or multiple tracking zones.

Until now, locating something in an industrial setting required proprietary hardware from a single vendor. That single vendor provided the transponders and infrastructure to provide location details for whatever was being tracked. Operability between providers was virtually nonexistent. Omlox changes all that.

The technology behind omlox consists of two parts: a hardware component and a software component. The hardware interface is known as the ‘omlox core zone’ and is built upon ultra-wide-band (UWB) technology. The UWB radio standard is often used for indoor

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locating tasks in factories, such as navigating automated guided vehicles, autonomous mobile robots or drones, and locating materials or orders. It is accurate to within inches, is relatively insensitive to interference, and consumes little power.

The software component is known as the ‘omlox hub’ and enables connection to the omlox core zone as well as other locating technologies such as RFID, 5G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, SLAM, and GPS. These connections are performed via an application programming interface (API). On the other side of the omlox hub, the API allows for connections to production control systems, goods tracking, or navigation orchestrators, for example.

The origins and first use-case for omlox came from the machine tool industry. Customers noted that the biggest bottleneck in production came not from the throughput of the machines themselves, but locating and getting parts to the tools for machin-

ing. Since then, the potential use cases have grown to include robots, access control, analytics, fleet management, augmented reality, intralogistics, supply chain, and even social distancing.

Meanwhile, UWB has found its way into the consumer realm, being integrated into the latest flagship phones of the world’s largest smartphone makers. Such adoption is driving down associated component costs and opening up possibilities for integration into more diverse industrial products.

Interested in getting in on the ground floor of omlox? A first version of the specification has been drafted and work continues towards broad publication later this year. Also, omlox has joined forces with Profibus & Profinet International (PI) to help with standards work and visibility. Learn more at us.profinet.com/ technology/omlox.

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Have Questions About IIoT? We’ve Got Answers Wago regularly receives questions from customers about a variety of technology topics. Those questions have really ramped up with the advance of IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) and the onset of COVID-19. Here are answers to some of the questions we’ve seen most often.

By Charlie Norz, automation product manager, Wago Q: How has the pandemic affected the IIoT world overall and specifically Wago?

A: Many manufacturing and process facilities have been evaluating the business advantages of using IIoT-based solutions. For some of these companies, they have accelerated their IIoT projects as more employees are now working remotely. Using cloud-based applications to monitor, control, and optimize plant floor manufacturing can be done from anywhere in the world.

Q: Do you see these effects being permanent? Why or why not?

A: IIoT is a long-term and permanent solution for the future of manufacturing. Companies that started with small test IIoT projects are now enjoying the business benefits from the technology. Most companies we work with plan to expand their IIoT application to multiple applications in the future. We offer great opportunities and solutions for every company. While there is no such thing as an all-in-one solution, smart products, methods, and partners will help advance digitalization in your business in ways that benefit all involved. Digitalization is something that we will see ramp up significantly over the course of the next two to five years.

Q: Why is it important that companies start moving forward towards digitalization now if they already haven’t?

A: It is all about data! In the past, the technical data from the field made it through to the control levels at best. That’s changed now. Thanks to modern information technology, the most important information from

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production is no longer restricted to the classical automation pyramid, but is now available at any time and place. However, the technical conditions must be right for this.

As the world becomes smaller, it becomes necessary to move to digitalization to increase production productivity while increasing quality and having flexibility to meet the changing demands of the market.

IIoT is a key technology to enable manufactures to meet these business needs.

Q: What are some trends you see ahead for IIoT over the next year?

A: Cloud-based IIoT can be used for hundreds of different applications including machine learning, predictive maintenance, data mining, digital twins, OEE calculations, line comparison, dashboards, and many more.

There are also many different ways to engineer these applications. For some, using tools from cloud service vendors are the way to go. However, this takes deep knowledge in specific algorithms. The other option is take advantage of pre-built solutions for these applications. In the next several years, companies will begin to utilize these prebuilt tools.

