Automation World May 2021 by PMMIMediaGroup

MAY 2021 / www.AutomationWorld.com

52 HOW AUTOMATION HELPED RAMP UP COVID TESTING 24 46 40 10 58

Automation Expectations: Batch Manufacturing Universal I/O: Just in Time for the Digital Transformation A New Class of Machine Will Be Born Robotic Dangerous Manufacturing Rules of Thumb

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CONTENTS 3 AW MAY 2021

MAY 2021 | VOLUME 19 | NUMBER 5

40 46 52

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Universal I/O: Just in Time for the Digital Transformation A standardized version of I/O provides users and machine builders with the opportunity to scale systems quickly, but traditional I/O still holds an important role.

Automation Investment Expectations for the Batch Manufacturing Industries

In this second installment in our series covering automation investment expectations for 2021, suppliers highlight ongoing pandemic, supply chain, and labor issues driving near-term interest in specific technologies.

COVID-19 Test Medium Production Ramped Up By 20,000% in Six Months

Viral Transport Media tubes filled with liquid media are used to store and transport nasal swabs for viruses including COVID-19. Sixteen integrated lines were designed, built, and installed in 20 weeks to meet demand.

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4 CONTENTS AW MAY 2021

EDITORIAL

ONLINE 6

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

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS 8 Robot Investments: Assessing the Value

BATCH OF IDEAS 10

A New Class of Machine Will Be Born Robotic

PRODUCTION PERSPECTIVES 12

How Artificial Intelligence is Being Used to Streamline Training

PERSPECTIVES 14

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

ART & PRODUCTION

How Digital Workflows Improve Manufacturing Operations Is Your Company Prepared to Make the Digital Transformation? Artificial Intelligence Use in the Energy Sector Targets Operations Visibility

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

NEWS 18

ADVERTISING

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

Industrial Cybersecurity Concerns Heat Up in The Era of COVID-19 Spatial Computing and Digital Twin Drive Interactive AR Simulations Ford and Nissan Use HP 3D Printing to Address Production Sustainability PMMI News Industry Ready for Safe Return of In-Person Trade Shows

INDUSTRIAL INTERNET OF THINGS 24

IP Router Simplifies Remote Access to Gas-Fired Turbine System The Importance of the Word “Industrial” in the Industrial Internet of Things How Digitalization Propels Industry Toward Greater OEE From Warehouse to Enterprise with Edge Computing Information Models: Defining Data and Relations Lessons Learned: Powering the First Remote Wireless Device 5 Things to Consider About Your Plant Floor Data and IIoT

AUDIENCE & DIGITAL

David Newcorn Senior Vice President, Digital & Data Elizabeth Kachoris Senior Director, Digital & Data Jen Krepelka Director, Websites + UX/UI

PMMI MEDIA GROUP

Kurt Belisle Publisher kbelisle@pmmimediagroup.com / 815 549 1034 Jake Brock Brand Operations Manager jbrock@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1320 Sharon Taylor Director of Marketing staylor@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1710 Amber Miller Marketing Manager amiller@pmmimediagroup.com / 312 222 1010 x1130 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 56

Embedded Edge Computer Solenoid Valves Smart Camera for Machine Vision Brushless Servo Motor Drive And more...

FINANCE VIEW 58

Dangerous Manufacturing Rules of Thumb By Larry White

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

IT VIEW 59

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

MES/MOM Certification Program Benefits By Chris Rickey

ENTERPRISE VIEW 60

Autonomous and Remote Ops Trend Up as COVID-19 Changes the Landscape By Diane Sacra

KEY INSIGHTS 62

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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6 ONLINE AW MAY 2021

PODCAST SERIES What Are Digital Workflows for Manufacturing? In this episode, we connect with James Destro of ServiceNow to learn how digital workflow software can provide visibility into plant floor equipment and direct operations on a day-today basis to connect people, functions, and systems.

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AUTOMATION WORLD TV In this “Take Five with Automation World” video, you’ll find out which automation technologies are expected to receive the heaviest investments in 2021 and why Schneider Electric is calling for industry to embrace the concept of universal automation.

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

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AUTOMATION WORLD E-BOOK

6 Key Robotics Trends in Packaging and Operations

The past few years have allowed for great leaps in robotics technology including improved sensors, easier programming, integrated unified controls, a widening selection of end-of-arm tooling, and rapid enhancement in the power of artificial intelligence. Learn more about how manufacturers are increasingly using robotics to improve operations.

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SYSTEM INTEGRATOR BLOGS • The Journey of Reviving an Un-Commented Code • Time(er) is on Your Side? • Questions to Ask Yourself When Reviewing Engineering Documents • Understanding the Importance of Cybersecurity Assessments

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• Defense Against the Dark (PID Tuning) Arts

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8 EDITORIAL AW MAY 2021

INDUSTRY DIRECTIONS

Robot Investments: Assessing the Value By David Greenfield

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

recent survey about robotics use among Automation World readers (awgo.to/1170) indicated that just under half of respondents (45%) report that their assembly and manufacturing facilities currently use robots as an integral part of their operations. More specifically, of those with robots, 35% have adopted collaborative robots (cobots), while the remaining 65% use only industrial robots. As widely adopted as robots have become over the past several years, there remains plenty of potential upside for robot investment. And that’s why it’s also a good point in time to assess the value determination of investment in such technology. “The calculation of total life-cycle cost of a piece of equipment, such as a robot, is an effective approach that takes into account not only the purchase price, but also potential production output and all other costs associated with maintaining that robot to arrive at its actual cost,” said Kevin Gavin of KUKA Robotics Corporation. As part of this total cost of ownership (TCO) assessment, Gavin advises getting input from onsite production managers, maintenance managers, programmers, and any other personnel who will help determine specifics of the robotic application. Getting these varied insights is important in helping determine TCO based on capabilities of the robot. Gavin and KUKA are highlighting the need for applying TCO to robot purchases, as they see many companies overlooking TCO and, instead, choosing robots based strictly on price. “Less expensive robots may not provide the necessary capabilities in terms of throughput,

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payload, or reach, while higher quality ones will,” said Gavin. “But sacrificing these core capabilities is a bad way to save money. Any type of robot that fails to meet all of a company’s needs will always end up costing more in the long run.” Much of the division between high and lowcost robots tends to fall along the collaborative/industrial robot line. Gavin advises that, while they’re considered a value in terms of price and ideal for certain applications, it’s important to realize that collaborative robots can only operate at speeds that will prevent injuries in the case of an accident. “For greater speed and throughput, industrial-type robots have fewer restrictions, though the highestquality industrial-type robots include sensors that will trigger a slowdown when a human approaches the workspace,” he said. With these technologies, “the safety aspect remains, but it’s combined with higher payloads and longer reaches in addition to throughput.” Gavin explained that finding the total cost of ownership for a robot goes beyond the collaborative versus industrial comparisons. “Industrial robots are built tough from heavyduty castings and gears and, as completely sealed units, these robots are more robust by nature. In some industries, an industrial robot’s working life can span from 10 to 15 or more years—and many can be reprogrammed to support other processes as production needs change and new projects arise.” The robustness of industrial robots typically means they will require less maintenance over their lifetimes and tend to be better able to recover from an accidental crash, according to Gavin. “This reduces repair costs and production losses by a significant amount, and because extended robot downtime causes total cost of ownership to rise dramatically, it’s an important factor to consider.” As with any capital expenditure on automation technologies, ongoing support is a critical factor when considering the total cost of ownership. “Regardless of its initial purchase price and capabilities, a robot will not provide the highest utilization and lowest possible total cost of ownership if it lacks OEM service

and support,” said Gavin. He explained that KUKA addresses this through the company’s my.KUKA digital customer portal. Here KUKA robot users can view technical data, manage licenses, and access individual support for their particular robot applications. Having access to these kinds of insights can be important in the buying decision due to many misconceptions about certain types of robots. As Gavin explained, “Many companies remain hesitant about industrial-type robots because of a common misconception that all robots use grease in their gearboxes, making maintenance more involved and time consuming. In fact, there are robotics OEMs, like KUKA, that rely on oil as opposed to grease. Oil extends the length of the intervals between robot maintenance, and when it does need to be changed, it’s a fast and easy operation—and one that users often perform themselves.” Gavin added that application support from robotics OEMs is “equally critical because it allows the identification of potential problems at the early stages of a project. It ensures there are no unexpected additional costs and that the installation is done right the first time. Post-installation training from robotics OEMs also contributes to the prevention of mistakes or mishaps that could result in unexpected downtime and loss of production. This is especially important for a company’s first robot installation, as it allows them to significantly shorten the automation learning curve.”

Discover Automation World’s March 2021 feature story on rates of robotics adoption in 2020 and continued projected growth in the upcoming year. Read the full story at awgo.to/1170.

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10 EDITORIAL AW MAY 2021

BATCH OF IDEAS

A New Class of Machine Will Be Born Robotic By Stephanie Neil

sneil@automationworld.com Senior Editor, Automation World

he industry has been talking about smart manufacturing for the last several years as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), digitalization, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and more move onto the plant floor. So what does the factory of the future look like? “Every machine in the future will be intelligent,” said Rodney Brooks, co-founder and chief technology officer of Robust.AI, during his keynote presentation at the Automate Forward 2021 virtual trade show and conference. “All machines will be robots and will have artificial intelligence on them. It’s a long way from where we are today, but over the next few decades we’ll see old machines become robots and new machines start as robots. A new class of machine will be born robotic.” According to Brooks, a roboticist who launched iRobot and Rethink Robotics prior to co-founding the Calif.-based start-up Robust.AI with four others, there is much room for improvement when it comes to combining AI and robots. Now is the time for OEMs and technology companies to step up and contribute to the making of a new class of machine. “There’s plenty of room to do great things as most of the important stuff hasn’t been done yet.” The one obstacle to overcome here, however, is the complexity of robot software and the limitations of today’s AI. For example, today’s robots respond to rules, doing only what it is programmed to do. But tomorrow’s robots will need common sense to, for example, understand a hand gesture and intent.

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If a robot is used as an aide for elder care it must understand when someone needs help walking. Or if the person is holding a book, the robot should automatically deduce that the individual will need their reading glasses. “To make this work, common sense needs to be natural. We can’t explain everything to the robot,” Brooks said. In addition, robots need to show deference to its human counterparts so that there is mutual understanding of when it is appropriate to be assertive enough to do the task. “Robots need to be predictable to humans.” To create the software to do all of this, however, would take a company years of engineering and testing and pilot projects only to find out it isn’t what is needed or cannot scale. It’s high risk. But Robust.AI looks to solve that problem with its code-less platform for robot software and its cognitive engine that can be used in different verticals, including the many segments of manufacturing. The goal is to compress the time it takes to build the app by incorporating testing in week one, which is similar to the way video games work by testing what works at the beginning. So even before the robot moves there is a lot of testing. How? “We use AI powered by common sense,” said Brooks. “It puts common sense semantics into the perception and reasoning and semantics give us the AI we need to do this.” Brooks explained that a machine builder could use the platform with different user interfaces to extract knowledge from people who would tell the platform what they want the machine to be like and to do. It reasons, adds in its own understanding of the world, and out comes a bunch of zeros and ones to go on the machine in real time. It could also add analytics, reporting, integration with MES, ERP, WMS (warehouse management system), etc., which all happens automatically, giving the machine the intelligence to do the appropriate things in its environment. “This is where we want to get to, but for now we will need a little more help from the equipment manufacturers about kinemat-

ics,” Brooks said. Today, the company can already build semantically aware common sense systems for a range of practical environments, including a mobile robot that can do UV disinfecting on selected objects in a human occupied environment. It is aware of changes in human behavior so that it does not cause danger. Or, a mobile robot navigating an ever-changing retail space and predicting what humans might do next, like walk across an aisle, and changing its own behavior so as not to collide. Ultimately, by using this cognitive engine, robots will understand how to plan and optimize in order to do things while interacting with people. In fact, robots will be able to communicate with each other, perhaps through the MES. But Brooks stops short of the notion that robots could autonomously build other robots. “That’s the standard fantasy of science fiction. We don’t have systems that autonomously manufacture anything. We can’t do that, it’s not how it works, there are so many people involved in the supply chain and will be for a long time.”

“The one obstacle to overcome here, however, is the complexity of robot software and the limitations of today’s AI. For example, today’s robots respond to roles, doing only what it is programmed to do. But tomorrow’s robots will need common sense to, for example, understand a hand gesture and intent.”

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12 EDITORIAL AW MAY 2021

PRODUCTION PERSPECTIVES

How Artificial Intelligence is Being Used to Streamline Training By David Miller

dmiller@pmmimediagroup.com Senior Technical Writer, Automation World

aintaining a skilled workforce is vital to the success of Industry 4.0. But despite the fact that continuously updated skills training is a wellrecognized facet of the digital transformation, many industry observers see the current situation as dire. The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte estimate that while 4.6 million manufacturing jobs are forecast to be created over the next decade, as many as 2.4 million of those positions are likely to remain unfilled due to the continuing skills gap. This issue is exacerbated by a wave of retirements on the one hand, and a lack of enthusiasm for manufacturing among young people on the other. Typically, conversations aimed at addressing the problem have been centered around the formation of apprenticeship programs, better STEM education at the primary and secondary levels, and means by which more one-on-one mentoring between experienced and newer employees might be facilitated in plant environments. Though much progress has been made with these approaches, a number of challenges remain. First of all, while many are hopeful that social distancing requirements will soon be loosened, the past year has rendered hands-on peer-to-peer instruction particularly difficult. Moreover, educational programs aimed at helping new employees acquire the skills they need to enter the man-

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ufacturing field aren’t always as effective in addressing the need for the current workforce to continually update its skills, as digital transformation often brings rapid alterations to prevailing work processes. Fortunately, much of the same technology facilitating Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) data interchange can also be used to foster digital knowledge transfer by enabling workers to access unified multimedia databases of training materials and other content from any location. This can take many forms; for instance, robotics supplier Universal Robots offers web-based training courses through its UR Academy platform, augmented reality (AR) headsets are increasingly being used to offer real-time remote assistance to field service professionals, and the ubiquitous presence of mobile devices such as smartphones is increasingly granting workers an always-on portal to any information they might require. DeepHow is an example of a company employing the latter approach. Its software allows end-users—who in this case take on the role of content creators—to record how-to videos that instruct workers on performing specific tasks and processes. From here, the content is uploaded to a secure knowledge database accessible to employees. While these core capabilities may seem relatively rudimentary, they are complimented by a suite of AI-powered tools that further streamline the curation and distribution of training materials. This is how the technology works: First, DeepHow automatically transcribes the spoken dialogue in the video, providing searchable, time-stamped text to accompany the video. In addition, the application is capable of translating the text into numerous languages that can be appended to the video as subtitles or read as plain text. Then, DeepHow analyzes the recorded content to break it down into a series of chapters or steps, allowing viewers to more

easily navigate to the section(s) that address their needs. The content creator can also alter the arrangement of these segments via click-and-drag mechanisms. They can also retitle them if they are not fully satisfied with the results the AI provides. Once the steps are established, each one becomes its own module so that if small parts of a process change or new protocols are implemented, a single portion of the overall training video can be replaced without needing to re-record the entire series of steps. Finally, other details and information can be attached to individual steps, such as additional text, graphs, schematics, and other images. The company estimates that its smart video delivery system is ten times faster than traditional video editing and dissemination techniques and results in a 25% improvement in worker performance. DeepHow has recently completed several months of piloting and is now targeting manufacturers and field service operations for further deployment.

