The first end-user driven industry-standards working group I ran into as a new editor at Control Engineering magazine several (22) years ago was the Open Modular Architecture Controller (OMAC) group spearheaded primarily by the major automotive players plus Boeing and then some CPG firms such as P&G and Unilever. The first attempt was a less expensive and more easily updatable machine controller. If it sounds much like today’s Open Process Automation Forum, it should.
Later packaging companies and their suppliers became dominant within OMAC as the organization changed its name a couple of times and eventually found a home with PMMI. I really haven’t heard much about the organization for a few years. Then Mark Fondl, with whom I had many discussions about standards in automation—primarily Ethernet—got involved and started pinging me.
Here is news about a new working group striving for a best-practices handbook for remote monitoring services.
The rationale:
The Covid-19 crisis has pushed manufacturers to actively develop plans for “lights out” factories and supply chains. A recent survey conducted by PMMI shows that 92% of respondents working at CPGs cannot use their existing remote access capabilities due to cybersecurity concerns. The study further noted that 36% of respondents listed that there is no practical guide to help start as their top barrier to adding new remote access service.
The desired result:
OMAC (The Organization for Machine Automation and Control) believes a collaborative review is needed to create a comprehensive best-practices handbook for remote monitoring services that will help manufacturing companies allow secure remote access to machines and automation systems on the plant floor.
Focus:
This Workgroup focuses on timing, safety, and security procedures when allowing inbound connections that link to specific machines and automation systems. This work is essential because inbound connections are more complex and hold more risk than the more common outbound connections.
The usual summer provides little news after the June rush of conferences. This year I think AVEVA alone could have kept me supplied with news and thoughts. There were at least two digital events. Twice I was up (well, actually my normal time) early for a 6 am breakfast roundtable discussion. Not complaining. It was all good.
While I have watched an IT company pivot to an “as-a-service” company after cloud became quite common, in the OT world cloud has just become a “thing.” And here we are thinking about AVEVA’s embrace of the cloud. I could say “about time”, but in the industrial world we tend not to rush things. So, here is an update on the company’s “Cloud-First” strategy.
AVEVA has unveiled ‘Cloud-First’, a key component of its long-term software portfolio strategy to focus on providing core services in the cloud to ensure high uptime and availability, user management, and the flexibility to try new solutions. The strategy includes the introduction of scenario-driven integration between products for rapid time to value.
AVEVA Connect, designed to securely host AVEVA software solutions in the cloud, currently enables more than 1,900 customers and over 25,000 users. Cloud computing facilitates improved user management across all assets as well as the capability to monitor usage of subscription credits across the entire AVEVA software portfolio.
“The new normal has required a shift in business focus and imperatives,” said Ravi Gopinath, Chief Cloud Officer and Chief Product Officer, AVEVA. “Moving forward, businesses will witness reduced capital investments, changing working processes, a heightened need for visualization tools and much greater agility and responsiveness across the value chain to minimize value leaks and optimize production to maximize profit opportunities. Organizational focus has shifted to demand increased flexibility, much more real time collaboration, intelligent applications and a more streamlined user experience. AVEVA Connect will serve as a ‘one stop shop’ for all these requirements.”
AVEVA Unified Engineeringdelivers a collaborative data-centric environment with a single source of accountability across the engineering lifecycle. Multi-discipline teams across owner operators and EPCs can now collaborate to execute greenfield and brownfield projects with high traceability in a secure cloud environment that can be set up in days to accelerate time to value and reduce total installed cost.
AVEVA Insight Guided and Advanced Analytics are now available in the Cloud for advanced pattern recognition to augment automated analytics and condition monitoring. The solution enables customers to start on a predictive analytics-based Asset Performance strategy without the need for complex modelling or data science. This solution allows the user to create easy-to-deploy models targeting specific assets, providing reliable anomaly detection with minimal configuration.
From operating information analysis and low-code application development to complex engineering visualization, AVEVA Connect’s functionality allows easy trials for new capabilities.