Q: What are some contributions Wago is making to IIoT? A: At Wago, we provide PFC200 controllers with tools to seamlessly connect to popular IIoT and SCADA systems via MQTT, Sparkplug, and OPC UA. For example, these tools can help connect to Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, IBM Cloud, and the SAP Cloud to name a few. Our new PFC200 features the ability

to exchange data with two different clouds in parallel. For example, in applications where manufacturing data goes to one cloud and maintenance info to the other, the information can be aggregated and used for analysis.

These capabilities create true added value for your company—whether for increasing the efficiency of in-house production, implementing energy management, or developing additional end-customer services.

In the coming year, we will be adding new IIoT related devices that include edge computers and edge controllers to our product line. These devices operate at the edge of the network for local control and data pre-processing and aggregation before it is sent to the cloud.

Also, a new on-machine IP67 platform—like Wago’s I/O System Field—with industrial fieldbus protocols and OPC UA for direct deviceto-cloud connection will be released. These high performance modules are designed for TimeSensitive Networking and are unshakeable in the harshest environmental conditions. Modern, decentralized production facilities require automation solutions that ensure the highest level of connectivity, which is what our I/O System Field provides.

Q: What do you see for the future of IIoT? A: IIoT is the future and is here to stay. It will be a big part of industrial automation moving forward and we at Wago offer solutions specifically for this and look forward to helping companies with all of their digitalization needs.

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The Best Way to Power Remote Wireless Communications Why remote wireless sensors that communicate with the Industrial Interent of Things (IIoT) demand long-life, industrial grade lithium batteries.

By Sol Jacobs, vice president and general manager, Tadiran Batteries

W

e are seeing a convergence of IIoTconnected devices, including rapid growth in two-way wireless communications. Common applications include asset tracking, supervisory control and data acquisition, environmental monitoring, artificial intelligence, machine to machine communications, and machine learning, to name a few.

As demand grows for battery-powered solutions in challenging environments and hard-to-access locations, industrial grade lithium batteries are gaining attention. Simple math tells you that the higher initial cost of an industrial grade battery is soon overtaken by the added value of higher reliability and a lower cost of ownership.

Low-power wireless devices

There are two main types of industrial grade low-power devices: 1) Those that draw an average current in microamps, typically requiring the use of an industrial grade primary (non-rechargeable) lithium battery; and 2) Devices that draw average current in milliamps, enough to prematurely exhaust a primary battery, typically requiring the use of an energy harvesting device in combination with an industrial grade rechargeable Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery to store the harvested energy.

Specifying a battery involves numerous considerations, including: the amount of current consumed during active mode (including the size, duration, and frequency of pulses); energy consumed during stand-by mode (the

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base current); storage time (as normal selfdischarge during storage diminishes capacity); thermal environments (including storage and in-field operation); and equipment cut-off voltage, which drops as cell capacity is exhausted or during prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures. Criticaly important is the battery’s annual self-discharge rate, which often exceeds the energy consumed to operate the device.

The vast majority of remote wireless devices are powered by primary (nonrechargeable) chemistries, including iron disulfate (LiFeS2), lithium manganese dioxide (LiMNO2), lithium thionyl chloride (LiSOCl2), alkaline, and lithium metal oxide chemistry.

As the lightest non-gaseous metal, with a high intrinsic negative potential that exceeds all others, lithium offers the highest specific energy (energy per unit weight) and energy density (energy per unit volume) of all commercially available chemistries. Lithium cells operate within a normal operating current voltage range of 2.7 to 3.6V. This chemistry is non-aqueous, thus less likely to freeze in extremely cold temperatures.

When extended battery life is required, the preferred choice is lithium thionyl chloride (LiSOCl2) chemistry, which can be constructed in two ways: bobbin-type or spiral wound. Spiral wound cells provide higher energy flow while bobbin-type LiSOCl2 batteries are ideal for low-power applications, delivering high capacity, high energy density, and a wider temperature range (-80° to 125° C). Bobbin-type LiSOCl2 cells also feature

exceptionally low self-discharge (less than 1% per year for certain cells), which permits up to 40-year battery life.