“Fortunately, much of the same technology facilitating Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) data interchange can also be used to foster digital knowledge transfer by enabling workers to access unified multimedia databases of training materials and other content from any location.”

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14 PERSPECTIVES AW MAY 2021

How Digital Workflows Improve Manufacturing Operations By David Greenfield

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

aving visibility into production assets and using that info to drive improvements is the key to modern manufacturing—and business in general these days. However, in the operations technology space, visibility on the plant floor has been a challenge due to the number of different systems and equipment used from a variety of suppliers, which often leads to an environment that’s more reactive than proactive. To learn how visibility into assets enables digital workflow software to provide information in near real time to direct engineers, operators, and technicians in their day-to-day functions, we connected with James Destro, head of product for the manufacturing industries at ServiceNow, for a recent episode of the “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast series. ServiceNow is a supplier of digital workflow software that connects people, functions, and systems across organizations. “A workflow platform is essentially a system of action that helps guide people through managed tasks,” explained Destro. “Specifically, in the context of asset visibility and management, our platform helps discover operations technology assets and systems to give a clear view of what the technology landscape in a plant looks like. And once that foundation is established, asset management principles—including things like configuration management, asset lifecycle management, and service management—can be applied on top of those to increase the efficiency of your operational processes.”

Data modeling

As intuitive as modern manufacturing software is today, one of the well-recognized requirements to getting any kind of operational software up and running is building the data models that power the software. This process is quite a bit more involved than using the software itself, as inputting the data and building these models correctly is critical to the proper functioning of the software.

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“Managing automation equipment requires an ability to model operations technologies— level zero to three of the Purdue Model—and sometimes even level three and a half, or the DMZ, of the Purdue model,” Destro said. “These kinds of equipment have special characteristics, attributes, and features, and their application in the manufacturing environment is very specific. The model used by ServiceNow allows us to ingest and handle specific automation capabilities. To develop this, we’ve introduced 20 new technology classes, which include many new abilities to model the relationships of these automation systems. For example, the model considers how systems are connected, which type of system manages a different type of system, what kind of data exchanges happens among these automation systems, and what the criticality and relationship is between those systems. Explaining how data from these disparate systems on the factory floor are transformed into workflows for shop floor personnel, Destro said, “To execute workflows in an operation technology system, understanding the manufacturing context is critical. The digital twin model of assets used by the ServiceNow platform can be used in conjunction with the operations technology model, such as the Purdue Model. This aids in understanding the context of the plant floor technologies and their relationships, together with context such as location, upstream or downstream materials, and process flow. When you leverage those two together, you can truly drive workflow both in context of the automation technology and equipment there, but also in the context of manufacturing to understand the process and implications to production or manufacturing flow that would occur.” Providing an example of how this works in practice, Destro explained that asset management is about providing workflows to efficiently plan and execute maintenance, upgrades, and configuration activities. “One of the critical use cases our customers commonly approach with our platform is understand-

ing their overall asset inventory and the lifecycle management of these assets,” he said. “This includes the automated discovery of the assets, where we’re able to find what technology is on the shop floor and bring that into a unified data structure and database—the software, the firmware, and the assets themselves, as well as the assignment and review process of the associated workflows. From there, a complete set of processes around change management can be delivered to effectively update and maintain the compliance of the operations technology system.”

Security

Whenever the connection of assets in a manufacturing environment to a network is discussed, security is one of the main concerns. Explaining how ServiceNow approaches this issue, Destro said, “Once the assets are automatically discovered, the ServiceNow platform—through integration of capabilities from our security partners—automatically identifies known vulnerabilities with these technologies. These vulnerabilities are then assessed for risk and impact.” At this point, Destro said the next step is to develop a vulnerability response plan, so that these critical security issues can be addressed—not in isolation, but in conjunction with the manufacturing process. “Similar patterns exist for continuous threat detection, where we may detect a security incident which would require a response framework to address those incidents and allow for the workflow to minimize the impact of those incidents and minimize the risk footprint.”

Implementation timeline

Despite the detailed data modeling and security aspects associated with the deployment of workflow management software, Destro said ServiceNow users are often up and running with the software in a matter of weeks. “Working through the deployment process, which includes setting up the platform, automated discovery and configuration of assets

4/28/21 9:20 AM

PERSPECTIVES 15 AW MAY 2021

)GV Õ}i ` ÃV Õ ÌÃ >À`Ü>Ài > ` Ã vÌÜ>Ài } µÕ> ÌÞ i>` }i iÀ>Ì > ` ÀiviÀÀ> Ã 1 Ìi` vÀii ÌiV V> ÃÕ«« ÀÌ The Purdue Model of Computer Integrated Manufacturing. and operations technology systems, integrating with security providers, and then establishing workflow and patterns needed for overall asset management typically takes a couple of weeks,” Destro said. “Then the environment is replicated so that it can be scaled across an entire enterprise. For example, we have a customer that’s rolling out our software to more than 100 factories in parallel tracks. They’ve been able to do this in less than a year.

Workflow software benefits

While organizing shop floor personnel workflows is key to optimizing the day-today duties of workers and streamlining operations overall, what are the bottom-line benefits that users can expect to see? Destro said one of the largest and most immediate benefits ServiceNow customers talk about the most is reduction of downtime. “As we think about operations technology or automation systems used in manufacturing, downtime of an automation system could mean downtime of an entire production floor or factory line. And because of that, as we improve the ability to model and manage these operations, we see improved control and governance and a dramatically improved response and recovery from incidents that may cause downtime. Our focus on capturing the knowledge in a workflow platform is really what drives this whole knowledge management environment for how to solve and

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respond to incidents very quickly.” One ServiceNow customer mentioned by Destro has seen a 25% improvement in downtime incidents based on incident response and recovery lifecycles driven by the software. Users also see a reduction in labor and maintenance costs by automating the asset management processes as part of operator workflows. “Reducing the overall risk associated with vulnerabilities and security incidents is a big value for our customers,” Destro said. “All of us have heard time and time again about the increased cyber attacks happening in the critical infrastructure industries,” he said. “Being able to have a proactive cyber security posture against some of these vulnerabilities—and having a very proactive plan for security incident response—is a big driver towards the value” that can be derived from workflow software.

Hear the full interview with James Destro of ServiceNow in this episode of “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast series at awgo.to/1171.

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16 PERSPECTIVES AW MAY 2021

Is Your Company Prepared to Make the Digital Transformation? ByName DavidLastname Greenfield By

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

hether your goal is to start collecting and analyzing more equipment data for production optimization or to implement digital twins for advanced predictive maintenance, one requirement remains the same: assessing your readiness. This type of assessment is not a new facet in the process of digital transformation. In fact, in July 2019 Automation World conducted a study of its readers to determine how many had assessed their readiness for the digital future of manufacturing. That study showed that nearly one-third (32%) reported their organization had “clearly stated objectives of technology modernization related to IIoT or Industry 4.0.” Another 48% either had started updating technology without specific corporate goals or were developing plans for modernization. Only 20% of respondents said their organization was on the sidelines with no technology modernization initiatives planned for now. To help manufacturers assess their readiness for digital technology implementation, a number of resources have been developed. For example, The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) offers its IIoT Maturity Assessment, a web-based tool included in the IIC Resource Hub that enables users to better understand their enterprise IIoT maturity. The IIC Resource Hub is an online interface to the IIC’s resources designed to guide users through the analysis and planning of their own IIoT projects. More recently, Emerson announced the release of its Digital Maturity Quick Index designed to help companies target specific digital transformation priorities with the highest potential return on investment. This free, online diagnostic tool uses Emerson’s Digital Transformation Roadmap with input from the Smart Industry Readiness Index and the BioPhorum Digital Plant Maturity Model. The interactive diagnostic tool is

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designed to help companies benchmark their competitiveness against industry peers. According to Emerson, the Digital Maturity Quick Index “combines specific company financials and business objectives, allowing organizations to compare themselves against others in their industries and have a clear picture of where their digital transformation programs can have the greatest impact. The tool uncovers users’ biggest potential areas for improvement and technology investments by analyzing the largest costs and key performance initiatives. It scores operational maturity across key domains including reliability, energy and environmental sustainability, production, safety, security, systems and data, and organizational effectiveness.”

Following receipt of these insights from the tool, users can connect with Emerson’s professional services consultants for help in reviewing their digital transformation objectives as well as development and implementation of a multiyear roadmap. In its release about the Digital Maturity Quick Index, Emerson said it plans to continuously enhance the tool over the coming months with a focus on sustainability, analytics, and data management assessments.

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PERSPECTIVES 17 AW MAY 2021

Artificial Intelligence Use in the Energy Sector Targets Operations Visibility By David Miller

Senior Technical Writer, Automation World

ith energy sector operations seeking to balance efficiency, profitability, and sustainability, technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly making their way into power generation, transmission, and distribution. Finding ways to squeeze more efficiency out of assets is perhaps even more important in energy than it is in manufacturing—particularly in fields such as oil and gas where margins have shrunk substantially since the onset of COVID-19 as people have stayed in place and transportation has ground to a halt. Not only that, but cutting costs by increasing efficiency may also yield a reduction in carbon emissions, which is becoming a growing priority for many companies as pressure mounts to invest in more environmentally-friendly operations. Just as in manufacturing, AI is seen by many as the next frontier in the digital transformation of the energy sector due to its ability to help companies grapple with the unprecedented volumes of data created by field devices and other assets. By assisting in the process of deriving insights from that data, AI may allow operators to more effectively implement changes that optimize production. According to projections from the World Economic Forum, oil and gas alone has the potential to unlock $275 billion in revenue through operational optimization of its existing infrastructure. However, a recent survey from the MAPI Foundation indicates that 47% of respondents say their companies’ workforces lack the digital skills necessary to integrate AI into their workflow. That’s why a more accessible approach could significantly ease adoption. Following from this trend, Canvass AI, a cloud-based AI platform delivered via a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, was recently adopted by two major energy companies specializing in oil and gas and geothermal, respectively. Canvass AI employs a “no code” approach, which the company hopes will place the benefits of AI more directly within reach

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of operators and engineers. “The addition of these customers proves that industrial companies can quickly extract value from their digital investments using our no-code AI platform,” said Humera Malik, CEO at Canvass AI. “The Canvass AI platform is founded on three core pillars: providing the predictive insights to improve resiliency; empowering the operations workforce with AI and removing the reliance on consultants; and paving the way for environmentally sustainable operations with a scalable platform where AI can be applied across the entire facility. The result is an AI platform in which operations teams can create immediate impact in their day-to-day operations.” Prominent features included in the Canvass AI platform include: automated connecting, standardization, and cleaning of data col-

lected from multiple sources; interactive data visualization that allows engineers to contextualize information via charts and graphs to more easily identify trends; pre-coded machine learning templates that can be deployed in common use cases, such as anomaly detection, asset and process optimization, and asset failure prediction; scalability to support AI deployment across multiple locations; and integration with Canvass Academy, an online learning platform that provides end-users with hands-on labs to accelerate their proficiency with Canvass AI.

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Industrial Cybersecurity Concerns Heat Up in The Era of COVID-19 By David Miller

Senior Technical Writer, Automation World

s industrial companies connect plant-level software and devices to internet-connected enterprise systems, cybersecurity has become a critical operations issue for manufacturers of all sizes. While the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) greatly expands the efficiency of plant floor operations, it also introduces countless new vectors for potential cyberattacks. With more data flowing in and out of plants, the concern is that once localized networks will become more vulnerable. The threat actors seeking to exploit these new loopholes include disgruntled employees and criminals attempting to steal intellectual property or other sensitive information for purposes of extortion, hacktivists who desire to garner public attention for their causes, and state-backed foreign agents engaged in espionage activities for political purposes. Unfortunately, the risk of many of these types of attacks has only grown since the onset of COVID-19, according to cybersecurity company CrowdStrike’s recently released 2021 Global Threat Report. This increased hacking activity stems from several sources. For one, as lockdowns took hold in early 2020, many workers migrated to home offices that lacked the cybersecurity protections of commercial work-

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Source: CrowdStrike’s 2021 Global Threat Report places equipped with dedicated information technology (IT) staff. In addition, as remote access boomed, the potential attack surface available to hackers was broadened. Finally,

fear and uncertainty surrounding the pandemic has increasingly been exploited to engage in phishing attacks and other forms of social engineering designed to trick users into granting malevolent actors access to proprietary systems and information. CrowdStrike’s report details recent efforts engaged in by state-sponsored adversaries looking to steal valuable data pertaining to vaccine research and government responses to COVID-19 as well as targeted intrusions, sometimes referred to as “big game hunting.” In these latter efforts, e-criminals identify high-value individual targets for extortion and blackmail via infection with ransomware—software that locks users out of a system until a fee is paid. The report notes that ransomware attacks on manufacturing facilities have proven uniquely effective, as the time-sensitive nature of their production schedules often renders paying the fee less expensive than losing critical throughput.

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CrowdStrike has observed a strong uptick in cybersecurity breaches in the past year. Manufacturing alone saw 228 ransomware incidents in 2020. In addition to individual manufacturing facilities, healthcare and the supply chain also stood out in 2020 as particularly vulnerable. In the healthcare space, phishing attacks currently pose the greatest risk, with tactics and techniques taking a plethora of forms, including: exploitation of individuals looking for details on disease tracking, testing, and treatment; impersonation of medical bodies requesting information, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and offering financial assistance or government stimulus packages in exchange for private information. Meanwhile, cyberattacks on the supply chain have relied on more sophisticated methods. For instance, in December of 2020, public reporting revealed a complex supply chain attack against the update deployment mechanism of the SolarWinds

Orion IT management software. Those responsible for this attack were able to distribute malicious code which had the ability to collect information about the host, enumerate files and services on the system, modify registry keys, and terminate system processes. According to CrowdStrike’s report, supply chain attacks represent an especially pernicious tactic because they allow malicious actors to propagate their attack from a single point of intrusion to multiple downstream targets. Following from this, CrowdStrike identifies the securing of cloud environments as a priority for cybersecurity professionals in the years to come. To chart ongoing threats, CrowdStrike has also created an eCrime index based on various observables which are weighted by impact and continuously monitored. The index will allow users to remain aware of the changing mechanisms and tactics used to exploit vulnerable systems and will include additional analysis provided by CrowdStrike’s subject matter experts.

Watch this “Take Five with Automation World” video to find out what industries are being targeted, who these e-criminals are, and how to protect your factory. View at awgo.to/1183.

