by Gary Mintchell | Mar 17, 2017 | Automation, Data Management, News, Organizations, Process Control, Technology
ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer
ABB held its customer conference in Houston this week and showcased many new products and unveiled its digital enterprise platform ABB Ability.
ABB Ability is the name given to its portfolio of digital solutions. I was trying to place it into a competitive landscape when one speaker showed a slide positioning ABB Ability with GE Predix, Siemens Mindsphere, and Schneider Electric’s Ecostruxure. CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer likened it to putting all the Lego blocks of ABB’s digital offerings together.
ABB Chief Digital Officer Guido Jauret
ABB Ability is a platform, database, and analytics that allows such things as helping customers in utilities, industry, transport and infrastructure develop new processes and advance existing ones by providing insights and optimizing planning and controls for real-time operations. The results can then be fed into control systems to improve key metrics such as factory uptime, speed and yield.
“As a pioneering technology leader in digital solutions, with an installed base of more than 70 million connected devices and 70,000 control systems, ABB is uniquely positioned to support its customers’ digital transformation,” said Spiesshofer. “With ABB Ability, we are combining ABB’s entire portfolio of digital solutions and services. We are creating additional customer value by bringing together ABB’s domain expertise, advanced connectivity and the latest digital technologies. With this, our customers can achieve unprecedented improvements in operational performance and productivity.”
Digital offerings provided by ABB Ability include performance management solutions for asset-intensive industries; control systems for process industries; remote monitoring services for robots, motors and machinery; and control solutions for buildings, electric-vehicle charging networks and offshore platforms. Some of the more specialized offerings address energy management for data centers and navigation optimization for maritime shipping fleets, among many others.
Customers who are already using the portfolio of digital solutions that are now part of ABB Ability include some of the world’s leading utilities, manufacturers and service providers, among them Shell Oil, CenterPoint Energy, Con Edison, BASF, Royal Caribbean, Cargill, Volvo, BMW and many others.
“Building our solutions on the Azure platform means we can take advantage of all of its capabilities and add value with our domain-specific offering,” said ABB Chief Digital Officer Guido Jouret. “In effect, we are turning ABB’s decades of industrial domain expertise into software offerings that our customers can access through the world’s largest and most advanced digital platform. From being a hidden digital champion, we are becoming the partner of choice for customers embarking on a digital transformation. They can now know more, do more, do better, together. We can help them assess, automate, optimize and collaborate.”
This product was the coolest thing at the show for me. It is ABB’s take on the trend toward smaller I/O devices with configurable racks. Admittedly not having first-mover advantage, ABB was able to build on existing competitive offerings and release an updated take on the technology.
ABB Ability System 800xA Select I/O, a new addition to System 800xA, is a redundant, Ethernet-based, single-channel I/O system. It supports ABB’s next-generation project execution model, Intelligent Projects, which offers a range of efficiency improvements for automation projects. With Select I/O, customers can undertake major projects on a faster schedule with fewer cost overruns. It uses standardized cabinets that allow installers to digitally marshal signals instead of using labor-intensive marshalling panels. Loop checks can be done before the rest of the system is delivered, minimizing the impact of late changes and allowing for project tasks to be executed in parallel.
ABB Ability Asset Health Center – Among the first ABB Ability solutions to be launched on Azure is ABB’s next-generation asset performance management solution, Asset Health Center 3.0. Available since January 2017, it uses predictive and prescriptive analytics and customized models to identify and prioritize emerging maintenance needs based on probability of failure and asset criticality.
ABB Ability Collaborative Operations – This powerful solution, now being brought to scale across industries, helps customers collaborate more effectively. It allows experts to work together across organization boundaries, using the same data and analytics platforms. It focuses on such outcomes as improving productivity, reducing equipment failures, lowering the cost of asset maintenance and transforming overall business performance. This is done while maximizing security and protecting data, people and assets at every level of integration. The solution has been delivering sustainable, long-term results to early adopters.
ABB Ability Digital Substation – ABB’s digital substation provides customers in the utility sector with unmatched control and efficiency. The digital substation incorporates fiber optic current sensors and disconnecting circuit breakers to reduce maintenance requirements and the need for miles of conventional cabling. ABB Ability takes these advances several steps further by combining the latest electrical gear with digital sensors and cloud computing. The result is that grid operators can make decisions based on comprehensive, up-to-the-moment information, while predictive algorithms can improve maintenance practices and asset management.