Understanding battery self-discharge

Self-discharge is common to all batteries, as chemical reactions rob energy even when the cell is unused or in storage. Self-discharge can be greatly reduced by harnessing the passivation effect.

Passivation is unique to LiSOCl2 batteries, resulting from a thin film of lithium chloride (LiCl) that forms on the surface of the lithium anode, separating the anode from the electrode, thus limiting the chemical reactions that cause self-discharge. When a load is placed on the cell, the passivation layer causes initial high resistance along with a temporary voltage dip until the discharge reaction slowly dissipates the passivation layer. This process keeps repeating every time the load is removed.

Numerous factors can influence cell passivation, including current discharge capacity, the length of storage and storage temperature, discharge temperature, and prior discharge conditions, as partially discharging a cell and then removing the load increases the amount of passivation relative to when the cell was new. While passivation serves to minimize battery self-discharge, too much of it can restrict energy flow.

Self-discharge is also affected by the cell’s current discharge potential, the method of manufacturing, and the quality of the raw

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materials. For example, a superior quality bobbin-type LiSOCl2 cell can feature a self-discharge rate as low as 0.7% per year, retaining 70% of its original capacity after 40 years. By contrast, a lower quality bobbintype LiSOCl2 cell can experience a self-discharge rate of up to 3% per year, losing 30% of its initial capacity every 10 years, making 40-year battery life impossible.

Unfortunately, battery self-discharge can take several years to be fully measurable, and theoretical test data is often highly unreliable, so thorough due diligence is required when evaluating potential battery suppliers.

Two-way wireless connectivity demands high pulses

Increasingly, remote wireless devices require high pulses to power two-way wireless communications. To conserve energy, intelligently designed devices incorporate a low power communications protocol (e.g., WirelessHART, ZigBee, or LoRa), along with a low-power chipset, and proprietary energy-saving techniques.

Standard bobbin-type LiSOCl2 cells are not designed to deliver the high pulses required for two-way communications: a challenge overcome with the addition of a patented hybrid layer capacitor (HLC). The bobbin-type LiSOCl2 cell delivers background current during standby mode while the HLC works like a rechargeable battery to generate high pulses up to 15A. The HLC also features an end-of-life voltage plateau that can be interpreted to communicate ‘low battery’ status alerts for scheduled replacement.

Supercapacitors perform a similar function in consumer electronics but are rarely used in industrial applications due to inherent limitations, including: short-duration power; linear discharge qualities that do not permit full discharge of available energy; low capacity; low energy density; and a very high self-discharge rate of up to 60% per year. Supercapacitors linked in series require cell-balancing circuits that are bulky, expensive, and draw additional energy to further shorten their operating life.

Following are examples involving bobbintype LiSOCl2 batteries: Oceantronics: To simplify the transport of scientific equipment across the Artic, Oceantronics redesigned the battery pack

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for its GPS/ice buoy by replacing a huge battery pack consisting of 380 alkaline D cells with a more compact, lighter, and cost-efficient solution using 32 bobbin-type LiSOCl2 cells and 4 HLCs. They achieved a 90% reduction in size and weight (54 kg down to 3.2 kg), enabling the GPS/ice buoy to be more easily transported by helicopter.

Converting from alkaline to LiSOCl2 chemistry also multiplied the device’s operating life many fold.

Cryoegg: Researchers studying the relationship between climate change, rising sea levels, and deep water channels beneath glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica utilize Cryoegg, a remote wireless sensor that continuously monitors temperature, pressure, and electrical connectivity. Cryoegg eliminates the need for bulky and expensive cables that can be easily damaged by glacial movement. Bobbin-type LiSOCl2 cells were specified due to their high capacity, high energy density, wide temperature range, and high pulse capabilities.