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Spatial Computing and Digital Twin Drive Interactive AR Simulations By David Miller

Senior Technical Writer, Automation World

earable technologies and 5G wireless connectivity have long had an affinity for one another. Wearables can allow end-users to become walking, talking sensors capable of generating valuable data insights that can be used to improve workplace safety and ergonomics. In addition, augmented reality (AR), when paired with a wearable device, can grant field service professionals working in dangerous conditions access to hands-free schematics, instruction manuals, and even real-time audio-video feeds for remote assistance from distant subject matter experts. However, because harsh industrial conditions can often render the use of physical cabling difficult or impossible, the reliable wireless access provided by 5G has been indispensable to these technologies’ deployment in many fields. In a similar vein, the deployment of digital twin simulations has also had a synergistic relationship with 5G, as its improved connectivity has enabled large quantities of data to be transmitted in real-time with minimal latency issues. Now, in the spirit of convergence that characterizes so much of Industry 4.0—5G wireless connectivity, AR, and digital twin simulations are becoming more closely connected as new spatial computing platforms emerge to grant workers and engineers immersive access to digital replicas of various environments.

For instance, PTC’s recently released Vuforia Engine Area Targets software—which is an extension of the company’s Vuforia AR enterprise platform—bills itself as the first piece of software on the market capable of creating fully immersive digital replicas of spaces up to 300,000 square feet in size. These digital twins set themselves apart from other CAD representations by allowing human workers to interact with them using AR interfaces to operate machinery virtually and better understand how the environment is being utilized for either training or workflow optimization purposes. Area Targets builds its simulations by leveraging support from 3D scanner technology provided by software company Matteport and producer of geological survey instrumentation Leica 3D. In addition, an indoor mobile map-

ping system developed by spatial intelligence company NavVis is used to assist in generating reportedly photorealistic digital twins of spaces including factories, malls, offices, and other complex indoor environments. Potential applications for Area Targets’ spatial computing capabilities include: optimizing various procedures within a given environment by acquiring a more complete picture of worker movements within the space over a period of time; providing data to machine learning algorithms to fuel spatial analytics that can improve performance; and gaining insight into how a physical space is used to make more informed design and layout decisions that enhance utilization, efficiency, and safety.

Ford and Nissan Use HP 3D Printing to Address Production Sustainability By David Greenfield

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

hen you think about key computing technologies supporting advanced automation applications in manufacturing, Hewlett-Packard (HP) is not often the first technology supplier that comes to

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mind. After all, the company tends to be better known for its front office IT technologies. However, HP has been at the forefront of a number of advanced manufacturing applications on the plant floor for some time now. For example, Foxconn’s use of HPE Pointnext services to address quality assurance issues by deploying machine learning at the edge, and the introduction of the HP Metal

Jet printer for high-volume manufacturing of production-grade metal parts. Now, both Ford and Nissan have announced new sustainability programs enabled by HP 3D printing technology. Ford is re-using spent 3D printed powders and parts and turning them into injection molded fuel-line clips for its Super Duty F-250 trucks. The automotive manufacturer

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says this re-use of 3D printing materials is an industry first and that it has already identified 10 other fuel-line clips on other vehicles for which this process can be used. Debbie Mielewski, Ford technical fellow, sustainability, said, “Many companies are finding great uses for 3D printing technologies, but, together with HP, we’re the first to find a highvalue application for waste powder that likely would have gone to a landfill by transforming it into functional and durable auto parts.” Ford says that recycled materials from HP’s 3D have “better chemical and moisture resistance than conventional fuel-line clips, are 7% lighter, and cost 10% less.”

Nissan, Solize, and HP

At Nissan, HP’s 3D printing technology is being used in a joint effort by Solize Corp. and HP Inc. to design and manufacture 3D-printed replacement parts for Nissan’s NISMO (the motorsports and performance division of the Nissan Motor Company). HP’s

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Industry Ready For Safe Return of In-Person Trade Shows By Sean Riley, Senior Director, Media and Industry Communications, PMMI

egistration is open for PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO (Sept. 27-29, Las Vegas Convention Center). After more than a year away from in-person trade shows, nearly nine out of ten packaging and processing end-users say in-person trade shows are essential for networking and discovering what is new in the industry, according to a recent poll from show producer PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies. With respondents citing in-person trade shows as the most critical resource when choosing equipment, PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO is poised to be an unbeatable opportunity to connect with the industry and explore technology in action. “This survey confirmed our belief that the industry relishes the unique opportunity to conduct business and see equipment in-per-

son, with many noting that trade shows reveal solutions they were not considering before discovering them live,” says Laura Thompson, PMMI vice president, trade shows. One survey respondent said that nothing could replace “being able to see and touch equipment while asking questions and receiving immediate feedback.” Another cited that the diverse array of exhibitors and education found at in-person events “make it a onestop-shop for investigating multiple solutions” for current projects as well as potential ideas on the horizon. With its PACK Ready health and safety program, PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO will reunite the packaging and processing community, implementing thorough and up-to-date protocols for a safe and successful in-person event. Learn more at packexpolasvegas.com/packready. PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO is the only show this year covering the entire packaging and processing industry with the latest new materials, tech-

nologies and solutions to address the packaging and processing needs of 40-plus vertical markets. With multiple free educational platforms and countless networking opportunities, the event will provide endless prospects for exchanging ideas and professional growth. Industry partners continue to support the event as part of the PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO Partner Program, with 15 association partners already signed on to support and exhibit at the show, including the Association for Contract Packagers and Manufacturers (CPA), Institute of Packaging Professionals (IoPP), The Organization for Machine Automation and Control (OMAC), Flexible Packaging Association, Reusable Packaging Association, and more. Early bird registration is $30, through Sept. 6 when the price goes up to $100. Visit packexpolasvegas.com/registration-info to secure a place at this vital industry event.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21 Multi Jet Fusion platform is used for production of these parts. The first part identified for restoration using 3D printing is a plastic part of the harness protector for the R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R (after an initial production run from 1969-1973, the Skyline GT-R was again produced from 1989-2002). The part is produced using HP High Reusability PA 11 which reportedly provides high mechanical properties and design flexibility. This project represents a potential sea change for automotive manufacturers who have traditionally been required to provide replacement parts for their products over extended periods of time. As such, producing or storing parts for vehicles that have been discontinued, upgraded, or overhauled can be expensive, as manufacturers don’t retain molds for these parts or continue to manage inventory storage and logistics for them. “We are seeing leaders of industry like Nissan recognize the massive cost implications of storage, molds, and logistics for replace-

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Injection molded fuel-line clips for Ford’s Super Duty F-250 trucks made with used 3D printed powders and parts. ment parts and how industrial 3D printing can help,” said Jon Wayne, head of global commercial business for 3D printing and digital manufacturing at HP Inc. “Digital manufacturing is a viable, long-term solution for

accelerating production and transforming supply chains.”

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IP Router Simplifies Remote Access to Gas-Fired Turbine System How Contemporary Controls’ EIPR Skorpion IP routers were used to simplify the machine installation and network configuration of a gas turbine system. By Harpartap Parmar, Senior Product Manager, Contemporary Controls

lexEnergy, headquartered in Portsmouth, N.H., engineers and builds robust small gas turbine products. The GT333 consists of a 480V AC highvoltage panel where the generator is located and a 120V AC and 24V DC low-

voltage panel for the controls. “During development of the GT333, we were looking for a method to simplify the Ethernet network within our control system. We had two goals in mind, one goal was to create a cookie-cutter setup of all the devices

within the machine to make the configuration of all machines the same, thus simplifying configuration management and service training,” said Adam Mitchneck, controls engineer at FlexEnergy. “The other goal was to have only one IP address for external access to all devices within the machine, thus simplifying network configuration on customer sites. While searching for a method to achieve our goals, we happened upon Contemporary Controls and their Skorpion IP routers.” The Skorpion IP router simplifies device IP integration. Each machine or subsystem, consisting of multiple IP devices, connects to the LAN side of the router while keeping their same IP settings for the devices and the application, lowering installation cost and eliminating trouble shooting. The IP address for the WAN port on the IP router is the only setting that requires modification to join the factory network, allowing rapid integration and the ability for multiple machines to reuse the same configuration on the LAN side.

Remote access

The GT333 control panel consists of a PLC, an HMI, an embedded PC, and an inverter that form an internal network connected to the LAN side of the IP router with a built-in 4-port switch.

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The GT333 control panel consists of a PLC, an HMI, an embedded PC, and an inverter that form an internal network connected to the LAN side of the IP router with a builtin 4-port switch. For sites requiring additional IP equipment on the internal network, a Contemporary Controls 5-port EISK5-100T Ethernet switch was used for expansion. The

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available Ethernet ports can also be used by the customer to add additional devices to the network if required. Using the Port Forwarding feature of the IP router, the different IP ports from the external WAN IP address were mapped to different internal LAN devices in the control panel. This setup was then easily uploaded to multiple routers for use in different turbines allowing for the same configuration to be used across all the devices. This helped speed up the testing of the turbine while being built at the factory and the installation at the site by just requiring the WAN IP address to be configured. No other IP settings for the devices or the applications needed to be modified at the install site. The setup allowed FlexEnergy to have direct access to the PLC through the router, allowing for the programming or monitoring of the PLC. The HMI could also be accessed through the router as well as the inverter. The inverter could be enabled or disabled along with the ability to monitor the battery status. The embedded PC ran some proprietary applications but again, it could be easily accessed from the WAN side by a remote desktop application. All the tools could be

run locally on the embedded PC without adding extra traffic to the customer’s network.

Router details

The Skorpion series of IP routers eases the integration of new machines into the existing network. The EIPR routers have a 10/100Mbps Ethernet WAN port and a built-in 4-port LAN switch. The EIGR series of IP and VPN routers add Gigabit ports for faster speeds and higher data throughput. The EIGR-C series of cellular routers offers built-in cellular modem for easy connectivity to cellular networks. A built-in firewall prevents direct unauthorized access to the LAN side devices from the WAN side. But the routers provide features such as Port Forwarding, Port Range Forwarding, and NAT that allow for WAN to LAN access. The WAN port can be configured for a static IP address or can be assigned a DHCP address via the built-in DHCP client for greater flexibility in integrating quickly to the customer’s network. The IP router also keeps the multicast and broadcast traffic separated to the LAN or WAN network, keeping the IP devices running smoothly without having to deal with unnecessary traffic filtering. The scheme can be easily applied for integrating any IP device network

irrespective of the IP traffic or the industry type. The routers are DIN-Rail mounted, have a robust metal enclosure, are UL approved, and operate on 24V AC/DC, which makes for an easy addition in a control panel. “Initially, we were using the EIPR-E router to simplify our machine’s setup,” said Mitchneck. “With a fixed IP address for every device, our service technicians can quickly locate the device they wish to communicate with regardless of the customer’s site. We have since upgraded to the new EIGRE gigabit Ethernet router for its higher throughput and support of 1000T communication. Transition from the EIPR-E to the EIGR-E was smooth and painless as the two routers have a similar setup and footprint. We have been very pleased with the performance and reliability of the EIGR-E router. It has enabled our customers to collect more data at faster rates for application requiring higher throughput.” VPN models of the Skorpion routers are also available that provide secure remote access.

The GT333 gas turbine consists of a 480V AC high-voltage panel where the generator is located and a 120V AC and 24V DC low-voltage panel for the controls.

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The Importance of the Word “Industrial” in the Industrial Internet of Things When creating industrial IIoT control systems, hardware and software platforms must be provided by an operations technology-focused expert. By Silvia Gonzalez, Solutions Development Leader, and Nishita Palkar, Senior Product Manager, Emerson Machine Automation Solutions

he need for manufacturing companies to be able to access their operational data so they can make informed decisions is, by now, well established. This realization does not mean that the path forward is clearly defined, however. Many hardware and software options are available, although not all are suitable for industrial applications. The always-on nature of operational technology (OT) systems makes it clear that any industrial internet of things (IIoT) devices must be correspondingly robust. This capability is required for these systems to reliably connect with, manipulate, and transport data to the information technology (IT) systems, where users and applications could access the results. Traditional programmable logic controllers (PLCs) usually do not have the required inbuilt computing capability, so more capable edge controllers are a superior option. However, in many new and retrofit projects, the most flexible edge computing option is an industrial PC (IPC), but only if it is built to survive and is outfitted with the right OTcentric software.

Endurance

The industrial edge is where all the most relevant data sources are located—as well as extremes of shock, vibration, contaminants, and temperature. High heat is a particular enemy of digital devices and requires special attention.

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Not only will typical consumer- or commercial-grade IT devices fail early in edge environments, but the typical IT device lifetime of three years is well below OT equipment lifespans, which can extend a decade or more. Another problem with PCs at the edge is that IT personnel are much scarcer at these locations, making support difficult. While many vendors tout their products as IPCs, users in the field have discovered there is some variability to these claims. Some IPCs may not be tested stringently enough, and others may only meet specifications by compromising other performance aspects. And down the road, these IPCs simply may not offer the scalability and longevity needed for OT projects.

Truly industrial IPCs

To properly meet performance and reliability demands, industrial users need IPCs built by organizations intimately familiar with OT conditions. Industry experts with broad OT experience know how to design a PC for the target environment, test it rigorously, ensure a long support lifecycle, and package it with the options and scalability needed for IIoT projects. Thermal design is a primary concern. Careful design will consider primary components like CPUs (central processing units) and secondary components like SSDs (solid-state drives), and will ensure that heat sinks and thermal conductive paths are optimized to avoid hot spots. In some cases, patented IPC

thermal designs and strict testing protocols can result in operating temperatures about 10oC lower than traditional IPCs would experience in a similar environment, delivering life expectancy improvements. End users appreciate IPCs with a reasonable set of configuration options—just enough to meet their needs while simplifying ordering and stocking. Similarly, modular designs enabled by a COM Express architecture are popular because they make future upgrades easier. Users should also look for IPCs designed to meet their thermal ratings at 100% CPU performance, following a zero-throttle principal, in zero airflow conditions. Some IPCs may only be able to meet specifications by throttling their CPUs or by assuming cabinet airflow, both of which may be unacceptable in real-world conditions.

Edge-capable software

While many digital edge devices come with their own software onboard, an edge IPC must be equipped with the necessary OT-centric software packages. The operating system is commonly installed in IPCs, but some users prefer the option of obtaining an IPC with no operating system so they can build it up from scratch to meet their exact requirements or install their proprietary software. Industrial software is obviously available as a separate purchase, but many users prefer the streamlined experience and advan-

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tages of selecting software suites from an OT expert that also offers IPCs, perhaps even pre-installed on the IPC as it is procured. Because IPCs may be used in many types of applications, there are many common roles enabled by various software suites: • IIoT data collection; • Visualization for local, remote, or mobile users; • Gateway for higher level enterprise systems and cloud connectivity; and • Analytical computing. An IPC may carry out one, many, or all of these roles. Therefore, for projects using more than one software suite, it is often prudent

to obtain all software from a single vendor to improve interoperability, reduce development cost, and provide a single point of accountability.

