by Gary Mintchell | Apr 23, 2021 | News, Organizations
CESMII—The Smart Manufacturing Institute had a couple of news releases around Hannover Messe. In one, it announced a cooperation agreement with the German Plattform Industrie 4.0. The second announcement concerned Microsoft joining. CESMII CEO John Dyck has been busily building out the team, building partnerships, and establishing centers of excellence. I expect substantial progress from this US Dept. of Energy initiative.
The German Plattform Industrie 4.0 and the US Institute CESMII cooperate to shape the Future of Manufacturing.
Germany and the United States are among the top five manufacturing countries in the world. The two countries’ manufacturers share an interconnected network of facilities and suppliers, including many small and medium-sized enterprises.
Plattform Industrie 4.0 (Germany) and CESMII (US) are announcing their partnership to address similar challenges and needs related to Industrie 4.0 / Smart Manufacturing. For both manufacturing economies to compete, they need international collaboration to achieve major tasks like semantic interoperability, create data sharing platforms, develop workforce skills, and foster sustainable production.
Platform Industrie 4.0 promotes the development of Industrie 4.0 in Germany by developing precompetitive concepts, recommendations and use cases for practical application. CESMII promotes Smart Manufacturing in the US by supporting precompetitive research and development, providing tools and test bed for new technology as public-private partnerships, and creating content for educating a next generation of smart manufacturers.
“Production is globally connected, and manufacturers are in digital transformation worldwide. Whereas digitalization provides great potentials like higher resilience, flexibility, and efficiency, we need to shape digital ecosystems globally and learn together to unfold these potentials. We highly appreciate the ongoing working relationship with CESMII and are happy to have CESMII on stage of the Hannover Messe to jointly discuss the digitalization of industry”, says Thomas Hahn, member of the Steering Committee of Plattform Industrie 4.0.
As part of the cooperation, CESMII appeared on a Plattform Industrie 4.0 panel, “Shaping digital ecosystems globally,” at the Hannover Messe.
Technology standardization is critical to ensure that pre-competitive technology in smart manufacturing is interoperable across different IT/OT systems. Developing workforce competencies and skills is essential to continue the path of innovation and to drive adoption. These are highly complementary efforts that will help the US and Germany to ensure these systems work well based on common standards that are mutually beneficial.
CESMII – The Smart Manufacturing Institute, Adds Microsoft as Member
CESMII – The Smart Manufacturing Institute has added Microsoft as a member. From the press release, “Interoperability and innovation that can scale are essential for a more competitive and resilient manufacturing environment, and it’s a pleasure to welcome market leaders that embody these values to our Smart Manufacturing (SM) ecosystem. A relentless focus on these values is essential to achieving CESMII’s vision to accelerate the democratization of Smart Manufacturing.”
Microsoft brings their thought leadership, standards advocacy and enabling technologies to our members and our SM Innovation Centers and will engage with other industry leaders to participate in our Standing Committees, adding their insights to our Technology, Business Practices, and Education and Workforce Development efforts as we drive this ecosystem forward.
“This is a pivotal time for CESMII,” states John Dyck, CEO of CESMII. “We are making great progress on many fronts, addressing the real challenges preventing manufacturers from accelerating their Smart Manufacturing and digital transformation initiatives. Our focus on enabling manufacturing system interoperability will have a dramatic impact on our energy productivity, sustainability, and competitiveness as a nation. A big part of that is defining and enabling the adoption of industry standards that will significantly reduce the cost and complexity of deploying Smart Manufacturing solutions. We’re pleased to see Microsoft take this step with us, advocating for standards, for interoperability, and creating a community of thought leaders that can truly transform this industry.”