Cryoegg utilizes the same 169 MHz Wireless M-Bus radio waves found in AMR/AMI water and gas utility meter transmitter units (MTUs). Bobbin-type LiSOCL2 batteries lower the cost of ownership of a water or gas MTU by preventing wide-scale battery failures that can disrupt billing systems and disable remote start-up/shut-off capabilities.

Southwire: Reducing size and weight is highly beneficial to utility line crews installing line/ connector sensors that monitor temperature, catenary, and line current on utility power lines to warn if a transmission line goes down. Use of bobbin-type LiSOCl2 cells enable a more compact and lightweight (3.5 lbs.) solution that can handle extreme temperatures (-40° to 50° C),

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providing months of back-up power if no line current is detected.

When energy harvesting is required

If an application draws milliamps of current, it could quickly exhaust a primary lithium battery. This may require the use of an energy harvesting device in tandem with an industrial grade rechargeable Lithiumion (Li-ion) battery.

One prime example is Cattlewatch, which combines small solar (PV) panels and Li-ion batteries to create mesh networks that track the location, health, and safety of animal herds. Solar/Li-ion hybrids also power smart parking meter fee collection systems that are equipped with AI-enabled sensors to identify open parking spots.

Low-cost, consumer-grade rechargeable Li-ion cells have a relatively short service life (5 years and 500 recharge cycles), a limited temperature range (0-40° C), and are unable to deliver high pulses. By contrast, industrial grade Li-ion batteries can operate up to 20 years and 5,000 full recharge cycles, along with an expanded temperature range (-40° to 85° C) and the capability to deliver high pulses to power two-way wireless communications.

If your battery needs to last as long as the device, then do your due diligence when evaluating potential battery suppliers. Start by requesting well-documented long-term test results, actual in-field performance data under similar environmental conditions, and numerous customer references. Specifying a more rugged battery often reduces your cost of ownership.

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M16 connectors

The perfect solution for applications that need high pin counts rom its early beginnings in the audio industry more than 50 years ago—in fact the M16 connector was the first connector system binder manufactured— today’s M16 connector is very much a “go to” connector solution for a huge variety of indoor applications. Thanks mainly to continuous development and refinement, the M16 connector is now the ideal choice for specifiers looking for a cost effective, robust screw locking connector that can accommodate as many as 24 contacts—with or without EMI shielding.

M16 connectors were originally designed to meet the requirements of Deutsches Institut für Normung (German Institute for Standardisation) that defined the standard for circular connectors for analogue audio signals. These were used widely for many years and commonly known throughout the audio industry and to the consumer as DIN connectors.

F

High pin count and protection up to IP68

“Although still available in its original unshielded IP40 DIN formats, the latest M16 connectors are far removed from the early audio versions,” says Sascha Döbel, binder’s Product Manager for M16 connector systems. “Driven by market demands for lower contact resistance, higher pin count and improved levels of protection, today’s M16 connectors are capable of accommodating between two and 24 contacts. They are mainly housed in metal bodies, with or without shielding from electromechanical interference (EMI) and providing international protection up to IP67 or IP68 for certain versions,” adds Sascha Döbel.

Versatility of application is assured as a range of alternatives are available for cable mounting with straight or right-angled connectors terminated by soldering, with screws and crimp. Pre-moulded cables are available and the options are as equally

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comprehensive when it comes to the panel receptacles with front or rear fastening as standard for solder bucket versions and front-fastening for dip solder and pre-terminated flexible PCBs. This connector style, along with the benefits of rugged design with good environmental resistance, have seen the M16 become widely used in instrumentation, measurement, and sensors for indoor use where there is a need for a higher pin count than is offered by M8 and M12 sensor connectors.

Other applications include pneumatic controls, gas and pressure measurement, torque sensors, and motor speed regulators.