‘Cloud-First’ includes the introduction of scenario-driven integration between products for rapid time to value. Later this year, AVEVA will also introduce software development kits to enable partners to provide their solutions within the AVEVA Connect platform in order to increase the range of capabilities available to customers.
“The shift to the cloud isn’t a matter of choice but something that must aggressively be pursued. The tremendous advantages of deployment and ownership costs, the ability to flexibly consume purely based on need and the removal of localized barriers to allow unprecedented levels of work efficiency and collaboration mean that we will continue to add to the rich domain content of our portfolio, because this is not just about technology, but about the realities and specifics of our customer’s business,” concluded Gopinath.
I passed along the news of NI’s entrance into enterprise software with SystemLink a couple of weeks ago. Later, I had the opportunity to follow up with Penny Merian, chief product marketer, Enterprise Software, at NI.
She confirmed that this is indeed a new venture forward for NI. But it builds upon the rich history of test and measurement bringing systems and data management expertise to expand and leverage the rich data environment. The goal is to enrich data, in a wholistic and real-time manner for the purpose of eliminating waste in the process. Dumping data into Microsoft Excel, which is a common way of handling data, yields “old data” according to Merian. The need is to feed KPIs that the user needs in order to accelerate actions.
Being aware of NI’s history and its customers, I asked what roles do customers of this software hold within companies. She specified several roles and their needs.
Test engineers and technicians—standardizing ways of looking at data, time delays
Directors—real time information, correlation analysis, enablement
VP—shorter time to market
She mentioned a customer, Dyson, who began manufacturing ventilators. SystemLink helped with management, track pass/fail, and helped manage supply chain. From more of a pure data analysis point of view, another customer, Jaguar, used SystemLink to reduce the cost of testing.
Interoperability has been a great benefit to consumers in many areas of the economy. Even industrial technology, where many forces coalesce to circumvent it.
I have written about interoperability specifically several times and have even given a couple of presentations on the subject. None of my work comes close to touching the work of Seth Godin and this podcast on interoperability at Akimbo.
Interoperability is great for users. The ability to connect different components and software applications powerfully enables use. However, suppliers fear that they will lose business by not being able to lock customers into their own proprietary ecosystem. Experienced users easily dismiss the argument that “all our products work better together when we control the system”. We’ve been there. That is not always the case.
The irony…interoperability is actually better for suppliers in the long run.
Check out the podcast as Seth describes indifferent, cooperative, and adversarial interoperability.
The popular press dithers over Artificial Intelligence and the “young ladies” Siri and Alexa spy on your every word. However, there are real, practical applications of AI that can help us operate and maintain our manufacturing and industrial operations. Here is one from AVEVA, a company that seems to have dominated my news this summer.
It has launched AVEVA Insight OMI app infusing real-time artificial intelligence into an operator’s decision-making. This app presents real-time anomaly detection in a context-aware OMI visualization display.
The AVEVA Insight OMI app introduces AI capabilities into the AVEVA System Platform, formerly Wonderware, and leverages predictive early warning and automatic detection of unusual operational behavior. This provides users with early notification so they can quickly resolve issues before they become critical business problems such as unplanned downtime and production losses.
A simple management interface enables operations, maintenance and production teams to quickly train the AI engine to adapt to the enterprise’s specific implementation. An intuitive thumbs-up or thumbs-down confirmation ensures AI-driven notifications are relevant to the needs of the user and support overall enterprise objectives, with no programming or data science knowledge required. This closed-loop feedback improves the accuracy of the AI prediction engine over time and enables users to see what matters. As anomalous patterns are identified, they can be captured and presented by the app within an organization’s on-premise HMI/SCADA solution, delivering insights directly where operators need it.