ABB Ability Smart Sensor – This smart sensor solution, unveiled last year, connects low-voltage electric motors to the Industrial Internet, allowing them to be monitored continuously. The solution, which can be easily affixed to a motor, transmits data on vibration, temperature, loads and power consumption to the cloud. Alerts are generated as soon as any of the parameters deviates from the norm, allowing the operator to take preventive action before the motor malfunctions. Early indications are that the smart sensor solution leads to a reduction in downtime of motors by up to 70 percent and extends their lifespan by up to 30 percent. Acting on the data to optimize the motor’s performance reduces energy consumption by as much as 10 percent.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 14, 2017 | Data Management, Internet of Things, Operations Management, Software
Connecting your plant devices through the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) generates lots of data; but, without powerful analytics and visualization, it’s all meaningless.
Therefore, Plex today announced a new analytics product.
The IntelliPlex Production Analytic Application, available now, taps IIoT data to provide manufacturing leaders with enterprise-wide insight into the performance of production operations, including processes and equipment on the shop floor.
This application adds to Plex’s IntelliPlex Analytic Application Suite, which includes applications for sales, order management, finance and procurement. This suite, with the addition of production analytics, delivers to manufacturers the industry’s most comprehensive cloud analytics, uniquely providing visibility all the way down to the shop floor.
The Plex Manufacturing Cloud is a comprehensive platform for manufacturing enterprises, connecting suppliers, customers, people, equipment, materials and finances across multiple facilities to form the technology backbone of an organization. Plex uses real-time IIoT connections as a core mechanism for managing manufacturing operations and enterprise resource planning.
That comprehensive view means Plex not only streamlines and automates operations, but also enables unprecedented access to companywide information including IIoT data. The IntelliPlex suite of analytic applications turns that data into configurable, role-based, decision support dashboards – with deep drill-down and drill-across capabilities. Plex first introduced the IntelliPlex Analytic Application Suite in 2016 with turnkey analytics for sales, order management, procurement and finance professionals.
- The IntelliPlex Production Analytic Application provides insight into key performance measures such as overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), scrap rates, first pass yield, inventory turns, on-time jobs and machine availability.
- IntelliPlex is configurable, so users can create custom performance dashboards and combine metrics to form their own analysis based on the wealth of data stored in the Plex Manufacturing Cloud.
- IntelliPlex analytics are also drillable, enabling users to instantly go from top-line performance analysis directly into data and details across plants, time and geographies.
- IntelliPlex applications are easy to activate as part of the Plex Manufacturing Cloud, and can be quickly extended and configured to match an organization’s evolving needs over time.
- The Production Analytic Application is available now.
Plex is planning to deliver additional analytic applications, including supply chain and human capital management. All applications are accessible to customers without the need for a lengthy implementation process.
“At Plex, we know that the best manufacturing organizations are built on the shop floor and that operational excellence is the foundation of product quality, company growth, and profitability,” said Karl Ederle, group vice president of products for Plex. “The IntelliPlex Production Analytic Application is unique because it provides an enterprise-wide view of manufacturing performance, combined with the ability to tap into the IIoT signals from equipment on a specific production line. Plex now offers customers analysis of their organization that truly spans from shop floor equipment to the financial bottom line.”
“This is not an IT tool, it’s an empowerment tool,” said Janice D’Amico, Plex specialist lead, Hatch Stamping. “The IntelliPlex Production Analytic Application has given Hatch access to accurate, near real-time data cross-enterprise that is user-friendly – easy to create, understand and share. We see this application being used at all levels of the organization to make better business decisions. The opportunities are endless.”
“In many manufacturing organizations, there is a communication breakdown between the front office and the shop floor,” said Alexi Antonio, Plex Analytics product lead. “Because the three OEE production metrics—performance, quality, and availability—are not expressed in monetary units, daily efforts to improve processes using OEE alone do not always translate into bottom-line savings. Plex puts OEE and financial metrics into a single dashboard, for the first time giving manufacturing leaders the ability to see and manage complete business performance.”
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 7, 2017 | Automation, Industrial Computers, Software
One under-the-radar trend in industrial automation and software is the development of a marketplace. Several companies have one type of marketplace or another. I think it’s going to prove to be a powerful concept. Here is a take on it from Advantech.