IPCs for merging OT with IT

End users, systems integrators, and OEMs are increasingly finding they need to buildin IIoT capabilities, or add them to their automated machines and systems. The digital transformation journey calls for installing hardware and software for gathering little data from edge locations, performing a degree of pre-processing, and then

transmitting the results to higher-level systems, where it becomes big data. A truly industrial IPC installed at the edge and configured with edge-capable software is often the best platform for implementing IIoT projects, but not all IPCs are created equal. Obtaining an IPC and software from a committed industrial expert with deep OT experience ensures expected performance, simplifies the ordering process, and is the most reliable way to achieve the best results.

IPCs developed by companies with a strong OT background, such as Emerson, benefit from design and testing to ensure they provide full performance at all specified operating ranges.

Emerson’s portfolio of RXi2 IPCs are designed to run advanced visualization, IIoT, analytics, and other applications close to the data sources in the most demanding edge locations.

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How Digitalization Propels Industry Toward Greater OEE By uniting end users, OEMs, and tier-one suppliers in support of uptime and sustainability, the digital transformation of industry can be leveraged to maximize overall equipment effectiveness and grow business through assured customer satisfaction. By Rodney Pennings, Director of Sales at PCMC, a Berry-Wehmiller Co.; and Mike Mattson, Industrial Segment Sales Engineer at Festo

o help illustrate how the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are transforming industry, let’s look at the effects already being felt in flexography—the printing process which can be used to print on plastic, metallic films, cellophane, and paper.

The foundation of Industry 4.0 and IIoT is digitalization—the process of converting information into bits for use by intelligent systems. Digitalized systems enable greater uptime through predictive analytics, faster changeover through automated motion, superior quality through precision and repeatabil-

ity, and greater sustainability through lowering waste and energy consumption. Digitalization is also changing the relationships between suppliers and customers by drawing printing operations personnel, IT departments, equipment OEMs, and their tier-one suppliers into new and highly

The new generation of flexographic presses are loaded with fast make-ready and wastesaving features. Photo courtesy of PCMC

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Available now

IO-Link-based sensors, that connect to the interfaces like the one shown here, cost about the same as other sensors but have the added value of faster commissioning, greater data acquisition, and data integration with the cloud through IIoT. Photo courtesy of Festo effective proactive/virtual teams. The goal of these teams is to maximize overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and grow their print operation’s business through assured customer satisfaction.

Social change and product proliferation

Even with all the focus today on Industry 4.0 and IIoT, it’s important to realize that technology is not where the story of digitalization for improved profitability begins. Instead, it starts with social change. One of the most notable of these changes is the critical shortage of skilled press technicians, as fewer people today choose manufacturing careers. Furthermore, society’s thirst for new products, as well as custom products, has led to the proliferation of stock keeping units (SKUs), making it difficult to profitably run printing presses because its takes time to changeover the press and adjust it. At the

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same time, retailers and the public expect industry to strive to reduce waste and lower energy usage during production. The social trends of fewer skilled workers, SKU proliferation, shorter product lifecycles, and greater sustainability were factored into the development of Industry 4.0 concepts. Industry 4.0 envisions modular and reconfigurable manufacturing systems that lower capital costs and shorten time to market for new equipment. Industry 4.0 concepts anticipate the merger of automation and big data in manufacturing, IIoT cloud-based systems, cyber-physical systems that change functionality based on downloadable algorithms, and artificial intelligence (AI). Industry 4.0 is not a destination, but rather a direction that technologists and motion system providers apply to their product development roadmaps. Leading flexographic press OEMs also include key Industry 4.0 concepts into their product development plans.

Industry 4.0 and IIoT innovations are not simply the province of futurists. Developments are available now that involve hardware and software combined with AI to automate complex printing adjustments. For example, a new AI solution can automatically stabilize the print process by suppressing the disturbance associated with the hard edge. This AI-based system largely removes the impact of bounce in flexographic printing for greater quality, less waste, and faster changeover. Without digitalization this solution could never have happened. The following are additional examples of intelligence, automation, and other design changes being added to flexographic presses today by leading OEMs to ensure that presses run more automatically with faster changeover and more sustainable operations: • Sleeved plate and anilox mandrels for faster print job changeover; • Automatic viscosity control systems for maintaining consistent print quality; • Automatic print impression setting for reducing waste; • Automatic registration setting for reducing waste; • Highly effective drying systems that promote higher production speeds; • Automatic splice/transfer winders for higher up-time; • Automatic print deck wash-up systems for faster print job changeover; • Inline print inspection systems for realtime print quality monitoring; • Web thread-up system for higher uptime; and • Automatic impression cylinder wash-up system that offers efficient maintenance of the cylinder surface.

Enabling technologies

Following are some of the leading hardware and software systems available today that take machines to the next level of productivity. Expect to see increasing use of these technologies as new machines are introduced. • Intelligence down to the sensor level is essential for predictive analytics. The ability to predict faults before they happen and improve OEE. One of the most important recent developments has been the IO-Link open standard for smart sen-

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Cyber-physical motion systems change functionality via downloadable apps. They offer rapid change in functionality and lower overall costs. Photo courtesy of Festo sors. IO-Link-based sensors cost about the same as other sensors but have the added value of faster commissioning, greater data acquisition, and data integration with the cloud through IIoT. Along with IO-Link, a range of intelligent sensor technologies are making an exceptional contribution to improved operations. • New Remote I/O systems are a vital and cost-effective means of driving intelligence deeper into the machine, while making installation faster and easier. Remote I/O systems boost system performance improvements through faster overall automated response. Smart energy conservation hardware and software monitor compressed air consumption and provide information and control that minimize energy usage. • Cyber-physical motion. Systems that change functionality via downloadable apps offer rapid change in functionality, flexibility, and the cost advantages

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of lowering the number of components requiring support. For example, a single cyber-physical pneumatic valve pack can potentially replace dozens of different components. • AI-based systems make complex machine adjustments automatically, quickly, and precisely. • Ethernet gateways for secure cloudbased analytics are becoming more ingrained in control architectures.

Culture and collaboration

Operation of complex machines benefits from virtual internal and external teams available 24/7 to accurately diagnose and rectify issues before OEE is affected. These teams will be staffed by internal maintenance personnel, the OEM, and, as required, key component suppliers. Team members will collaborate in real-time via emerging webbased applications and mobile devices. Internal IT departments will create connectivity

solutions that facilitate access yet maintain overall enterprise security. To combat unplanned downtime, press OEMs and printing operations’ maintenance personnel will collaborate in the use of cloudbased predictive analytic tools to proactively identify components in imminent danger of failing. For example, it is now possible for a press OEM to utilize a dashboard to predict a pump or drive failure several weeks or even months ahead of an actual incident. In this scenario, the OEM alerts maintenance personnel to the problem, and the internal maintenance team replaces the failing component before it causes an unexpected shutdown. All of the technologies mentioned in this article are available now and are becoming widely available. Leading OEMs are providing presses that address the issues of cultural change in more automated processes, faster changeover, and improved sustainability.

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From Warehouse to Enterprise with Edge Computing How a hand sanitizer packaging plant is using a unique automation architecture to modernize its operations. By Josh Eastburn, Director of Technical Marketing, Opto 22

n response to the increasing demand for hand sanitizer in 2020, Emerald 66 Enterprises (E66) set up shop in an empty denim processing plant in Seminole, Okla. In only three months, with the help of system integrator Northeast Automation Company Inc. (NACI), E66 had automated packaging lines producing up to 1 million bottles of hand sanitizer a week in a cGMP-compliant facility; and the company continues to expand its core capabilities at a rapid clip. Let’s examine the technologies and techniques used to achieve competitive advantage in a challenging market environment.

Getting down to business

When E66 hired NACI to automate its bottling and packaging process, the company understood it was competing against low-paid, highvolume workforces operating manually and believed it could use technology to do more with a smaller, better-paid workforce. “Each piece of equipment needs to be intelligent…because management is so keen on information,” explained Thomas Coombs, principal engineer at NACI. “We’re going to make every conveyor and every device smart.” To achieve this, Coombs planned to employ edge computing—an approach that

adds general-purpose data processing and connectivity capabilities to traditional realtime control and sensing applications—to build an information management system at the same time that he scaled up production capabilities. He did this using Opto 22’s groov family of industrial edge controllers and I/O. But E66 had also determined that the quickest way to build a new packaging process was by acquiring a variety of equipment at auction. The state of equipment on arrival varied widely and NACI had to get creative in order to design a cohesive system at the speed that Emerald 66 needed.

A rotary filler/capper unit at Emerald 66.

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Partial Emerald 66 architecture.

Layered distributed control

To address the different circumstances the team faced, NACI employed a unique architecture that enabled separate control systems to function together and also laid a foundation for E66’s data acquisition goals. At the top level, NACI used a groov EPIC (edge programmable industrial controller) to establish a primary control network. EPICs combine PLC control with embedded HMI, OPC UA, and secure gateway server functions. The EPIC supervised the process lines, connected disparate devices through REST APIs, and integrated any equipment that arrived with a defunct control system as simple remote I/O. Any functional controllers, on the other hand, were left in place and loosely coupled to the main process using groov RIO edge I/O modules. These modules provide software-configurable, multi-signal I/O channels, and are powered over Ethernet, making them quick to deploy. Upon arrival, NACI placed

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a module in each piece of equipment, connected any I/O wires, and identified the types of signals the equipment provided. These I/O signals were then integrated into the groov EPIC network in parallel with the existing PLC I/O connections, which continued to function independently. Coombs noted, “The ease with which you can do this—you’re talking about a half-hour of wiring. Your biggest problem is finding the documentation from the original manufacturer.” NACI also engineered an additional layer of control independent of the groov EPIC by building limited local control into each groov RIO module through Node-Red, an embedded, open-source IoT platform from IBM. Living up to the ambition to make every device smart, NACI added motors, photo eyes, load cells, and other instrumentation to many pieces of semi-automated and dumb equipment, connected these to local groov RIO modules, and added Node-Red logic to make them work together and report process data up to the supervisory level.

E66 Chief Operating Officer Robert Bodnar explained, “The top-level process [in the EPIC] is turning on two lines or three lines. If you have a line coming in and you have a line going out, they may not be running at the same speed…so it’s kinda neat to be able to say, okay, what if we use the groov RIOs to control just the lines and the belt and case packers and things like that?” This loosely coupled, distributed architecture allowed NACI to assemble its production line without modifying any of the existing control systems that came as part of their purchased equipment. This strategy ultimately saved them development time, and, in three months, Coombs and his team had 15 pieces of equipment up and running. But this wouldn’t be their last challenge.

The big pivot

Because it had built its business around packaging and distribution for a single large purchaser, Emerald 66’s process was originally designed to maximize throughput. But the

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situation changed significantly when that customer suffered a financial setback and had to close production. Then, the whole business had to pivot to allow E66 to become a multi-product facility. Automation grew from processing a high volume of single-formulation, one-gallon 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 production line made it easy to modify individual segments without interrupting their data collection and process integration. In combination with on-site panel building and 3D printing capabilities, their investment in edge-oriented automation allowed them to retool very quickly and break even on their initial investment within six months.

Data-ready automation

In addition to using Node-Red to cement process control, E66 has started moving data from each groov device into relational and timeseries databases, financial software, and other

connected systems. And since Node-Red is a free, open-source application, E66 is adding it to the company’s back-end systems as well so they can push data down into the control system. “You might want to trip a lot number forward on a device or increment something based on a date that’s somewhat arbitrary, based on a business event, not necessarily on a machine event,” Bodnar explained. “[NodeRed] gives you a very lightweight way to run an operational bus or hub.” For example, Emerald 66 purchased a standalone pallet wrapping machine that used a proprietary circuit board design and offered only a limited operator interface. However, by adding load cells, connecting them to a groov RIO module, and feeding that data to Node-Red, E66 could sanity check the weight based on the known pallet contents and communicate the pallet number, lot number, shipping weight, and date to its central database to create bills of lading automatically.

More to come

business. It is adapting to accommodate new functions like on-site container molding, bulk product blending, and additional quality control procedures. Bodnar says he is defying the industry norm of investing in a multi-million dollar build for an automated facility and instead “putting in just enough automation to double my business, literally; which is going to make the company's year. And then I can grow into that. And I'm not going to have to go back and rip and replace everything. We'll tweak things, but I'm not going to have to throw away anything that I do because I can scale it.” “The fluidity and dynamics of modern manufacturing requires extremely fast response to changing market demands,” added NACI’s Coombs. “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.” For more information on Emerald 66 and Northeast Automation Company Inc., visit emerald-66.com and northeastautomationco.com, respectively.

As demand grows, Emerald 66 continues to expand its automation and diversify its

Emerald 66’s operations grew to accommodate many packaging sizes and product formulations.

Opto 22’s groov EPIC edge programmable industrial controller and groov RIO edge I/O module.

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Information Models: Defining Data and Relations As ever-more amounts of manufacturing data are being used at enterprise IT levels, the challenge of easily accessing, collecting, and processing that data is growing. To tackle this challenge, the power of information models has become clear. By Michael Bowne, Executive Director, PI North America

n the past, a control engineer would look at the description files of all of the different devices in the factory. One by one, these devices would be combed through to discern the format of the data provided. This, of course, is unique for each individual device. To put it simply, this process was a bit of a cumbersome task just to enable communication between a controller and a device. Things became a little easier with the introduction of application profiles. Application profiles standardize the format and structure of data from a family of devices. For example, the way data is presented from all drives, independent of vendor, is the same. Then, when the control engineer configures the drive per the application profile, the data is more quickly and easily available for programming. Not all of the data available from devices is needed by the controller for running the plant. As smarter devices come on the market, even more data can be made available, though not necessarily used in the day-to-day automation. In these instances, edge gate-

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ways are becoming an increasingly popular, and, in fact, preferred way to access that data. However, the presentation of the data from different edge gateway manufacturers could vary. Here, information models like OPC UA, can be helpful to standardize data for higher level IT systems. To hasten this process, companion specifications are being written. These companion specifications take the information models in application profiles and translate them to OPC UA information models. But what about devices that don’t have an associated application profile or are connected to the edge gateway via a different fieldbus? For these situations, unified libraries for all possible values and attributes exist. Examples include ECLASS, umati, AutomationML, PA-DIM, and more. They help integrate these data into the information model. With the application profiles, general companion specifications, and unified libraries, a complete information model of the devices can be constructed. It is often the case that multiple devices

of the same type are installed in a plant. An engineer then needs an easy way to determine the location of each specific device to map its data to the correct process or asset in the production. An information model of the plant helps locate the devices. Then, relations can be defined between the device information model and the plant information model, and the data can be mapped to specific assets. The most critical part of the information model is that it is machine readable. This saves time preparing the data for use. It allows the data to be used automatically due to its standardized structure and harmonized semantics. Projects revolving around asset management, analytics or condition monitoring can therefore more quickly be brought online. For these reasons, information models are becoming an area of focus for us at Profibus & Profinet International (PI) over the coming months.