“We strongly believe in standards, as exhibited by our work with CESMII on key OPC Foundation initiatives, and we appreciate that CESMII is addressing some of the great challenges preventing the adoption of digital transformation at scale,” says Sam George, corporate vice president of Azure IoT at Microsoft. “The focus on interoperability, openness, and the crowd-sourcing of information models for manufacturing assets is an essential accelerator for our mutual vision to accelerate the democratization of Smart Manufacturing,” continues George. “We’re pleased to engage with CESMII and their ecosystem as an enabling force in this industry, working broadly to bring real transformation to this industry.”
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 22, 2021 | Data Management, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
Most of my Hannover Messe conversations concerned software, and here was an interesting one. I talked with Eva Schönleitner, CEO of Crate.io, about this company’s solution and latest offering. There is an open source database upon which Crate.io builds managed services—a proven business model but perhaps unique in the industrial market.
The new announcement for Hannover concerns moving to the edge.
The fully managed edge database – built for harnessing the power of machine data at remote and offline locations – brings the scale, availability and management advantages of CrateDB to customers regardless of where their data is
Crate.io, developer and supplier of CrateDB, the purpose-built database optimized for machine data use cases, today announced the launch of CrateDB Edge. The new solution enables Crate.io customers to capture and analyze data at the data source, regardless of geographical location or whether there is cloud or internet accessibility. CrateDB Edge brings the capabilities of CrateDB Cloud – Crate.io’s managed database-as-a-service – to edge locations for the first time.
“CrateDB is an incredibly powerful database that is purpose-built for the unique characteristics and high-volume, high-scalability demands of machine data use cases,” says Bernd Dorn, CTO of Crate.io. “With the launch of CrateDB Edge, our database can be deployed, managed, and backed up through the same database management capabilities and functionalities that run within the cloud service. Data collection and edge analytics continue to be available, even when the internet connection gets interrupted. Deployments in remote locations can be managed centrally, including backup and replication. Many of our current customers require the flexibility to leverage CrateDB in hybrid scenarios, a mix of cloud and edge. CrateDB Edge is built exactly for these cases.”
Even as enterprises deploy database environments in the cloud, many – and particularly those with strict data security parameters or with distributed locations generating high-velocity data – require on-premises databases as part of a hybrid strategy. CrateDB Edge allows organizations to maintain full control over their infrastructure and still leverages CrateDB as an expertly managed service. Customers can choose to deploy a cluster in their own region and operate it entirely on their own infrastructure, whether that is AWS, Azure, or on physical servers at their facilities. Kubernetes is the interface hosting the CrateDB Edge clusters; customers are in control of data through their CrateDB Cloud web interface.
CrateDB Edge is built to deliver:
- Complete data ownership and privacy. CrateDB Edge is a perfect fit for organizations who require full ownership over their data and trust their CrateDB deployments managed, optimized, and scaled by Crate.io experts.
- Seamless integration with existing infrastructure. Whether running CrateDB in an enterprise’s own AWS or Azure account or through an on-prem data center, CrateDB Edge offers flexibility and does not require continuous internet connectivity for cluster operation.
- Real-time analytics on the edge. Deploying clusters locally allows analytics to be performed closer to the data source – significantly optimizing resources and response time. CrateDB Edge offers the same full functionality as CrateDB Cloud, making it simple and straightforward for developers to build applications that run on the edge and the cloud.
- Cross-cluster asynchronous sync. Configurable data synchronization features ensure that select portions of edge data can be automatically pushed into the cloud or even sync with other edge regions to enable all kinds of analytics aspects, including learning models in the cloud and operational machine analytics on the edge.
“We are excited about the benefits CrateDB Edge provides to customers; this is the next generation of database technologies that enable digitalization initiatives at scale,” says Eva Schönleitner, CEO of Crate.io. “For example, global industrial companies generating massive volumes of machine data in every plant can deploy a local cluster in each location. They get the freedom to utilize our CrateDB database on the edge and in the cloud, fully managed, backed up and synchronized – even for locations with inconsistent or intermittent internet connections. Combining these features with data ownership flexibility and Crate.io’s expertise managing and optimizing CrateDB for machine data, and we believe cloud-managed CrateDB Edge will be a very attractive solution for many organizations.”