Advantech, a leader of the global industrial computing market, launches the WISE-PaaS Marketplace, an online software shopping website that features exclusive software services provided by Advantech and its partners. The WISE-PaaS Marketplace provides diverse WISE-PaaS IoT application software, including WebAccess/SCADA, WebAccess/HMI, WebAccess/IVS, WebAccess/IMM, WebAccess/NMS, online IoT cloud services, and IoT security services. The WISE-PaaS Marketplace is a sharing platform to integrate with IoT solutions developed by solution partners to provide the building blocks for customers to upgrade existing business systems to Industrial IoT and Industry 4.0 quickly and easily.
Share Success, Grow Business, and Innovate Services
The Wise-PaaS Marketplace is aimed at diverse solution offerings that provide cloud infrastructure services, security services, integrated WISE-PaaS IoT software services, and domain-focused applications for simple and rapid deployment. The WISE-PaaS Marketplace is a value-sharing platform/ecosystem that enables customers to market unique IoT applications and services, increase business opportunities and growth, and maximize returns under the profit-sharing system.
Ongoing Innovation for Future IoT Trends
Customers can subscribe software services via Wise-PaaS Marketplace with WISE-points included in the WISE-PaaS VIP membership packages to access numerous IoT solutions and create IoT innovations for future IoT trends.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 1, 2017 | Commentary, News
My friends over at the PwC industrial manufacturing practice have taken a look at 2017 industrial manufacturing trends. The report was composed by Marian Mueller, Bobby Bono, Steve Pillsbury, and Barry Misthal. I will summarize here. Check out the link for more in-depth discussion.
I think they have nailed most of the ideas coming up. Some of these will be difficult for suppliers to either swallow or develop. Likewise, customers may not always like increased connectivity back to the supplier. Pay for performance, so far, has not been a winner. Customers begin to think they are paying too much if performance really does increase. Then they want to go back to a fixed price <sigh>.
Six Industrial Manufacturing Trends
1. Leverage data and analytics in a new business model
By upgrading their technical capabilities, industrial manufacturers can bundle a variety of services enabled by connectivity and data, replacing the increasingly outmoded model of selling one big complex machine under warranty and a service agreement for maintenance and repair.
2. Innovate pricing
As technology begins to alter the relationship between industrial manufacturers and their customers, the traditional pricing model for the service contract must be changed as well, from pay-for-product to pay-for-performance. Condition-based maintenance, driven by predictive and interconnected industrial technology, will become commonplace. This should translate into fewer visits from repair technicians. As a result, customers will naturally expect more favorable terms, which can be facilitated by sharing risk.
3. Develop strategic partnerships — carefully
Industrial manufacturers must become more active players in the technology ecosystem, seeking expertise outside the industry in order to develop equipment connectivity, data analysis, and software development that are beyond their current abilities. For example, recognizing that it cannot grow the ecosystem alone, at least one major industrial company has aligned with a wide range of technology firms to create a dedicated cloud-based platform that can run industrial workplaces. Leaders have to balance the practice of close collaboration with strategic partners against the need to stay flexible in contracting and partner selection, all while maintaining their hold on their markets.
4. Mine operational data
If connected machines — the primary components of IoT — are to be the backbone of industry in the near future, industrial manufacturers will have to figure out how to manage the data coming from an avalanche of sensors, integrated equipment and platforms, and faster information processing systems. There is a critical need to hire people who can mine these bits and bytes of information and work more closely with customers to use the data to improve equipment performance and open new revenue streams. Indeed, the anticipated efficiency returns from digitization over the next five years across all major industrial sectors are substantial: nearly 3 percent in additional revenue and 3.6 percent in reduced costs per year, according to a recent PwC survey of companies.
5. Decide what intellectual property to share and what to develop
Many industrial manufacturers find it difficult to manage digitization and big data analytics because their internal IT systems are so unwieldy. As company operations have grown more complex, expanding into new global markets and product lines and integrating newly acquired firms over many years, the old enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that were meant to drive efficiency and coordination have proliferated into a tangled mass of disparate networks.
Industrial manufacturers must begin the process of overhauling their IT systems, creating a completely new architecture that can serve as the backbone for internal and external technology initiatives. In this new approach, it is imperative that IT systems communicate throughout the organization with standardized protocols.