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Lessons Learned: Powering the First Remote Wireless Device Long-life lithium batteries have been instrumental in powering remote wireless devices used for a variety of Industrial Internet of Things applications. By Sol Jacobs, Vice President and General Manager, Tadiran Batteries

ow-power remote wireless devices are essential to virtually every aspect of industrial automation—from asset tracking and SCADA to environmental monitoring, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, to name a few. Today’s industrial battery technology is rooted in the earliest IIoT application: meter transmitter units (MTUs) used in automated meter reading (AMR) for water and gas utilities. That’s why valuable lessons can be learned by following the evolution of industrial remote wireless devices.

Low-power devices requirements

Two types of low-power wireless devices are being utilized in IIoT applications. The vast majority of devices draw micro-amps of current and are mainly powered by industrial grade primary (non-rechargeable) lithium batteries. In addition, there are a growing number of applications that draw milli-amps of current, enough to prematurely exhaust a primary battery, typically requiring the use of an energy harvesting device in combination with an industrial grade rechargeable Lithiumion (Li-ion) cell to store the harvested energy. Virtually all leading brands of MTUs are powered by bobbin-type lithium thionyl chloride (LiSOCl2) chemistry, which is the preferred choice among primary (non-rechargeable) batteries. Bobbin-type LiSOCl2 chemistry offers unique performance characteristics, including the highest capacity and energy density of any commercially available chemistry. These cells also feature the widest tempera-

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Batteries with bobbin-type LiSOCl2 chemistry feature the widest temperature range along with the lowest annual self-discharge rate of any competing chemistry. ture range (-80°C to 125°C) along with the lowest annual self-discharge rate of any competing chemistry. Achieving a lower self-discharge rate translates into a lower total cost of ownership, which is especially valuable for applications involving remote locations and extreme environments.

Minimizing battery self-discharge

All batteries experience some amount of annual self-discharge, even when disconnected from an external load. Bobbin-type LiSOCl2 cells feature the lowest self-dis-

charge rate of all, mainly by harnessing the passivation effect. Passivation occurs when a thin film of lithium chloride (LiCl) forms on the surface of the lithium anode, thus impeding the chemical reactions that cause battery selfdischarge. Whenever a load is placed on the cell, this passivation layer causes high initial resistance along with a temporary drop in voltage until the passivation layer starts to dissipate—a process that keeps repeating whenever the load is removed. Cell passivation is also influenced by other factors, including: cell capacity; length of

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storage; storage temperature; and discharge temperature. Partially discharging a cell then removing the load increases the passivation effect relative to a new battery. While high levels of passivation can be beneficial to extending battery life, too much of it can be problematic if it blocks energy flow. A battery’s self-discharge rate is further influenced by the purity of raw materials and the method by which the cell is manufactured. A superior quality bobbin-type LiSOCl2 cell loses just 0.7% of its total capacity each year due to self-discharge, enabling up to a 40-year battery life. By contrast, an inferior quality bobbin-type LiSOCl2 cell can lose up to 3% of its nominal capacity annually due to self-discharge, exhausting 30% of its nominal capacity every 10 years, reducing battery operating life to as little as 10-15 years.

The potential for 40-year battery life was validated by Aclara (formerly Hexagram), a supplier of smart infrastructure technologies to gas, water, and electric utilities. When replacing its older MTUs with newer generation technology, Aclara tested random samples of the original batteries and found that they had retained a significant amount of unused capacity even after 28+ years in the field.

AMR metering devices

The earliest MTUs were limited one-way RF wireless communications using drive-by readers. However, over time, this application has evolved to support two-way wireless connectivity utilizing local area mesh networks (mainly in municipalities) and cell phone/satellite uplinks (mainly in rural areas). Extended battery life is increasingly essen-

tial to AMR metering, especially with the emergence of ultrasonic MTUs that contain no moving parts, thus able to last indefinitely, limited only by the life of the battery. These ultrasonic devices cost roughly twice as much as the mechanical meters they replace; so to achieve maximum economic benefit these batteries need to last up to twice as long as standard lithium batteries that have a maximum operating life of 10-15 years. How important is extended battery life to an MTU deployment? Critically important, according to a survey conducted by the California Energy Commission. Members of the Association of California Water Agencies were surveyed and 62% of respondents indicated that meter battery life was a major concern, ranking even higher than cost (60%). Powering an ultrasonic MTU that features practically unlimited operating life with a

Rechargeable cells power parking meter fee collection systems that incorporate AI-enabled sensors to identify open parking spots.

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Small solar PV panels in combination with industrial grade Li-ion batteries power are used to track the health and statis of animal herds. short-lived battery is senseless because it can result in unnecessary battery change-outs, delayed and/or inaccurate billing, reduced customer service, and the potential for lost data. The economic losses associated with a premature large-scale, system-wide battery failure can be so substantial that municipalities have chosen to preemptively replace thousands of batteries each year just to avoid potential chaos.

High pulse energy

Standard bobbin-type LiSOCl2 batteries are designed to deliver low-rate power, not generate the high pulses required for two-way wireless communications. This challenge was solved by adding a patented hybrid layer capacitor (HLC). The standard bobbin-type LiSOCl2 cell delivers low daily background current, while the HLC delivers periodic high pulses to power wireless communications. In addition, the HLC features a unique end-of-life voltage plateau that can be interpreted to deliver low

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battery status alerts, giving utility maintenance crews ample time to schedule battery replacements.

Energy harvesting

A growing number of low-power industrial applications consume current measurable in milli-amps, requiring the use of an energy harvesting device in combination with an industrial grade rechargeable Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery. The most proven form of energy harvesting is the photovoltaic (PV) panel. However, certain niche applications harvest energy from other sources such as equipment movement, vibration, temperature variances, and ambient RF/EM signals. One prime example involves the use of small solar PV panels in combination with industrial grade Li-ion batteries to track the health and status of animal herds. Solar/Liion hybrid systems are also used to actuate mechanical devices and provide low-cost power to off-grid locations. For example,

these rechargeable cells power parking meter fee collection systems that incorporate AI-enabled sensors to identify open parking spots. Consumer-grade rechargeable Li-ion cells have a maximum operating life of 5 years and 500 recharge cycles, with a moderate temperature range (0-40°C), and no ability to deliver high pulses. By contrast, industrial grade Li-ion batteries can operate for up to 20 years and 5,000 full recharge cycles, with an expanded temperature range (-40° to 85°C), and the ability to deliver high pulses to power two-way wireless communications. Extended-life lithium batteries reduce the total cost of ownership, which is especially important if your battery needs to last as long as your device. Therefore, it pays to conduct thorough due diligence by requesting welldocumented long-term test results, in-field performance data under similar conditions, and numerous customer references.

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5 Things to Consider About Your Plant Floor Data and IIoT From getting data to the cloud to machine learning and analytics, there are some key aspects of the Industrial Internet of Things that should not be overlooked. By Marc Immordino, Field Training Engineer, Wago

s more end users attempt to adopt cloud and edge technology to maximize efficiency, increase productivity, and share data seamlessly, some key factors need to be taken into account.

How to get data from the plant floor to the cloud

One of the biggest challenges in moving data from the plant floor to the cloud can be legacy systems. There may not be a clear-

Wago Edge Computer

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cut way to get data from a serial-based communication system to an Ethernet-based cloud platform. Legacy systems can make the users feel that their data is confined to the plant floor, which can significantly impede automation and operational effectiveness. Even with the implementation of an Ethernet-based control system, the solutions for getting this information to the cloud is not always simple. Easy solutions for bridging the gap between legacy devices and IIoT are gateways. These systems can bring in legacy data via serial or Ethernet communications and then pass this data onto cloud platforms or edge devices. One solution for this is the Wago PFC 200 controller which has two Ethernet ports (switched or independent) with serial 232/485 (Modbus), CANopen (J1939) and Profibus interfaces. This allows the user to move data from one communication platform to another. The Touch Panel 600 is another product that utilizes two Ethernet ports (switched or independent) with serial 232/485(Modbus) and CANopen (J1939).

Wago PFC200

Network security

When two worlds collide, things can get messy. This can be the case when bringing operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) together. Typically, one of the first conflicts here is network security. Particularly regarding authentication, authorization, accounting, encryption, secured connections, data integrity, and confidentiality. Many Ethernet-based

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industrial systems today can help smooth things over with the IT group. There are controllers and PLCs that have built-in security measures such as firewalls, VPN connectivity, port controls/filtering, and password authentication. Another layer of network security is industrial managed Ethernet switches. These provide security features such as MAC security, radius authentication, traffic/bandwidth controls and VLAN capabilities.

Who needs the data and how do they get it?

An IIoT-connected factory has the potential to make production better, facilities more energy efficient, and improve predictive maintenance and asset tracking. Managers can monitor manufacturing at each facility workstation. Device and plant floor operators can track products throughout the supply chain and alert participants of damage to goods. Real-time data from IIoT-connected systems can help predict failures on the plant floor before they happen. With all of these users, trying to manage a solution for the data collection and distribution can be a challenge. There are many choices for data formats, but the key is identifying the data needs for your operations. A good place to start is analyzing your system’s requirements based on component services and database needs.

Cloud, edge, machine learning, and analytics

In the cloud, all data is gathered and processed in centralized data centers. As such, it serves as a general-purpose platform for data collection, analytics, and historical reporting. Edge computing devices can collect and process data at the machine level allowing for faster and more effective responses. It is more about real time changes to achieve more accurate, efficient production runs and predictive maintenance events. Another benefit of edge computing is machine learning, which enables systems to automatically learn and improve tasks without making program changes.

Wago has recently added an edge controller and edge computer to its product line. The controller offers one CANopen port, two Ethernet ports, a serial RS-232/485 port and two USB ports. It also has four digital inputs/outputs for connecting local devices or sensors. The computer features a 1.91 GHz quad-core Atom processor, two Ethernet ports, four USB ports, and is equipped with Debian Linux for Docker-based applications. With these edge devices, users can achieve a seamless bridge between OT and IT data connectivity.

Which platform for sharing data

There are several IoT cloud platforms from different service providers that host wideranging applications for data analytics and management. IIoT cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, IBM Bluemix, or Wago Cloud have features that include connectivity and network management, device management, data acquisition, processing analysis and visualization, application enablement, integration, and storage. The goal for IIoT cloud platforms is to maximize the analytics and data processing between the cloud and device, incorporating resources at each end seamlessly. The right solution really depends on the users’ requirements and its fit into the application.

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Wago Edge Controller

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By Natalie Craig, Senior Managing Editor, PMMI Media Group

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A standardized version of I/O provides users and machine builders with the opportunity to scale systems quickly, but traditional I/O still holds an important role.

hether it’s called universal I/O, flexible I/O, intelligent I/O, configurable I/O, electronic marshalling, etc., the use of smart I/O enables more flexibility for I/O changes—an increasingly common occurrence as industry shifts to more customized and manufacturing-on-demand production processes. A major driver behind the push for universal I/O comes from large corporations, like ExxonMobil, looking to ease the commissioning process and enable changes to a control system. Though the benefits of universal I/O are clear for large companies, smaller companies and OEMs can benefit as well. However, users should be aware that, despite the broad advantages of universal I/O, there are still some use cases where traditional I/O remains effective.

How universal I/O stacks up

Input/output devices handle the bi-directional connection between the controller and the devices or systems being controlled. There are two types of I/O: analog, which is an electrical signal representing things like temperature level or rate of flow; and digital, which uses signals that represent two states, such as on and off or start and stop. With a traditional, analog I/O system, a lot of upfront work is required to specify the right field I/O module, electrical panels, installation, power, distribution, and networking. Because the I/O system is typically associated with a central controller, extensive programming is required to get these systems to communicate effectively with each other. This is the initial instance where universal I/O can offer benefits. With this kind of I/O, machine builders can drop an I/O module in place and then plug it into a network cable. By removing all the upfront programming requirements, universal I/O simplifies machine design and system building while also delivering data processing and network connectivity options not commonly associated with traditional I/O. Providing an example of how universal I/O can streamline machine and system building

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processes, Josh Eastburn, director of technical marketing at Opto 22, says, “If your control systems, process, or manufacturing engineers are still [in the process of] developing the equipment, they may not know how many of a particular type of signal is needed. As a result, they often have to do a bunch of change orders on the backend, revising the I/O design to meet the different signal needs once the design is complete. Or they can drop in flexible or universal I/O, which will allow them to reconfigure it in the field without changing the electrical design, panel, or enclosure. It simplifies a lot of the design process and reduces the project budget. Down the line, universal I/O also translates into easier maintenance.”

Data demand

Behind the demand for universal I/O is a push for more data to help predict machine failure and other critical maintenance timelines. “Beckhoff started offering I/O products in the 1980s, and this [universal I/O] segment has been growing consistently by 10% every year,” says Sree Swarna Gutta, North American I/O product manager at Beckhoff Automation. “That shows you the acceptance within the industry and how happy users are with flexible I/O. One of the things they demand out of flexible I/O is the ability to incorporate more diagnostics and information the OEM and customer could use to improve their designs and performance of the machine.” Whereas a standard I/O device may only receive process data and signal communication from a sensor within a machine, flexible or universal I/O can provide insight into other information about the environment that the sensor lives in. This capability holds a lot of untapped potential when it comes to predictive maintenance, according to Shishir Rege, technical sales specialist, IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) at Balluff Inc. “For example, if something knocked the sensor out of alignment, there is no way for the sensor to tell that to a standard I/O device,” Rege says. “So how does the sensor

communicate that information to the machine so that the machine can affirm it? The universal I/O unleashes that sensor or device to provide a lot more diagnostics, not only about itself, but about the environment they live in. So that is much richer communication.”

Globalization and retrofitting benefits

As machine builders increasingly develop equipment for use in different countries, they encounter different standards and protocols in every region. According to Belden, universal I/O can work with many different PLC environments and fieldbus protocols, such as Profinet or EtherNet/IP, making it easier to sell equipment into global markets while reducing product variants and the need to replace I/O modules to meet protocol-specific requirements. “When you choose a flexible I/O, machine builders can actually leave that technology as is. They don’t have to redesign anything when they are selling globally,” Gutta says. “While Beckhoff created and specializes in EtherCAT, our I/O supports more than 25 communication protocols. Universal I/O offers the flexibility of being able to connect to any network and it can be used anywhere in the world.” Aside from allowing machine builders to sell globally with less complexity, universal I/O is also touted as being able to work with both new and legacy equipment. Machine builders can retrofit existing machinery with customizable modules that can include as many inputs and outputs as needed—rather than being confined to the eight inputs and outputs common in traditional I/O devices. One flexible I/O innovation that has gained a lot of attention over the past decade is IO-Link, a standardized I/O technology for communication with industrial sensors and actuators. Popular in Europe and now making its way to the U.S. and Asia, IO-Link is a unified point-to-point device level communication method that features built-in diagnostics and is reportedly easy to implement. IO-Link is vendor-independent, which is why

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Opto 22’s groov RIO remote I/O offers more than 200,000 unique, software-configurable I/O combinations in a single, compact, power over Ethernet (PoE)-powered industrial package with web-based configuration, commissioning, and data flow logic software built in. The device also includes support for multiple OT and IT protocols. groov RIO modules can be used as either a traditional remote I/O or as an edge I/O solution.