Crate.io is the developer of CrateDB, a highly scalable distributed open source database solution that combines the performance of NoSQL with the power and simplicity of standard SQL. Designed specifically to support machine data applications and IIoT, CrateDB is optimized for time series and industrial data and runs in the cloud on Azure and Amazon as well as on the edge and on-premise. Crate.io was founded in June 2013 and operates from its locations in the United States, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as remotely worldwide.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 21, 2021 | Data Management, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
The release came to me jointly from Siemens and Google reminding me that this year’s Hannover Messe is the first German trade show in my career where Siemens did not monopolize a great amount of my time. No press conference invitation, no appointments, booth tours, or news of any kind came my way. Of course, the American PR team that I’ve worked with forever has been disbanded. Weird.
Google Cloud has joined the race with Microsoft Azure and Amazon’s AWS in the manufacturing space as IoT has driven cloud adoption. With so much data moving to the cloud, AI and ML technologies beg to be used to ferret out insights. Hence this collaboration.
Google Cloud and Siemens, an innovation and technology leader in industrial automation and software, announced a cooperation to optimize factory processes and improve productivity on the shop floor. Siemens intends to integrate Google Cloud’s leading data cloud and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) technologies with its factory automation solutions to help manufacturers innovate for the future.
Data drives today’s industrial processes, but many manufacturers continue to use legacy software and multiple systems to analyze plant information, which is resource-intensive and requires frequent manual updates to ensure accuracy. In addition, while AI projects have been deployed by many companies in “islands” across the plant floor, manufacturers have struggled to implement AI at scale across their global operations.
For more than 170 years, Siemens has built its business on pioneering technologies that have led the manufacturing industry forward. By combining Google Cloud’s data cloud and AI/ML capabilities with Siemens’ Digital Industries Factory Automation portfolio, manufacturers will be able to harmonize their factory data, run cloud-based AI/ML models on top of that data, and deploy algorithms at the network edge. This enables applications such as visual inspection of products or predicting the wear-and-tear of machines on the assembly line.
Deploying AI to the shop floor and integrating it into automation and the network is a complex task, requiring highly specialized expertise and innovative products such as Siemens Industrial Edge. The goal of the cooperation between Google Cloud and Siemens is to make the deployment of AI in connection with the Industrial Edge – and its management at scale – easier, empowering employees as they work on the plant floor, automating mundane tasks, and improving overall quality.
“The potential for artificial intelligence to radically transform the plant floor is far from being exhausted. Many manufacturers are still stuck in AI ‘pilot projects’ today – we want to change that,” said Axel Lorenz, VP of Control at Factory Automation of Siemens Digital Industries. “Combining AI/ML technology from Google Cloud with Siemens’ solutions for Industrial Edge and industrial operation will be a game changer for the manufacturing industry.”
“Siemens is a leader in advancing industrial automation and software, and Google Cloud is a leader in data analytics and AI/ML. This cooperation will combine the best of both worlds and bring AI/ML to the manufacturing industry at scale. By simplifying the deployment of AI in industrial use cases, we’re helping employees augment their critical work on the shop floor,” said Dominik Wee, Managing Director Manufacturing and Industrial at Google Cloud.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 21, 2021 | Automation, Process Control, Standards, Technology
Schneider Electric has been publicizing an implementation of the decoupled control hardware and software envisioned by the Open Process Automation Forum using IEC 61499. https://themanufacturingconnection.com/2021/02/schneider-electric-updates-ecostruxure-automation-expert-forges-strategic-agreement-with-wood/ For example, a recent post from the blog.
At last week’s Hannover Messe, Schneider Electric used its press conference to tout some updates to its Ecostruxure Automation Expert.
The press release is included below for your information, plus a bonus press release regarding a new, smaller footprint UPS.