Suitable for 5G roll out

The latest applications for M16 connectors include the impending roll-out of 5G networks where binder’s ASIG-compliant connectors are designed to provide high international protection for selected outdoor installations. The AISG (Antenna Interface Standards Group) defines standards for the control and monitoring of antenna line devices in the wireless industry. binder’s Series 423 and 723 M16 connectors, for example, are available in 8-pin DIN variants, of which four to five contacts are used. The products are AISG C485 compliant and available as male and female shielded cable and panel mount connectors. The connectors, which can be used for all wireless networks, meet the requirements for protection class IP68 when connected, offering maximum reliability even under extreme external conditions.

are up to an impressive 10Gbits/s.

The combination of a high pin count with the compact size of nominally 18.5mm diameter and 60mm in length means M16 connectors offer an excellent alternative to more expensive connector systems.

Special short versions and right-angled versions with a height of only 37mm mean M16 can be used in applications where space is very tight.

M16 connectors accommodate cables ranging from 4.0 to 10mm diameter, are rated to 250V and can withstand an impulse voltage up to 1500V, with current handling of up to 7A (at 40ºC). With increasing requirements from equipment manufacturers for shielding against EMI, more applications now require shielded cable systems with the requirement for connectors with good shielding characteristics. For optimum results 360º shielding is required and this is achieved by integral shielding rings, providing a high attenuation over a large frequency band.

To sum up binder’s M16 product offering, Sascha Döbel comments, “At binder we have found that the flexibility provided by our comprehensive range of M16 connectors with the seemingly endless options at relatively low cost compared to other connector systems, has led to its popularity continually increasing and its application range has extended remarkably from the humble 1960s microphone to the latest communications and security systems that touch us all.”

Data transmission up to 10Gbits/s

One of the latest additions to binder’s M16 offering is an X–coded connector capable of handling the data speeds demanded by today’s sensor-based automated production facilities. Data transmission figures

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M16 FAMILY

Screw Solder Crimp With single wires Data Transmission up to 10 Gbit/s www.binder-connector.us

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2/25/21 9:59 AM

50 NEW PRODUCTS AW MARCH 2021

Glow Wire Compliant Power Relays

Fujitsu, fujitsu.com The DPST/DPDT 5A PCB power relay series meets glow-wire test requirement standard IEC/EN60335, which addresses the safe operation of consumer and commercial electrical appliances. The low-profile (16.5mm) FTR-F1-GW relay series is rated from 1.5 to 110V. Designed for safety, it features a reinforced insulation construction, 8mm minimum insulation distance between coil and contact, a surge strength of 10,000V, and a dielectric strength of 5,000V AC for extended flammability protection. The plastic, sealed relay measures 12.8Lx29Wx16.5Hmm and weighs 12.0g. It is available with either standard (530mW and 550mW) or high sensitivity (400mW) coils and has an operating temperature range of -40° to +75° C. Typical applications include factory automation equipment as well as power protection equipment and solar panels.

Edge Computing Platform

Litmus, litmus.io Litmus Edge 3.0 is an edge platform to collect and analyze data, build and run applications, and integrate edge data with any cloud or enterprise system.

Litmus Edge 3.0 adds more device drivers to bring the total to more than 250, with enhanced analytics, improved integration connectors, digital twin support, and expanded device management features. Other new features of Litmus Edge 3.0 include: second generation industrial communication drivers focusing on security and scalability for southbound communications; enhanced “Ready Analytics,” which now includes the ability to run Tensorflow and other machine learning algorithms natively on real-time ingested data; and an improved user interface for one-click application orchestration.

IoT Connected Surge Protector

Eaton, eaton.com The Power Xpert SPD is the latest addition to Eaton’s family of surge protective devices, which leverage advanced connectivity to help protect vital equipment from potentially devastating surge events. Offering advanced monitoring display and communication capabilities in addition to historical surge logging, the Power Xpert SPD is effective for industrial environments where avoiding downtime caused by surge events is critical. The Power Xpert SPD also enables customers to capture and categorize surge events by low, medium, and high categories, according to IEEE standard C62.41. The connected solution enables customers to remotely monitor surge data in real time or store events in a log with time and date stamps they can use to predict future surge events or enact proactive maintenance of critical equipment.