6. Create strategies for talent development and retention
In the digitization sweepstakes, industrial manufacturers often find themselves at a disadvantage when trying to attract and retain talent. For example, in the U.S. many of the best and brightest STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) students would prefer to work in Silicon Valley, where innovation is on the menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, rather than in the stodgier old-world locales where many industrial manufacturers have their plants and headquarters.
Succeeding in challenging times
The next wave of leaders in industrial manufacturing will build an ecosystem that capitalizes on the promise of analytics and connectivity to maximize efficiency for themselves and their customers.
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 24, 2017 | Automation, Internet of Things, News, Operations Management, Safety, Software, Technology
Connections, services, augmented reality. Three technology directions and three companies that contacted me last month to point out some cool things going on, often beneath the radar. One of them just raised a bunch of VC money, though. I think you’ll be hearing more.
Now that I’m catching my breath from a couple of intense weeks with the ARC Forum and then the Industry of Things Conference, I have time to look at some new directions.
Knowledge Connected
Omnity uses the tagline Knowledge, connected. It accelerates the discovery of otherwise hidden, high-value patterns of interconnection within and between fields of knowledge as diverse as science, medicine, engineering, law and finance.
More than 2,500 scientific papers and 2,200 patent applications are published every day. Just the last five years of most scientific and engineering fields have produced on the scale of 100,000 documents. Reading these one an hour would take 50 years, a professional lifetime. Pair-wise comparison of these documents at three minutes per comparison would take more than 9,000 years, nearly the length of recorded human civilization. It is impossible to stay current in any field, much less the boundaries between two or more different fields, where most innovation occurs.
Omnity enables research and development professionals in all fields to rapidly and efficiently detect otherwise hidden patterns of relevant document interconnections. Whether for basic research or advanced product development, Omnity allows real-time insight into complex document sets, enabling research and development professionals to efficiently and systematically answer a wide range of questions. Read more here.
I heard about it on the podcast/radio show Tech Nation.
Augmenting Field of Vision
Safety Compass overlays information on your smartphone camera view, enhancing your field of vision. Warnings when and where you need it most—it is with you at work whenever and wherever you are, with coverage for the entire team. Simple, clear functionality with interactive hazard information suits any workplace size.
- Sign in and Select Your Site
- Supervisors can add a site or specific area on site within minutes.
- Adding hazard information is easy, simply follow the prompts to identify issues quickly.
- Workers can then sign in with secure login details and select from any number of relevant worksites.
- Scan Your Location for Hazards Using Augmented Reality
- The Safety Compass uses intuitive augmented reality to communicate hazard information to users in the field.
- Using the phone’s GPS and accelerometers the app superimposes real time information onto the camera view that adapts and compensates for worker’s field of vision.
- View Hazards Site-Wide
- By accessing the worker’s physical location, the app presents vital information on present dangers straight to the worker’s phone, avoiding the necessity of bulky safety manuals to locate and manage risk.
- A worker’s position is shown in relation to hazards, and workers can zoom, tilt and pan across a detailed site map.
- Access In-Depth Safety Information
- Workers receive critical site information well before they enter a hazardous area, allowing them time to prepare for safe work practices and overcoming the challenges of reading large volumes of complicated text in dark, shifting, loud or crowded environments.
- Additional safety information including video content can be added for more detail.
Frameworks of Applications
MuleSoft Agility starts with an application network according to MuleSoft. Mobility, Cloud services, the Internet of Things are creating incredible opportunities for business — but they’re raising customers’ expectations. MuleSoft builds application networks: seamless frameworks of applications, data sources, and devices connected by APIs, whether on-premises or in the cloud. They speed up app launch and modification cycles, make it easier to secure and manage access, and ultimately enable companies to do more — and faster — with less.
Leverage the power of API-led connectivity for a complete connectivity solution for digital business. Connect and orchestrate data on IoT devices, across devices, or with back-end applications. Leverage open standards and developer-friendly tools for speed and productivity. Connect to devices using out-of-the-box transport protocols like Zigbee and MQTT. Adapt Anypoint Platform to fit IoT architecture, not the other way around. Achieve full flexibility with a hybrid architecture and extensibility to connect future technologies.
MuleSoft recently received a large investment. Look for more from it.