“IIoT applications have driven a massive increase in the collection of real-time operations and manufacturing data. As a result, operators face alarm overload and often cannot effectively react to or distinguish between process-critical situations and false positive alarm conditions, resulting in the loss of operational time and resources. By harnessing the power of AI and advanced cloud analytics, AVEVA is enabling operators to take proactive action, before process and maintenance problems occur,” commented Rashesh Mody, Vice President, Monitoring and Control, AVEVA.
“In today’s climate of increased demand for innovative technology solutions, the launch of our new AVEVA Insight OMI app is a significant development because it serves as a single interface into operations by bridging the information technology and operational technology divide for increased agility and situational awareness. We are very excited to introduce a solution that will help our customers manage critical operations and improve decision support for maximum profitability in these fast-changing times,” Mody concludes.
In a normal summer, I am wondering where my next topic for something to write about will come from. This, of course, is anything but a normal summer. On the other hand, despite travel restrictions and office restrictions and the like I have been flooded with information. Meaning, I’m catching up on news from June. My bad…
I first heard of the real-time agile developer platform from VANTIQ three years ago when I was at Hannover exploring the beginnings of the EdgeX Foundry from Linux Foundation. Then in June I was pitched a news release from it where it had partnered with RoviSys to create Covid safety apps for such facilities as manufacturing, healthcare, and more. As the PR account executive told me, “Real-time tech enables these facilities to detect and respond to, say, an infected worker or an accident – in seconds, not minutes or hours.” The partnership applications detect and contain Covid-19.
Beyond this application (detailed below), I talked with CEO and founder Marty Sprinzen about the company and the technology. I didn’t get a deep dive, but they essentially blend IoT and AI (how about that for buzz words in one sentence) to achieve an abstraction above the IoT such that others can develop cool apps. Such as this work with RoviSys. A company to watch, for sure.
RoviSys is an independent, global provider of comprehensive process automation, systems integration, and building automation solutions. Together, the companies will build applications—based on VANTIQ’s real-time, event-driven architecture—to track people’s movements and body temperatures to monitor environmental health. By pinpointing potentially infected individuals in real time, response teams can rapidly isolate people and execute critical mitigation protocols, from disinfecting contaminated areas to facilitating hospitalization for infected persons.
RoviSys brings domain expertise and reach in the chemical, petrochemical, power and energy, data center, building management, water and wastewater, paper and wood, utilities, and oil and gas industries. “Our customers need tools that help get operations back up and running as soon as possible,” said Bryan DeBois, Director, Industrial AI at RoviSys. “But ensuring employee safety is crucial. Reliable solutions are going to require real-time monitoring systems that can safeguard everyone in the workplace. The relationship between RoviSys and VANTIQ to rapidly build these mission-critical applications and systems for the industrial space is important today and in the foreseeable future.”
VANTIQ recently launched its Back-to-Work Accelerator product, which enables software developers to rapidly build real-time applications for safeguarding workplaces against the spread of COVID-19.
“Getting people back to work during COVID-19 means that we have to track people in time and space, leveraging IoT sensors, thermal imaging and other applicable technologies,” said Sprinzen. “We’re excited to work with RoviSys to build customized applications for specific industrial needs, using the VANTIQ platform to enable lightning-fast development for real-time, real-world environments.”
VANTIQ enables customers to build next-generation applications that combine real-world data and real-time events. Their agile development environment allows complex applications to be created in weeks with minimal coding, taking full advantage of artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing. VANTIQ powers a broad array of applications for smart cities, smart buildings, oil and gas, telecom, healthcare and other industries. VANTIQ was founded in 2015 by technology veterans Marty Sprinzen and Paul Butterworth, co-founders of Forte Software.
Founded in 1989, RoviSys is a leading independent provider of information management solutions, manufacturing automation solutions, control systems integration, building automation, and enterprise and industrial networks. The company is distinctly qualified to deliver solutions that drive productivity, improve product quality, increase asset utilization and integrate technology for the chemical, petrochemical, life science, consumer packaged goods, glass, metals, power and energy, data center, building management, water and wastewater, paper and wood, and oil and gas industries.