Miniature Linear Voice Coil Motor

Moticont, moticont.com The LVCM-010-013-01 linear voice coil motor is 0.375 in. (9.5 mm) in diameter and the length at mid-stroke is 0.81 in. (20.7 mm) long.

This miniature voice coil motor has a high force-to-size ratio with a continuous force of 1.0 oz (0.28 N), a peak force of 3.2 oz (0.88 N), and a 0.25 in. (6.4 mm) stroke. As a brushless DC linear servo motor with high acceleration/deceleration and low inertia, the LVCM-010-013-01 is highly efficient for haptic feedback in medical/surgical instruments, vibration damping, work holding and clamping, laser machining and drilling, assembly, sorting, packaging, sampling, scanning, laser beam steering and filtering, wafer handling, and pharmaceutical applications.

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2/25/21 9:25 AM

SECUR ITY BUILTIN

MOVE SECURELY INTO THE CLOUD DIRECT FIELD TO CLOUD CONNECTION • • • •

IIoT-ready with Sparkplug, native MQTT and TLS encryption Built-in VPN and Firewall for increased network security Run Docker Containers in parallel with PLC logic ,QWHUIDFH ZLWK H[LVWLQJ FRQWUROV YLD RQERDUG ƮHOGEXV JDWHZD\V

www.wago.us/IIoT

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AW IIoT Supp - IIoT.indd 1

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7/20/20 1:19 PM

52 FINANCE VIEW AW MARCH 2021

Evaluating ro tability Margins for Products

By Larry White

CMA, CFM, CPA, CGFM lwhite@rcaininstitute.org

Executive Director, Resource Consumption Accounting Institute (www.rcainstitute.org)

P

roduct profitability is fundamental information, but it is often controversial during internal discussions. Why? External financial reporting calculations are often distorting and the information misleading because they include high-level allocations, flawed depreciation, and miss many product related costs like sales commissions.

Decision-relevant profitability information requires clear causal revenue, cost (not just manufacturing costs), and investment (including depreciation/amortization of tangible and intangible assets) information.

Let’s examine some functionality of decisionrelevant information using a quote and margin price calculator (Q&MPC) example. It is part of a resource consumption accounting (RCA) implementation that provides decision makers with causal monetary internal decision support information and enables profitability scenario

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planning within the relevant range of existing resources. This example focuses on: product contribution margin (CM=price – proportional (variable) costs) and product gross margin (GM=price – proportional costs – fixed costs).

In RCA, product proportional and fixed costs reflect strong causal relationships; they exclude generalized allocations. The Q&MPC enables effective profitability management by providing margin-based prices incorporating a forwardlooking stretch target (one standard deviation above the mean) to reduce marginal customers over time and insight into marginally profitable products near breakeven (when fixed costs are covered, all the product’s CM is profit).

The illustration above shows the CM for customers buying Product 13. Costs include all causal product costs including sales commissions and costs for service, support, and warranty. As a result, you see wide variation in the CM by customer. In the system, you can evaluate scenarios such as eliminating outlier

customers to make your sample more representative of the customer you are quoting.

This screen shows product profitability components. The CM column examines the impact of price and proportional costs. The green dots will turn red when the price no longer covers the product’s proportional cost. The GM column adds fixed cost impacts, including fixed costs above the product level.

For example, if a scenario eliminates the five outlying high CM customers from the first illustration (right side of the graph), the GM and entity margin become negative; but the CM remains positive. This means increased volume at the mean price enables return to a profitable product gross margin and entity margin. In the lower left “price per unit” diagram, price is an outlier for only one customer; therefore, most differences in customer profitability are related to costs.

Since this diagram is for one product, the differences result from customer-specific costs and not production-related costs.