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it is possible to combine IO-Link masters and IO-Link devices from different manufacturers and integrate these products into the same network. During an interview for an “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast episode about IO-Link (awgo.to/iolink), Rege described IO-Link as being like a USB for industrial automation in that it is independent of control level networks and protocols. “All you need is a gateway or a bridge module that connects the protocols together. And that’s what we call an IO-Link gateway or IO-Link master, that communicates on the fieldbus level, as well as collects data from the IO-Link devices.” Belden’s product manager Svenja Litz adds, “Because an Ethernet interface will not fit— regarding size and costs—into the smallest devices like photoelectric sensors, IO-Link is the perfect communication protocol to make simple sensors smart. It enables them to transmit a set of different parameters. This is how a simple sensor can transmit something like temperature information in addi-

tion to its standard switching signal by using IO-Link communication.” The plug-and-play compatibility of universal I/O is equally appealing to end users. As manufacturers combine different machines from a variety of machine builders, there are a variety of interfaces on each of the machines with different cable lengths, which leaves the end user responsible for maintaining inventory of all the different cables in different sizes and with different interfaces. However, if all of the devices and machines are outfitted with universal I/O, only one standard cable is needed to connect to all the devices. “Whether it’s a digital device, a smart sensor, RFID, or even a valve manifold—it can be brought onto the same standard interface,” Rege says.

Possible drawbacks

Though universal I/O is gaining adherents through its clear connectivity benefits, the technology does come with its own set of tradeoffs. One of these issues is speed. Because universal I/O is a form of data communication,

compared to traditional I/O which is signal communication, users and OEMs may run into networking speed issues. “Signal communication is always going to be faster than data,” Rege says. “If the sensor is communicating in signal, it’s going to reach the controller faster versus if the sensor is communicating data, which is slower because it’s using more bandwidth on the network.” According to Rege, 95% of industrial automation applications fit well with the universal I/O platform because they can tolerate latencies of 10 to 15 milliseconds. However, if the requirement for latency is less than five milliseconds, Rege says he would not recommend universal I/O. Opto 22’s Eastburn also doesn’t recommend the universal I/O approach for every application. “Typically, where we’re seeing adoption [of universal I/O] is in IoT applications where we need to scale a system fast,” Eastburn says. “If you can spend a little bit more on the I/O to save on the front-end design and installation work and then just repeat it over and over for other machines, it can translate into a proj-

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ect savings and make it easier to scale your system. But if you’re wanting to save and get a cheaper I/O, it’s easy to beat out universal I/O in terms of per point/channel price. So, it really depends on what the application is and whether it makes sense from the perspective of total project cost or long-term TCO (total cost of ownership).” Traditional I/O may also offer a wider range of signal and power options, which would benefit applications that need channel-tochannel isolation or high-frequency counting, for example. That’s why “there’s definitely still a need for traditional I/O,” Eastburn says.

Universal I/O’s role in IoT

The essence of IoT is data, Rege says. And not only does universal I/O provide more opportunities for builders and users to harness the power of data, it also brings more flexibility to machine design and compatibility. “Having this data communication at the sensor level enables a lot more IoT-ready applications to be developed,” Rege says. One of those applications, according to

Rege, is process condition monitoring, which helps users and OEMs enable pattern-based artificial intelligence, allowing for more predictive maintenance. “All this information and data used to be very expensive to collect,” Rege says. “Now, it’s easily available with universal I/O products like IO-Link. Universal I/O allows integrating different types of interfaces like RFID, barcode reading, or vision, [so that] you can collect and utilize that to create new types of applications, especially in packaging where they run a lot of small batch production.” And as cybersecurity concerns continue to grow, universal I/O may also be the key to protecting legacy equipment and older control systems, as many universal I/O products have embedded security features, Eastburn says. “One reason you might need to connect your universal I/O in parallel with an existing control system is because that system doesn’t offer any cybersecurity protection,” Eastburn says. “In that case, it would be a bad idea to take a PLC and connect it directly to your business. But if your universal I/O has

security embedded, you can wire those I/O signals and send encrypted data.” “The real key here is the long-term scalability,” Eastburn says. “By bringing down the cost and making it easier to get connected and maintain the system over time, you don’t have to do a little project every time you bring in a new device or new I/O points. This means that we can scale up systems much larger than we have typically done while having it more tightly integrated with the rest of the organization.”

Get a better understanding of IO-Link device communications and whether or not it is difficult to integrate into existing operations in this “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast interview featuring Shishir Rege, Balluff ’s IIoT technical sales specialist, at awgo.to/iolink.

The EK9500 Bus Coupler connects EtherNet/ IP networks to the EtherCAT Terminals, as well as EtherCAT Box modules and converts the telegrams from EtherNet/IP to the E-bus signal representation. In EtherCAT, the EtherNet/ IP coupler has at its disposal a lower-level, powerful, and fast I/O system with a large selection of terminals. According to Sree Swarna Gutta, North American I/O product manager at Beckhoff Automation, users with older systems and machinery can implement an IoT application that collects data for machine learning and send it to the cloud without having to write detailed programming by using Beckhoff ’s couplers.

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AUTOMATION INVESTMENT EXPECTATIONS FOR THE BATCH MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES In this second installment in our series covering automation investment expectations for 2021, suppliers highlight ongoing pandemic, supply chain, and labor issues driving near-term interest in specific technologies. By David Greenfield, Editor-In-Chief/Director of Content, Automation World

s noted in the first installment of this series investigating spending trends on automation technology across the discrete, batch, and continuous process industry verticals, this second installment focusing on the batch or hybrid manufacturing industries is based on a study conducted in late 2020 of automation technology suppliers. We asked those suppliers an array of questions to better understand how they saw their customers—end users across the industrial spectrum—reacting to the economic and societal changes we all experienced in 2020. As was expected, there was plenty of overlap among the three industry verticals with regard to technologies whose use is expected to trend upward. But there was also some significant variance. First, let’s look at the overlaps. In the discrete industries, the top five areas expected to see increased spending in 2021 are: data acquisition and analytics, cloud computing, cybersecurity software and IoT platform software (tied for thrid place), sensors, and robots/ cobots (tied for fifth place). Responses for the batch industries also pointed to IoT platform software, data acquisition and analytics, cloud computing, cybersecurity software, and sensors as being among the top five. For the batch industries, cybersecurity and cloud computing tied for fifth place in spending. That tie opened up a spot for a sixth technology to

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make the top five, and in batch manufacturing, it is remote access—which ranked in second place for this industry vertical. “The common thread among the top areas for increased spending is the need for more data,” said Bruce Kane, global life sciences technical industry consultant at Rockwell Automation. “Businesses are willing to invest in digital transformation when they recognize how they can use information to better understand their processes and, as a result, improve performance, increase capacity, decrease manufacturing costs, and improve time to market.” Keith Chambers, vice president, operations management software at Aveva, said the top areas noted in this survey “clearly reflect strong moves toward digital transformation in the batch manufacturing industries. Batch and hybrid manufacturers are facing unprecedented challenges amplified by COVID-19 that have significantly impacted business results, growth, and profitability. To become more flexible and agile as market demand, product demand, and packaging configurations change rapidly, manufacturers are responding with digital transformation.”

Digital transformation implications

Kane’s and Chambers’ observations about digital transformation investments are under-

scored by the findings in our research. All of the top areas for the highest levels of increased spending are technologies closely associated with digital transformation. That’s not to say other automation technologies, such as SCADA, controllers, and motors and drives, are not expected to see increased spending. Our research indicates that they will. The difference lies in the amount of increased spending. For example, in the batch industries, where increases in spending on data acquisition and analytics is expected by 80% of respondents, only 42% expect an increase in spending on motors, drives, and motion control technologies. The combination of the maturation of the consumer product goods (CPG) market and supply chain disruptions from COVID-19 pushed manufacturers to deploy supply chain and manufacturing systems that work together, according to Chambers. He added that a key component of having these systems work together implies that they should be “dynamically optimized to ensure the maximum business returns that operational constraints allow.” Chambers also noted that batch manufacturers are meeting the increasing demands from customers and regulators for transparency across the supply chain that requires traceability of materials from farm-to-fork and visibility into where, when, and how products are sourced, processed, and shipped.

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TOP 5 TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT AREAS FOR BATCH MANUFACTURERS IoT Platform Software 89% Remote Access 82% Data Acquisition and Analytics 80% Sensors 78% Cloud Computing/Cybersecurity Software 74% This chart shows the percentage of respondents to the Automation World survey predicting increased spending in these areas. “Ethics and corporate responsibility are being incorporated into operating procedures at each stage of the value chain, IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) and advanced data analytics are being deployed to amplify business-wide sustainability initiatives and deliver both ecological and economic benefits,” Chambers said. “Such benefits include the significant cost reduction potentials that reducing energy consumption and production waste offer. For example, Henkel Laundry & Home Care, a supplier of consumer goods and industrial chemicals, worked with Aveva to build a digital backbone to meet its sustainability and efficiency goals, achieving a 24% reduction in energy consumption, which resulted in a €15 million reduction of energy costs and a 4.5% overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) improvement.” Mark Ruberg, packaging industry manager at Beckhoff Automation, noted that businesses in batch manufacturing “get paid for product leaving the dock, so they are always looking for new ways to increase output and uptime. The digital transformation promises new opportunities to optimize these areas, where traditional methods and technologies have plateaued. Greater data acquisition and analytics capabilities provide actionable insights to help manufacturers address quality issues, identify consumer trends, reduce machine downtime, and more.” Legacy controllers and associated systems provide little ability to separate out key data, find what is important, and analyze it, Ruberg said. These older technologies also need additional gateways to connect to the cloud or

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enterprise-level networks. In contrast, newer “PC-based controllers and analytics tools can pre-process data on the machine controller, alongside the PLC, motion control, machine vision, and so on, and offer inherent connectivity,” Ruberg said. “This helps manufacturers gain insights directly from the field, without creating massive data lakes or using excessive bandwidth to transmit useless data.”

The growing importance of remote access

Looking across the batch industries, 82% of respondents expect increased investments in remote access technologies whereas only 74% project increased spending for this technology in the discrete manufacturing industries. When asked why remote access technology appears to be of higher importance for batch manufacturers than discrete manufacturers, based on our research results, Beckhoff’s Ruberg pointed to the general benefits of remote access. “Remote access and monitoring enable large manufacturers and machine builders alike to analyze machine performance, perform scheduled upgrades, and fix issues without having to travel to the site. It also enables remote training, where the instructor can use augmented reality or other tools to train on-site maintenance staff. In industries where uptime is critical, this saves incredible amounts of time and costs.” He also noted that discrete OEMs tend to be ahead of the curve in terms of implementation of technologies like remote access. As such, he believes discrete manufacturers are not as focused on adding remote access

right now because many of them “already have solutions in place that work for them and their end users. And this is good news for batch manufacturers, because it means there is already a wide range of tried-and-tested models available for implementing remote access and monitoring. Engineers in the batch industries don’t have to reinvent the wheel—they can modify existing strategies or adopt them wholesale right away.” Another advantage to higher levels of remote access technology adoption was noted by Aveva’s Chambers, who said, “Collaboration is a key component of batch manufacturers’ operations—remote access and remote monitoring enable team collaboration between people and functional teams. Remote access to operational data and/or performing required data analyses give a supporting person or decision maker working remotely the ability to collaborate with the local team. And this collaboration scenario is valid for people within and outside a manufacturing organization, such as giving external support teams remote access to plant equipment.” He added that another emerging remote collaboration concept batch manufacturers should take note of is the “control tower” or “unified operations center,” which “centralizes formerly separate teams in one control room location with access and remote monitoring functionality for collaboration with a holistic view and an enhanced layer of intelligence across one or multiple manufacturing locations,” he said. This collaborative approach enables teams to quickly make

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informed decisions to optimize operations, assets, and logistics, he said.

Is MES still important?

A number of respondents noted the increased use of MES in batch manufacturing as being a driver of interest in the IoT-related technologies that comprise the top five technologies of interest in batch manufacturing—even though MES itself did not factor into the top five technologies. Kane noted that Rockwell has been seeing increased adoption and advancement of MES with its customers “as the central point for their IoT data to get real-time information to make better business decisions. The MES layer has the power to connect to nearly all of its disparate business processes, tie the information together, and deliver it from the right source, to the right person, and at the right time.” Adding to Kane’s point about MES serving as a central IoT data crossroads, Beckhoff’s Ruberg said, “with higher implementation of IIoT and Industry 4.0 concepts, manufacturers are working to accommodate increasingly greater demands for customization down to lot size one. This includes everything from patient-specific treatment regimens to buying a package of candy with your dog’s face on it. During the pandemic, manufacturers limited SKU proliferation so that changeovers only happen for popular products. However, most expect large-scale customization to return and are incorporating flexible technologies—from controls and MES to motion and mechatronics—to be prepared. Increased digitization, by default, requires MES technologies that can keep pace with these trends.” As machines become smarter by becoming “things” in IIoT systems, Aveva’s Chambers says MES can unite those machines with connected workers and other connected assets, changing this collection of smart machines into a smart factory. “In essence, the role of MES is evolving into a plant’s digital twin, a solution that ties together all of the data from across all of the plant’s assets and operations,” he said. “From there, MES filters and contextualizes this data to manage the entire operation and integrate and interact with the supply chain management level of an enterprise. This enables companies to build feasible plans based on actual material, labor, and capacity availability, optimize plant production based on business and operational

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KPIs (key performance indicators), and give visibility into plan execution. The supply chain is thereby made more agile and resilient due to the optimization and integration of manufacturing execution and business planning into a single digital system.” Chambers added that Aveva sees companies increasing investments in multi-site MES software to “harmonize entire manufacturing networks and further optimize the value chain, along with solutions like predictive analytics and prescriptive planning and scheduling, all of which unlock the significant value offered by MES.”