First, a couple of notes. I listened recently to some software developers discussing the benefits and drawbacks of version numbering their software. The traditional way is to begin with version 1.0 and then increment. Of course, no one (or few?) buy version 1.0 which is typically pretty buggy. An alternative is to version number by year thus avoiding the dreaded V 1.0. Automation Expert has just been released a couple of months ago as Version 21.0. The new release discussed below is version 21.1.
Someone, I know not whom, asked a pointed question during the press conference. Schneider points to its offering following the IEC standard. The questioner wanted to know if Automation Expert was just another proprietary software with some standards baked in. The question was not answered directly. The answer given dealt with decoupling hardware and software allowing each to be independently upgraded. Good question to keep in mind if other companies dive into this water. Or—perhaps there is room for an independent software developer to jump into the fray if and when.
Automation Expert V21.1 Release
Schneider Electric released version 21.1 of EcoStruxure Automation Expert, its software-centric universal automation system. Adoption of the new technology is proving immediately beneficial for consumer-packaged goods, pharmaceutical and logistics enterprises.
“EcoStruxure Automation Expert v21.1 is an important milestone in our journey to help manufacturers achieve the step-change advancements possible with a digital-first approach to industrial automation,” said Fabrice Jadot, Senior Vice President, Next Generation Automation, Schneider Electric. “Today’s operations need to react quickly to fluctuating market and environmental dynamics and rapidly mitigate potential risks. By separating the hardware and software lifecycles, EcoStruxure Automation Expert enables automation applications to be built using asset-centric, portable, proven-in-use software components, independent of the underlying hardware infrastructure. This software-centric approach delivers unprecedented cost and performance gains and frees engineers to innovate by automating low-value work and eliminating task duplication across tools.”
GEA is one of the largest technology suppliers for food processing and a wide range of other industries. The company focuses on technologies, components, and sustainable solutions for sophisticated production processes in diverse end-user markets where time to market and agility is essential. EcoStruxure Automation Expert greatly simplifies the integration between operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) creating new agility for GEA and its customers.
Master Systèmes, an industrial automation system integrator and Schneider Electric Master Alliance partner, is using EcoStruxure Automation Expert to increase the agility and flexibility of one of its cosmetic customer plants.
Schneider Electric is also implementing EcoStruxure Automation Expert in its own Smart Distribution Center in Shanghai, China to reduce costs and improve efficiency.
Because the software is decoupled from the hardware, modifying the conveying line to adapt as flow requirements change is easier and more cost-effective. With EcoStruxure Automation Expert, identifying the root cause of failure and troubleshooting is four times faster. And with 45% less products on the error line, throughput is increased by 5.3%.
Among other advancements, EcoStruxure Automation Expert V21.1 includes: enhanced cybersecurity, diagnostics, discovery and commissioning features, and expanded libraries and language support.
In addition, improved integration with AVEVA System Platform ensures EcoStruxure Automation Expert customers can take advantage of AVEVA’s market leading software for supervisory, enterprise SCADA, MES, and IIoT applications with minimal engineering overhead. One study showed the EcoStruxure Automation Expert and AVEVA combination reduced engineering efforts by over 50%.
New 3-phase UPS
Schneider Electric announced the global launch of the Galaxy VL 200-500 kW (400V/480V) 3-phase uninterruptible power supply (UPS), the newest addition to the Galaxy family. Available worldwide, this highly efficient, compact UPS offers up to 99-percent efficiency in ECOnversion mode for a full return on investment within two years (model dependent) for medium and large data centers and commercial and industrial facilities. A live, virtual “hands-on” event for data center professionals and partners will take place May 4 to demonstrate Galaxy VL’s capabilities and features from Schneider Electric’s Innovation Executive Briefing Center.
With data center floor space at a premium, the compact design of the Galaxy VL is half the size of the industry average at .8 m2. Its modular and scalable architecture enables data center professionals to scale power incrementally, from 200 kW to 500 kW with 50 kW power modules, providing flexibility to grow as their business demands.