Managerial costing systems use causality to improve monetary internal decision support information. They link to manufacturing operations management systems to reflect operational metrics in monetary terms. They link to sales, customer service, and logistics systems to collect information on resource use driven by customer demands for nonmanufacturing support. Incorporating causality leads to better decisions and enables manufacturers to maximize profitability across the organization.

Note: The Q&MPC illustrations are courtesy of Alta Via Consulting (altavia.com). A 20-minute Q&MPC presentation is available at awgo.to/1142.

2/28/21 1:53 PM

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54 IT VIEW

AW MARCH 2021

T�e Challenges of Smart Manufacturing

By John Clemons MESA Marketing Committee Chair

T�e new MESA model is going to provide a fundamentally new way of looking at the problem space to make sure you don’t miss anything. It’s intended to cover everything you need to be concerned with in the smart manufacturing space.

It will help people decide what to do by helping them ask the hard questions as well as determine if they really have the answers they need.

2103_ITView.indd 54

E

veryone in the manufacturing world is talking about smart manufacturing.

There’s lot of new technology coming together in different ways to create AI (artificial intelligence) solutions, digital twins, digital threads, the Industrial Internet of Things, augmented reality/virtual reality solutions, and a whole lot more. All this smart technology, along with lots of smart people, are creating the fourth industrial revolution and transforming manufacturing back into an economic powerhouse.

But, with all this technology coming together, everyone seems to be looking at it from their own points of view. This means there are lots of challenges out there with lots of people not sure how all the technologies fit together. Or how all these technologies achieve the benefits everyone claims.

In addition to all the new technologies, tough market conditions are driving companies to think differently about their manufacturing operations. Maybe for the first time ever, C-suite executives are starting to understand the deep importance of their manufacturing operations and are developing new and exciting visions for the future, all built on smart manufacturing.

Most people are convinced we’re in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution, but the story of the revolution is still being written. We’re barely in the first chapter. That means the size and the impact of the fourth industrial revolution are still up to us. The challenge is to add even more power to the revolution to ensure that its impact is global, substantial, and long-lasting.

But the problem space of smart manufacturing is way too big to be easily understood.

The many facets to each issue make it almost impossible for one person to grasp them all.

People need to understand the big picture of smart manufacturing and specifically the context for any kind of initiative they’re undertaking. The challenge is to assess their efforts and better understand their priorities, to create a more unified approach and direction for them, since all of smart manufacturing is so intertwined.

The bottom line is that people are just overwhelmed. There’s no framework, no common language, and no common baseline of understanding. This makes it hard to talk about things logically and especially hard to talk with people in other disciplines.

It’s like the parable about the blind men and the elephant. Each man described the small part of the elephant that they touched, but none of them could see the whole elephant.

That’s smart manufacturing in a nutshell.

It appears to be just a vast state of turbulence out there, with smart manufacturing in its infancy, and everyone using a different model. MESA International, the Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association, is cutting through all this fluff to provide a comprehensive smart manufacturing model that people can actually use to understand what it’s all about.

The new MESA model is going to provide a fundamentally new way of looking at the problem space to make sure you don’t miss anything. It’s intended to cover everything you need to be concerned with in the smart manufacturing space. It will help people decide what to do by helping them ask the hard questions as well as determine if they really have the answers they need.

The original MESA MES model has been used by just about everyone in the MES space around the world since it was created. The intention at MESA is to build a model for smart manufacturing that will be used by everyone. It will help people communicate across diverse disciplines. It will provide alignment with business strategy, connect business and manufacturing processes, and link people across the entire enterprise. Our goal is to ensure that it will be pragmatic and extremely helpful to everybody.

2/28/21 1:53 PM

ADVERTISER INDEX 55 AW MARCH 2021

COMPANY

TELEPHONE

WEBSITE

PAGE

AutomationDirect

800.633.0405

www.BRXPLC.com

Cover-2

Binder-USA

805.437.9925

www.binder-connector.us

CIMON, Inc.