Labor issues

A key operational issue cited by several respondents as a specific driver behind the top technology trends in batch manufacturing is the industry’s ongoing issues with labor—more specifically, the ability to find enough qualified employees. “With protracted workforce shortages, companies need to be better equipped than ever to adapt to shifts in demand or capacity,” said Beckhoff’s Ruberg. “A shift in demand could be identifying a market trend, while a shift in capacity means being able to scale up production through rapid, software-based changeovers. Both require substantial data analytics, so the ability to combine specific production information with marketplace metrics is key.” Ruberg added that a key factor intensifying this issue for much of industry is the fact that an entire generation of controls engineers is at or near retirement age. “These old school engineers could identify issues just by walking through the factory and listening to the machines,” he said. “They knew when it was time to perform minor adjustments or major maintenance. With much of this expertise retiring with them, new automation technology must provide an answer. Condition monitoring and highend measurement combined with analytics, machine learning, and cloud-based systems provide valuable tools to replace this lost knowledge. These technologies are also helping companies boost uptime and throughput. In the same way that the software-asa-service model reduces internal IT efforts, machines-as-a-service reduces in-house engineering and maintenance requirements. By outsourcing commissioning and troubleshooting, companies reduce training needs and other requirements for maintaining a

This “Take Five with Automation World” video highlights automation technologies expected to receive the heaviest investments from discrete manufacturers in 2021. awgo.to/1182. larger in-house team.” Aveva’s Chambers noted that information from IoT and cloud technologies is more easily accessible with a digital and mobile user experience that can be used to guide this new generation of workers through tasks with procedural enforcement, instructions, forms for data collection, and informational context. “Software capabilities industrial organizations are increasingly using to solve these workforce challenges include worker collaboration, logbooks, and problem-solving skills management, all of which foster digital knowledge sharing, team collaboration, and skills development,” Chambers said. “Importantly, training videos and social communication channels reduce the time it takes to get frontline workers up to speed on the basic skills needed to run today’s complex industrial operations and create a digital knowledge repository that standardizes and stores best practices before experienced workforces retire.” Rockwell’s Kane mentioned that new technologies like augmented and virtual reality (which 64% of respondents expect to see increased spending on by the batch industries in 2021) are helping to make the manufacturing industry as a whole more attractive to a younger workforce. These technologies enable us to “bridge the younger generations’ interest and experience with the internet, computers, and gaming with things like augmented reality operator training and remote support with robots to get them excited about manufacturing,” he said. Plus, these technologies allow manufacturers to “more easily train new employees, and upskill employees moving into new roles. This allows companies to be more agile with their workforce as labor needs change and know that they can make their people more productive faster.”

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COVID-19 Test Medium Production Ramped Up By 20,000% in Six Months Viral Transport Media tubes filled with liquid media are used to store and transport nasal swabs for viruses including COVID-19. Sixteen integrated lines were designed, built, and installed in 20 weeks to meet demand. By Keren Sookne, Director of Editorial Content, Healthcare Packaging

“N

imble” is an understatement for most life science manufacturers producing COVID-19 test materials, PPE, or treatment this year. Thermo Fisher Scientific snapped into action and began ramping up production of its viral transport media (VTM) tubes at the outset of the pandemic. Later, they received orders from the U.S. government to scale production from 50,000 per week to 10 million per week. VTM tubes filled with liquid medium are used to store and transport nasal swabs for viruses including SARS-CoV-2. In March, the Thermo Fisher facility in Lenexa, Kan., was already filling 10 and 15 mL conical tube configurations. The company ramped to 24/7 operation and retrofitted its lines to run faster at the outset of the pandemic, but it was clear the company needed new machines to meet demand. Considerations beyond speed included: • Some of the conical tubes are skirted, but the tubes without skirting do not stand up on their own. • The medium has similar viscosity to water, but Jason Gourley, strategic projects, senior project engineer at Thermo Fisher Scientific, says, “From a filling perspective it's very similar to water, but if it lands on a surface, drips, or spills and begins to dry, it becomes sticky. If it's not immediately wiped or cleaned, it turns into a goo, similar to spilled soda left to dry.” This didn’t cause issues with capping, but if a tube happened to spill and medium got on other components— such as the feed screws or labeler—equipment could bind up and cause downtime in cleaning. VTM lines also needed to be ramped up at Thermo Fisher’s

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sites in Perth, Scotland, and Wesel, Germany. In both Perth and Wesel, the operation switches between filling VTM and saline, depending on current demand. Gourley explains, “It's the same tube and cap, same fill size. The difference is the liquid itself, the labeling requirements, and different pump settings.”

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Speedy timeline

When Gourley arrived in Lenexa from his usual Rockford, Ill., facility in March 2020, the immediate need was to understand the process and determine where automation could increase throughput dramatically. Speed was key. The Thermo Fisher project team had vendors offering to drive components to the facility—instead of overnight or two-day shipping—because they knew every hour counted. Gourley suggested working with Morrison Container Handling Solutions for high speed integrated lines. “I've worked with Morrison for about three or four years. They've done some screw feeds and integration with a line in Rockford.” The initial request to Morrison was whether they could create a smaller system within approximately a week. “They immediately hopped on it and followed through. They had a quote ready the next day," he says. Some projects take a stepwise approach to implementation. But Gourley says time didn’t allow for that in this case, noting, “This was all at once. We drew it out on a napkin one morning. The next morning, we were putting it together.” It was difficult to nail down project specifics with a constantly moving target. “Every day something changed. One million per week was the initial goal and it was only going to be for about three or four months,” Gourley says. “Everything started out with, ‘Maybe. But could you do it?’ We had four on order and then the question came down from the government on how we can get 10 million a week and what would it take.” The original order for machine #1 was placed in early April and the first machine shipped in approximately five weeks. That included design from scratch to manufacturing, build/

assembly, and testing. A total of 14 systems shipped to Lenexa and two systems shipped overseas in the next 20 weeks. To put things in perspective, the normal quoted lead time for one system/line can be 20 weeks or more.

System details

The Morrison systems allow Thermo Fisher to orient, contain, move, and support the pointed conical tubes. They are handled from a dual feeder bowl solution to drop into the screws. (R-Tech Feeders Inc. based in Rockford, Ill., supplied the tube elevators, feeder bowls, and shuttle dropping mechanism for the tubes into the Morrison screws.) The system then indexes six tubes at a time underneath the filling head, indexes along underneath the cap applicator, and then into a spindle capper. (Apex Filling Systems in Michigan City, Ind., supplied the cap sorters and cappers.) Fill and torque checks are performed by production every 15 min. There is also a nocap sensor and crooked cap sensor at the discharge of the machine. If a cap issue is detected, the machine will stop and alert the operator to remove that tube. Then, the operator is able to reset and start the machine again. Every second counts when running at a rate between 120-132 ppm. Tubes exit the machine in different orientations based on the machine and location. • Machines #1 and #2 run pointed tubes which don’t stand on their own. • Machines #3 through #16 run skirted tubes that technically have the ability to stand on their own, but Gourley notes that even the skirted tubes—moving at rate, with liquid— do not stand securely on their own. Dorner Conveyors move tubes directly from the machine, out of the cleanroom to the labeling machine, autofeeding onto the labeler. There is still an operator to perform quality checks or interventions at the labeler. (Label applicators are supplied by Pack Leader USA.)

Remote installation

As many business travelers have found, travel restrictions have held up some trips. Gourley says, “Between Chicago and Lenexa, there were still restrictions, but we had higher level approvals due to the critical needs of the project.” For the sites in Europe, it was a different story. “For Scotland, we tried to go through the embassy and the government to get

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those supporting individuals on site in Chicago around the fourth of July weekend, to review their machine at Morrison and to be a part of an installation in Lenexa. But we weren’t able to get approval prior to their machine arriving at their site,” he explains. Gourley and his colleagues performed all 16 factory acceptance tests (FAT) on-site at Morrison. The company performed/recorded virtual FATs for the European sites. He says, “For the first two, we developed/worked through a protocol and had it circulated for approval, so we knew what we were looking for. But we also had timeline restrictions—we already had the plane booked. There's only so many tubes we could run and only so much time we had with the new system.” Both Perth and Wesel received their machines with only instructions, videos, and the ability to call for support. Yet each site had their first machine received, installed, and running at rate in five to six days. By then, Lenexa staff had installed about seven machines in the U.S., so they had plenty of lessons learned, videos, PowerPoints, instructions on the sequence, and items to pay attention to. “We were a part of the complete build, the complete runoff, and the complete disassembly in creating these specific systems. We went through rolls and rolls of blue tape, putting on notes, alignment features, noting all the dimensions, anything we learned from the first several machines. It is wild to think that we shipped machines around the world to sites that had never physically seen or ran the equipment. A lot of thanks go to those receiving individuals for their patience and perseverance,” Gourley says. The company made use of Microsoft’s HoloLens program for live video feeds from augmented reality headsets. “We were able to see their troubleshooting issues live, and they were able to view their machine during validation and ask as many questions as possible. We built up the files to have them immediately available, so if they had a question and they were viewing it right in their headset, I had the pictures, dimensions, and videos available to pull right onto their screen and into their viewpoint to do a direct comparison,” Gourley explains. One of the toughest parts of the remote work was not the machine integration itself, but the time differences between sites—six hours to Perth and seven hours to Wesel. Which site worked during business hours

and which worked off-shifts? “Everybody did everything. It was 24-hour support,” he says.

Regulatory considerations

The largest regulatory hurdle that had to be overcome was making sure all the CE mark requirements were met. It is mandatory for equipment in Europe to demonstrate safety conformance, so it was required for the Perth and Wesel units. Gourley says, “As soon as possible, we brought in a third party to fully understand the CE standards and additional safety requirements. We immediately started talking with both sites’ environmental health and safety teams to ensure that we were going to comply not only with CE, but also be aligned with their site safety expectations.”

20,000% increase

After ramping up 20,000%, you might think it would be time to relax. The facility in Lenexa had 14 lines installed by August 25, 2020, with the capacity to produce 10 million VTM tubes per week. But the work continues. Thermo Fisher has ordered 14 more systems—four for Lenexa and 10 for Scotland. “A lot of credit goes to the teams at Morrison and supporting vendors to start from scratch and build 30 systems between March and the end of the year. It was really a team effort with a lot of credit to Thermo Fisher personnel— including the engineering and procurement groups—between R Tech, Apex, and many sub-contractors. There was definitely a lot of collaboration,” he says. Gourley explains, “The machines run very well and they're well over the OEE that we were anticipating. Now, we’ve gotten the initial kinks out of the way and the operators are a lot more familiar with the operation.” Understandably, Thermo Fisher ran into space issues, especially as they looked at the

supply chain to get tubes, caps, and media to the machine. “Machine #1 is a much smaller footprint than Machines #2 through #16— it's shorter in height, length, and width to fit in the room. It's still a screw feeder, but the cap delivery, and exit are different,” he says. When they ran out of space in the existing facility, they needed to build out an entire second facility in Lenexa for filling lines, packaging, and more. Over 300 new employees were hired and the site is looking to hire more than 100 additional employees. The new 12,000 sq ft, $40 million facility, deemed Project Patriot, is strictly dedicated to VTM production and quality control, and it will serve a role going forward for flu and other viral products. “When we signed the lease on May 18th, this was an empty shell, and by July 4th, our country’s Independence Day—our milestone for Project Patriot—the first production units coming off the line were achieved,” said Bret Johnson, vice president of global operations for Thermo Fisher’s specialty diagnostics business.

Key takeaways

The Lenexa team learned a lot along the way, especially with Machine #1 since it was a completely new system in some ways for Thermo Fisher, Morrison, and everyone involved. “For Machine #2 through #16, we took a ton of lessons learned and worked to implement them on the fly,” says Gourley. The collaboration between Morrison, Thermo Fisher, and other vendors was key. He adds, “We were getting the Morrison machine ready on Monday, receiving vendor components on Tuesday, running the full system on Wednesday, and FAT-ing and shipping on Thursday and Friday. At one point we shipped three systems in one week and one of them was international.”

VTM tubes filled with liquid medium are used to store and transport nasal swabs for viruses including SARS-CoV-2.

Lear

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Next steps

The team continues to investigate more streamlined processes and automation to help aid in inspection and packaging. Currently operators perform a visual inspection for media content and cap, and check for wrinkles, damage, and legibility of the label. Then tubes are passed to an operator who populates 72-count boxes in Lenexa. Each machine produces a lot of approximately 24,000 tubes every three and a half to four hours—about a pallet and a half worth of material. At peak, with 12 machines running, it’s a pallet approximately every four minutes, so there’s considerable volume to handle thanks to the new machines. Gourley comments, “The Morrison machines, along with the efforts of all of the other vendors, and all of the dedication of the Thermo Fisher individuals were key in enabling us to deliver on the federal government contract. Overall, we've met our commitment with a lot hard work and with everybody invested 110% in making these test kits available for society.”

After inspection, tubes are passed to an operator to fill 72-count boxes in the Lenexa facility.

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Embedded Edge Computer

Lenovo, lenovo.com The ThinkEdge SE30 and the ThinkEdge SE50 are small, rugged embedded computers meant to operate on the edge of the network to augment enterprise data processing, security, and scalability. The ThinkEdge SE30 runs on the 11th Generation Intel Core i5 vPro processors for industrial computing. The processor improves compute power, accelerates artificial intelligence workloads, and is securely built for variable temperature conditions from -20° to +60° C. It has 4G support globally and will have 5G availability with key carrier support in the second half of 2021. In contrast, the ThinkEdge SE50 is designed for applications that require higher analytics and data processing at the edge. It runs on an Intel Core i5 or i7 vPro processor for industrial computing and features up to 32GB of memory. ThinkEdge SE50 can be used to aggregate and analyze real-time data from distributed IoT devices.

Solenoid Valves

Emerson, emerson.com The ASCO Series 256/356 is a range of two-way and three-way solenoid valves that support OEMs’ need to develop more compact machines and equipment without compromising on fluid control performance. The optimized body design and internal flow path of the ASCO Series 256/356 not only provides a smaller footprint, but also reduces power consumption and increases pressure ratings critical in industrial and commercial applications. The reduced overall footprint of the Series 256/356 can help OEMs optimize the internal layout of their equipment, enabling more high-performance fluid control options to be integrated into a smaller final product.

Smart Camera for Machine Vision

B&R Automation, br-automation.com The Smart Camera from B&R Automation combines multiple machine vision functions in real time. For example, on a machine producing multiple variants of a product simultaneously, the Smart Camera only needs to capture one image to determine which variant it is looking at and check the printed label. One function provides the feedback needed for the subsequent function. Since the process variables of the machine controller are seamlessly integrated in these processes, decisions can be made in real time. Sequences of image processing functions can be extended almost indefinitely. B&R’s Smart Camera has the same hardware options as its Smart Sensor. Various integrated lenses and housing variants with a standard C mount are available. Other options include a variety of integrated lighting, FPGA image preprocessing, and image sensors from 1.3 to 5.3 megapixels.

Brushless Servo Motor Drive

Allied Motion Technologies, alliedmotion.com The H Series Brushless Servo Motor Drive features hyperface DSL, multifeedback device support, and safe torque off safety options. The H-Drive is part of Allied Motion Technologies’ new Allied Motion System servo packages and is designed to drive the HeiMotion brushless servo motors and Megaflux series of brushless torque motors. Features of the H-Drive include: a digital, DSP-based design for precise motor control and easy commissioning; rated output power of up to 4800 W; encoder, resolver, and hall feedback options; and communication options including EtherCAT, Ethernet, CAN/CANopen, and ±10V analog.