With Galaxy VL, Schneider Electric introduces Live Swap, a pioneering feature which delivers a touch-safe design throughout the process of adding or replacing the power modules while the UPS is online and fully operational, offering enhanced business continuity and no unscheduled downtime. Additionally, Live Swap’s touch safe design offers increased protection for employees who no longer have to transfer the UPS to maintenance bypass or battery operation during the insertion or removal of the power modules.
Key Benefits of the new Galaxy VL:
- Maximize space to enable future growth: Galaxy VL is the most compact in its class, 50-percent more compact than the industry average at.8 m2, freeing up valuable data center real estate and IT space. Additionally, Galaxy Lithium-ion Battery Cabinets deliver total space savings of up to 70 percent compared with VRLA battery solutions.1
- Save money: Galaxy VL’s modular, scalable platform enables you to pay-as-you-grow, reducing CapEx investment, operating costs, energy consumption, and TCO. Scale power instantly in 50 kW increments from 200 to 500 kW with no extra footprint.
- Reach sustainability goals: Up to 99-percent efficient in ECOnversion mode for a full return on investment within two years in energy savings (26,280 EUR annual electricity savings). A Schneider Electric Green Premium product, it includes the option for long-lasting Lithium-ion batteries.
- Increased Reliability through EcoStruxure3: By connecting Galaxy VL to EcoStruxure—Schneider Electric’s open, interoperable, IoT-enabled system architecture and platform—data center operators can benefit from EcoStruxure™ IT software and services. These EcoStruxure offerings enable customers to monitor, manage, and model their IT infrastructure and get service support 24/7 anywhere, anytime.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 20, 2021 | Operations Management
Most of my interviews and press conferences seemed to focus on software. In this event, I chatted with Cris Masselle, chief marketing officer of WISER systems.
I was aware of RFID systems from the 90s for location applications. In fact, I quoted a system to a customer for tracking unique builds of product down the assembly line back then. But we went with a barcode system due to the customer’s experience with lack of reliability with RFID.
Masselle told me that we’re on a second generation of UWB technology. WISER, a woman-owned and founded technology company headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, has developed an innovative UWB Locator delivering scalable real-time location in nearly any environment.
The system autonomously reports precise (sub-meter or inch-level) coordinates via a computer or mobile device and is accurate even in cluttered, metallic, or complex manufacturing environments where conventional tracking technologies perform poorly. The system is lightweight and portable and can be deployed in minutes, indoors or out. Although WISER’s Locator has only been on the market for a few years, 25% of end customers are Fortune 500 companies, including several large aerospace and defense contractors, multiple U.S. Government agencies, and a large Japanese automotive company, among many other organizations. WISER manufactures its products in North America.
From the press release:
The WISER Locator is an ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless business process management solution that autonomously generates precise positioning data in real time. WISER’s best-in-class Locator utilizes proprietary Redundant Radio Localization and Tracking (RRLT) technology, which ensures precise and reliable performance even in reflective or cluttered environments where radio frequency technologies often fail. WISER’s real-time location updates enable end users to automate reporting on location-based processes, to conduct time-motion studies, and to track and trace critical assets in real time, among many other uses.
“This will be our first time exhibiting at Hannover Messe, so I’m eager to see how conference attendees react to what we have to show them,” said WISER CEO Dr. Elaine Rideout. “So many of Hannover Messe’s tracks and topics are right in line with WISER’s mission. To date, our technology has garnered especially strong interest from leaders in smart manufacturing, process automation, and logistics endeavors like yard management—all directly relevant to Hannover’s focus on Industry 4.0. It’s always exciting to showcase our Locator system to new audiences.”
Early adopters of the WISER Locator have utilized this wireless system for applications including: work-in-progress tracking in automotive, aerospace, and heavy equipment factories; real-time location for vehicles in large yards and lots; location-based process heat-mapping for factories and other settings; and track and trace applications for smart warehousing and inventory management.