800.300.9916

www.cimon.com

Digi-Key Electronics

800.344.4539

www.digikey.com/automation

3

Endress + Hauser

888-ENDRESS

www.us.endress.com/calibration-usa

5

Fabco-Air

352.373.3578

www.fabco-air.com

43

Festo

866.GO.FESTO

www.festo.com/cmmt-as

11

Galco Industrial Electronics

888.526.0909

www.Galco.com

Hammond Manufacturing

716.630.7030

www.hammondmfg.com

23

Motion Industries

800.526.9328

www.motion.com

21

Opto 22

800.321.6786

www.opto22.com

Cover-3

PI North America

480.483.2456

us.profinet.com/go-digital

15

PACK EXPO Connects

571.612.3200

www.packexpoconnects.com

53

Maverick Technologies

888.917.9109

www.mavtechglobal.com

Tadiran Batteries

800.537.1368

www.tadiranbat.com

Telemecanique Sensors

800.435.2121

www.tesensors.com/Safety

17

Wago Corporation

262.255.6222

www.wago.us/IIoT

51

48, 49 13

7

Cover-4 9

Automation World ® (ISSN # 15531244, USPS 22435) is a registered trademark of PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies. Automation World ® is published 14x a year by PMMI with its publishing office, PMMI Media Group, located at 401 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 300, Chicago, IL 60611; 312.222.1010; Fax: 312.222.1310. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL, and additional mailing offices. Copyright 2021 by PMMI. All rights reserved. Materials in this publication must not be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Applications for a free subscription may be made online at www.packworld.com/subscribe. Paid subscription rates per year are $105 in the U.S., $147 Canada and Mexico by surface mail; $250 Europe, South America. $325 Far East and Australia by air mail. To subscribe or manage your subscription to Automation World, visit AutomationWorld.com/subscribe. Free digital edition available to qualified individuals outside the United States. POSTMASTER; Send address changes to Automation World®, 401 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 300, Chicago, IL 60611. PRINTED IN USA by Quad Graphics. The opinions expressed in articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of PMMI. Comments, questions and letters to the editor are welcome and can be sent to: editors@automationworld.com. We make a portion of our mailing list available to reputable firms. If you would prefer that we don’t include your name, please write us at the Chicago, IL address. Volume 19, Number 3.

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2/26/21 10:44 AM

56 KEY INSIGHTS AW MARCH 2021

German steel manufacturer Salzgitter Flachstahl is the first company to adopt the Netillion technology and has now connected all of its field devices to the cloud. The company is currently identifying the data necessary to begin engaging in predictive maintenance.

David Miller on Endress+Hauser’s Netillion IIoT ecosystem. awgo.to/1147

We held workshops consisting of people with similar functions that included warmup exercises to ensure all stakeholders used common terms and understood the scope and systems in question. The workshops also enabled participants to imagine their day-to-day interactions with the control system, allowing them to frame their needs.

Cassie Gardner of Banks Integration on the value of workshops when planning for control system upgrades. awgo.to/1148

Schneider Electric is asking all stakeholders across industry to embrace the concept of “universal automation”—pushing for wider development of plug-andproduce automation software components based on the IEC 61499 standard.

David Greenfield on Schneider Electric’s announcement at the 2021 virtual ARC Forum calling for greater interoperability among automation technologies. awgo.to/1154

The pandemic has kicked many digital transformation journeys into high gear. We saw a little bit of a pause as the outbreak was hitting the U.S. and other parts of the world, but now we’ve only seen acceleration, especially in certain industries such as food and beverage.

Aaron Hand on how COVID-19 is driving digital transformation. awgo.to/1150

By decoupling hardware and software, [the technology] lowers the time and overall setup costs, cutting the number of engineering hours spent on project installation, commissioning, and testing by up to 85%.

Stephanie Neil on ABB’s Adaptive Execution technology. awgo.to/1151

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