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NEW PRODUCTS 57 AW MAY 2021

Image Processing Board

Basler, baslerweb.com The Embedded Vision Processing Kit from Basler includes various interfaces for image processing and allows connection of different camera types. The board benefits from a flexible self-organizing map and carrier board approach based on NXP’s i.MX 8M Plus system on chip. The kit includes the pylon camera software suite, which provides certified drivers for all types of camera interfaces, simple programming interfaces, and a comprehensive set of tools for camera setup. For vision applications, BCON for MIPI, GigE Vision, and USB3 Vision are available as interfaces. Customers can also configure cameras with a range of sensors and performance specifications from Basler’s portfolio.

Fieldbus Controllers and Multifunction Solid State Relays Carlo Gavazzi, carlogavazzi.com The NRG Series of EtherNet/IP, Profinet, Modbus controllers, and multifunction solid state relays is designed for real-time communication with a controller, allowing machine builders to make informed decisions, solve urgent problems on short notice, and aid in the design of autonomous machines. By interfacing with machine controllers and PLCs across EtherNet/IP, Profinet, and Modbus networks, the NRGC-EIP, NRGC-PN and NRGC controllers exchange data to achieve industrial digitalization. The NRG Series provides an all-in-one system for fast switching, accurate monitoring, and high-speed communication, all of which are critical to predicting equipment failures, reducing unplanned stoppages, and optimizing overall performance.

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58 FINANCE VIEW AW MAY 2021

Dangerous Manufacturing ule o �um By Larry White

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

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

n today’s data rich world, managers have little excuse to rely on “rules of thumb” except for habit and convenience; but these are surprisingly powerful forces. A history of success and survival creates confidence in rules of thumb, and often managers don’t recognize the fundamental changes that are occurring. Recognize your decision biases, and ensure decisions are based on data and facts with clear causal relationships to resources, operations, and economics. Let’s explore a few common “rules of thumb”. Fixed and variable cost confusion: It is rare when making a decision that you care about fixed or variable costs; what you care about is which costs are and are not avoidable as a result of the decision. For example, you identify an improvement that cuts maintenance by 50% on a category of equipment. You have one technician doing that maintenance. That technician’s salary and benefits may be considered fixed or variable by your cost model. Does it matter? Realizing savings depends on how difficult such technicians are to hire, whether a qualified technician is willing to work part time, or whether you can move half the technician’s time to another task. Clearly the improvement should be implemented; it creates more up time and the potential for savings or redeployment of talent. Any cost must be examined more carefully than its characterization as fixed or variable to determine avoidability. Profit as a percentage of sales: This is a typical measure to evaluate product attractiveness, and it is simply wrong. First, it fails to consider return on invested capital, your business infrastructure, and production capability. Second, it normally only looks at gross

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margin (sales price minus product cost), which overlooks selling and marketing costs and usually post-sale support and warranty costs. Overfocus on cost management: Cutting costs is a sure thing for financial results. But a singular focus on cost reduction exacts a heavy toll on the morale and culture of an organization, even when characterized as operational excellence initiatives. Balance efficiency with a revenue focus where everyone is challenged to find new opportunities and markets for current products, valuable new product capabilities and characteristics for existing and new customers, and innovative ways to solve customer problems. Pursuing return on investment (ROI) the wrong way: ROI is a critical measure, but only when used responsibly. The goal behind ROI is to increase the return. Game playing executives pursuing poorly constructed performance bonuses at any cost often focus on minimizing the investment—a path to disaster and often the end of a manufacturer. In the U.S., capital markets have rewarded ROI improvement whether progress came from increasing the return or minimizing the investment with negative consequences for domestic manufacturing. Improving return should involve long-term thinking about items categorized as expenses for financial statements, but are really investments in the future, such as research and development, employee training, process improvement, and many data and information technology enhancements. Overfocus on product cost: Creating operational improvements is essential, but product cost is not the only important cost information for a manufacturer—it is simply the most available. Customer costing can provide highly valuable insights. Customer behavior drives a wide variety of organizational costs. Frequency of orders, returns, changes, requests for customization, etc., all have a significant effect on manufacturing and warehousing costs. Beyond the factory, difficult or complicated customers consume management, sales, order processing, credit and collections, and customer service support time and effort. Many of these costs are

not included in product cost or are allocated non-causally by an overhead driver. Most customer-driven costs are simply included in selling, general, and administrative expenses where they are poorly categorized and hidden from management analysis. Manufacturing technology is dramatically improving with smart manufacturing technology, more powerful information technology, and rapidly improving data analytics. However, manufacturing management needs to examine much more than the factory to reap these benefits and improve their business. Re-examining traditional thinking about the management, administration, financing, and support is also vital, and failure to do so may thwart other hardearned competitive advantages.

Cutting costs is a sure thing for nancial e ult But a singular focus on cost reduction exacts a heavy toll on t e mo ale and culture of an organization, even when characterized as operational excellence initiati e

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IT VIEW 59 AW MAY 2021

ene t By Chris Rickey America’s Board Member, MESA, and Global Technical Lead for MES, Rockwell Automation

�e e on o team t at tan to ain t e mo t om t i t ainin a e t o e t at a e ta tin a i ital ou ney e y en o o uct ill a e imila ca a ilitie ome ill o ette o i c ete manu actu in , ot e o oce ocu e in u t ie ome ill e ti tly cou le to automate y tem ile ot e a e oo o manual o e ation y inte nalizin an ca italizin on t e conce t in t e o am, o ect team ill e ette e a e to o it an e aluate t ei o t li t o en o

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e ti cation e yone

s global technical lead at Rockwell Automation focused on MES/MOM, I have been working in the MES space for most of my career, including 16+ years at Rockwell. I mention this because despite my years of experience, I chose to get my MOM certification from MESA in February. The certification program, officially titled “MESA MES/MOM Certificate of Competency” was spread over five days, each session lasting five hours. It covered nine courses from MESA on a range of topics including standards, governance, business case justification, project management, and more. Each course includes an “in test” to be completed in session and an “out test” to be completed after the sessions were over. My cohort included other MES vendors, systems integrators, and end users. I gained the most benefit from the courses on standards. I was aware of the ISA-95 standard, but mostly tangentially. I have only ever considered the standard for creating a standards-based integration between the MES and ERP system. What I had not previously considered is using the standard as a framework for requirements. In the course “405: MES/MOM Governance, SRS, GAMP, and SDLC,” all the standards are used in the URS and FRS development activities to effectively organize those requirements. With just a couple years of experience, Kevin Korsten at Atos took the opportunity to grow his MES knowledge. He found value in exposure to some of the more theoretical concepts he had not yet encountered in his MES practice. Conversely, Allan Møller Schmidt at Eltronic took the course as a refresher, having first taken it 10 years ago. Allan, Kevin, and I all agree, the course has good content, though attending virtually is not ideal. However, we still would recommend it. I have my personal reasons for recommending it to my colleagues, systems integrators, and other MES vendors. Having everyone use the same language and possess common understanding of the standards, use cases, and the metrics can only benefit the

greater good. I would especially recommend this to end user teams interested in starting an MES journey. The person or team that stands to gain the most from this training are those that are starting a digital MES journey. Every MES vendor’s product will have similar capabilities. Some will work better for discrete manufacturing, others for process-focused industries. Some will be tightly coupled to automated systems, while others are good for manual operations. By internalizing and capitalizing on the concepts in the program, MES project teams will be better prepared to work with and evaluate their short list of vendors. As a vendor, it is very frustrating to get a customer’s set of requirements that is simply a list of equipment or a network diagram but does not address the goals or problems the customer is facing. Without a common understanding, it will be very difficult for an evaluation team to compare vendor solutions. Take for example the scope of a project. I have often read through user requirements and identified items that are squarely in the scope of the ERP solution. Yes, it is possible to extend the MES to do such things, but it is not the right answer. A better understanding of the ISA-95 standard would help the project team to recognize that financial concerns should be left to the ERP—such as calculating the cost of scrap. The MES can provide the ERP with the amount of scrap, when it happened, who did it, what order was running, etc.; scrap cost concerns should be left to the ERP. If you are new to MES, if are you starting an MES journey, or if you just want to brush up on your terms and concepts, I encourage you to take the MES/MOM certification course. I am certainly glad I did. You can find this course and others at awgo.to/1174.

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60 ENTERPRISE VIEW AW MAY 2021

Autonomous and Remote Ops Trend Up as COVID-19 Changes the Landscape By Diane Sacra Director of Marketing, LNS Research

mong the many life adjustments COVID-19 has caused at several industrial organizations, social distancing and contactless interactions have become part of the new Standard Operating Procedure in a Pandemic. As such, two subjects that already had much interest in the manufacturing world prior to the COVID-19 crisis—remote operations and the autonomous plant—have gained even more traction over the past year. According to a recent study by LNS Research, approximately 50% of industrial transformation leaders have an autonomous plant initiative formalized, and an estimated 41% of these leaders are accelerating their autonomous plant efforts because of the pandemic. Moreover, LNS Research reports that

Operational excellence is key to successful autonomy. As such, one should ask: If I cannot be operationally excellent, then how will autonomy improve my situation? An equally important question is: W�y autonomize, let alone automate, an inefficient, sub-optimal process?

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more than half of the study’s respondents indicate they will have remote operations centers in place within the next one to two years, showing an upward swing in this trend. Certainly, among the top concerns of manufacturers driving some of this trend toward autonomy and remote operations are keeping workers safe while not disrupting the supply chain and sustaining operations. While interest in achieving autonomy is growing, doing so is not without its hurdles and challenges. “Our recent research on autonomy revealed serious concerns that have to be dealt with,” said Joe Perino, research analyst at LNS Research. “The biggest concern, interestingly enough, isn’t the technology itself, but rather concerns over lack of skills and trust in autonomous technologies and systems,” Perino explained. In addition, industrial organizations have much concern over business risk and regulatory compliance when it comes to autonomous operations. The bottom line is that industrial transformation leaders appear to be more concerned about the business issues at hand than about autonomy and technology overall. Perino appreciates the concerns over risk and compliance, and believes that operational excellence is key to successful autonomy. In response, he poses these important questions: “If one cannot be operationally excellent, then how will autonomy improve one’s situation? Why autonomize, let alone automate, an inefficient, sub-optimal process?” One area of focus that can help make the move toward autonomy and remote operations more successful is team alignment. LNS Research’s study shows that industrial transformation leaders do a much better job of aligning their core autonomous teams, consisting typically of engineering, information technology (IT), and operational technology (OT) functions. “And, those leading in industrial transformation typically have management in place that does a better job of supporting and funding autonomous initiatives,” Perino pointed out. Furthermore, autonomy suggests that multiple systems need to work together, leveraging what Perino terms the concept of “systems of systems.” Systems of systems are where a

collection of dedicated, independent systems pool their resources and capabilities together (i.e., interoperate) to create a new, more complex system that offers more functionality and performance than simply the constituent systems’ sum. According to Perino, LNS Research expects the autonomous plant to be architected as a system of systems. This will be a key consideration in designing the autonomous plant. Though the trend toward both autonomy and remote operations continues to grow in popularity, it’s important to note that not all companies or industries will achieve their goals to the same degree or at the same rate. Industrial organizations need to develop and implement their own initiatives that align with their trust levels and risk management. As often is the case, change management can be the biggest obstacle to introducing anything new or different. Perhaps one of the most interesting results of LNS Research’s study on autonomy and remote operations is the optimism among industrial company leaders that things will be returning to the “old normal”—the time before COVID-19 was a household word worldwide. A substantial 42% said they believed things would return to prepandemic conditions. “Unfortunately, LNS Research doesn’t agree with that,” Perino said. “We believe the new normal still has not stabilized as the pandemic continues.”

For more information on LNS Research’s study, download Joe Perino’s full report, On the Road to Industrial Transformation (IX): Remote Operations and the Autonomous Plant, awgo.to/1175.

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ADVERTISER INDEX 61 AW MAY 2021

COMPANY

TELEPHONE

WEBSITE

PAGE

Automation24

800.250.6772

www.automation24.com

24-a

AutomationDirect

800.633.0405

www.CLICKPLCs.com

Carlo Gavazzi

847.465.6100

www.GavazziOnline.com

CIMON, Inc.

800.300.9916

www.cimon.com

Digi-Key Electronics

800.344.4539

www.DigiKey.com/automation

Hammond Manufacturing

716.630.7030

www.Hammondmfg.com

Inductive Automation

800.266.0909

www.demo.ia.io/automation

Motion Industries

800.526.9328

www.Motion.com

Pepperl + Fuchs, Inc.

330.425.3555

www.pepperl-fuchs.com/flx

PACK EXPO Las Vegas

www.PACKEXPOLasVegas.com

Healthcare Packaging EXPO

www.HCPELasVegas.com

5 57

Maverick Technologies

888.917.9109

www.mavtechglobal.com/goose-automation-world

Telemecanique Sensors

800.435.2121

www.tesensors.com/XXSonic

MAY 2021 INDUSTRIAL INTERNET OF THINGS Contemporary Controls

630.963.7070

www.ccontrols.com/machine

Emerson Industrial Automation

888.889.9170

www.emerson.com/PACsystems

Festo

866.GO.FESTO

www.festo.com

Opto22

800.321.6786

www.opto22.com

PI North America

480.483.2456

us.profinet.com/go-digital

Tadiran Batteries

800.537.1368

www.tadiranbat.com

Wago Corporation

262.255.6222

www.wago.us/IIOT

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 5.

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62 KEY INSIGHTS AW MAY 2021

Ransomware attacks on manufacturing facilities have proven uniquely effective, as the time-sensitive nature of manufacturing production schedules often renders paying the fee less expensive than losing critical throughput. David Miller on industrial cybersecurity concerns. awgo.to/1176.

Most predictive maintenance software is designed to monitor critical assets, often based on vibration sensor solutions. The critical functions of packaging machinery, however, tend to be under servo control, which does not lend itself to vibration monitoring. Therefore, OEMs are currently using thermal imaging to gather necessary data on servo systems. Kim Overstreet on predictive maintenance applications in packaging machinery. awgo.to/1177.

If the machine stops, so does the OEM’s revenue stream. Since this machines-as-a-service business model aligns the machine builder’s goals with the manufacturer’s, it is expected to become more common. Some manufacturers using this model are already seeing great success from pilot projects, achieving greater uptime and throughput. David Greenfield on manufacturing’s growing acceptance of the “as-a-service” business model. awgo.to/1184.

The goal is to compress the time it takes to build the app by incorporating testing in week one, which is similar to the way video games work by testing what works at the beginning. So even before the robot moves, there is a lot of testing. Stephanie Neil on the advance of intelligent robotics. awgo.to/1179.

Manufacturers are recognizing that standard motors often don’t cut it in food processing environments. These motors cannot stand up to high-temperature, high-pressure cleaning methods prevalent in those environments, nor the caustic chemicals often used. Standard motor and drive designs also provide plenty of food collection points, harboring bacteria and other contaminants. Aaron Hand on the application of motors and drives in the food and beverage industry. awgo.to/1180.

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Automation World May 2021

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