​​​​Motor Drives Increasingly An Enabler of IoT Says Market Intelligence Firm

​​​​Motor Drives Increasingly An Enabler of IoT Says Market Intelligence Firm

Just before Thanksgiving, I had the opportunity to talk with Adrian Lloyd, CEO of Interact Analysis. Interact is a new market research and intelligence company composed of industry veterans of other firms. The company researchers perform many more interviews than the industry norm combining with deep regional manufacturing data in order to achieve better and more granular results.

Company CEOs provided insight to me years ago about the accuracy (or lack) of many market analyses. I’m always in search of better information. We’ll try this one.

Interact has just released two reports—low voltage AC drives and motion control.

2019 low voltage AC motor drives report from Interact Analysis

  • Decentralized and motor mounted drives to show the strongest growth
  • Danfoss overtook Siemens in 2018 to be number 1 drives supplier to the EMEA region
  • Cabinet mounted general purpose drives have largest percentage of sales by product type

The research shows that growth in the intralogistics and materials handling sector has led to increased demand for decentralised and motor mounted drives, leading them to show the strongest growth over the five-year forecast period out of all seven product types covered. Cabinet mounted general purpose drives account for nearly half of drive sales globally, but also represent the slowest growing product type.

Meanwhile, from a regional perspective, although ABB is the number 1 drives supplier on a global basis, Danfoss has overtaken Siemens to be number 1 in EMEA. The Americas is predicted to be the fastest growing drives market for 2019, while the market in EMEA is shrinking, and China continues to occupy the largest share of the market (43% by unit shipments in 2019).

Interact Analysis has pioneered a new forecasting approach that gives an unprecedented level of detail. For example, users could choose to view anticipated demand for drives under 2.2 kW in the Indian packaging market. This is possible because the report is underpinned by 12 years of data on industrial production (the value of goods produced) and machinery production (the value of the machines used to produce goods). This information comes from Interact Analysis’s Manufacturing Industry Output Tracker – a big data tool that aggregates national manufacturing surveys from all major manufacturing economies in a set of over 1.2 million datapoints.

Lloyd says of this report: “In 2018 average drive prices fell by 2.7% compared with 2017, and we expect this trend to continue. To compound this, 2019 is experiencing a slowdown in the market. Yet the drives industry has reason for positivity. And not just because we expect the market to rebound in 2020.

“The world is becoming increasingly automated – in fact it is becoming rare to open a national daily newspaper and not read something about how automation is impacting the economy. Automation growth sectors, such as eCommerce warehouses, are creating vast new opportunities for drives. In the longer run, it is very positive for drives manufacturers that our research shows drives buyers increasingly see drives as the front line of predictive maintenance and industrial IoT.

“Most drives reports model industry dynamics by simply comparing the growth of the drives market with the growth of the entire manufacturing sector. Ours is different. Interact Analysis’s Manufacturing Industry Output tracker compares the value of goods produced with the value of machines used to produce goods to give a whole range of fresh new insights unavailable in any other drives report.”

Motion Control Market to Exceed $15bn by 2023

New 2019 motion control market report from Interact Analysis reveals

  • Despite a short-term dip in 2019, longer term forecasts predict solid growth
  • Increased reliance on industrial robotics a significant contributor
  • Growth rate to exceed that of global manufacturing production by 2020

Interact Analysis has released a new market report – Motion Controls – 2019 – pointing to strong growth over the next four years for motion control products.

Despite a small decline in 2019 (-3.8%) the report outlines how the market for motion control products will grow strongly, ultimately exceeding $15bn in 2023. Also noteworthy is the firm’s belief that the motion control market will outpace growth of global manufacturing production from 2020 onwards. The positive outlook holds true despite the torrid time currently facing machine tool vendors which, as the single largest consumer of motion control products, generated over a third of motion control revenues in 2018.

Interact Analysis points to several sectors which are helping to drive a more positive outlook for motion controls. These include food & beverage machinery, packaging machinery, robotics and material handling equipment, especially equipment for warehouse automation and intralogistics. Together these sectors generated just under a quarter of total motion control revenues in 2018 and are forecast to account for closer to 30% in 2023.

The report outlines further factors strengthening the outlook for motion control demand, including the trend for decentralization. Here higher-protection ratings are helping to advance the market for particular motion products. Although even combined the opportunity is small compared to the total (representing only 2.4% of the global market in 2018), the findings show that revenues for both products are projected to experience higher growth than the rest of the market, driving their combined value to exceed $500m in 2023.

Geographically, six regions – China, USA, Japan, Germany, Italy and South Korea – will continue to dominate market revenues. China, in particular, is expected to add significant revenues over the next four years, making it almost twice as big as the United States. In industry terms, sectors utilising metal cutting tools remain the largest in revenue terms, however the strongest overall growth during the forecast period came from mobile robots and industrial robots, which are the only ones forecast to experience growth in 2019 versus 2018.

Tim Dawson, research director for Interact Analysis and principal analyst of the motion controls report, said: “Although the motion control market may be considered fairly mature there are important trends impacting its future growth helping drive revenues at an above average rate for the long-term. Couple that with product releases from new vendors, plus expanding portfolios from existing ones; and the fundamentals for this industry appear very strong, even despite headwinds in certain key sectors.”

​​​​Motor Drives Increasingly An Enabler of IoT Says Market Intelligence Firm

The IIoT market is booming—so why are half of all IIoT deployments failing?

Management!

OK, the headline came from IHS Markit | Technology, an Informa Tech market analyst company. The answer from me.

One of the value adds of analyst firms is to provide market research studies. Where once I received industrial market information from just one analyst firm, now several send me updates. Helps round out information. But these are always estimates, and prone to some error. It’s a good guide though.

This research looks at Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) nodes. It also does the analyst thing of providing some guidance on implementation. The research is interesting. The guidance requires another post on management practices, I think. However, what I’m hearing is that some executive reads about IIoT and picks an unlucky person to head up the project. A pilot project is authorized, mostly completed, and mostly forgotten.

Notes from the Report

The global IIoT business is arriving at a tipping point, with the industry reaching a connectivity milestone next year that will pave the way for market-changing events like the proliferation of cloud-based technologies. These developments will help propel annual IIOT node shipments to 224 million units in 2023, a 100 million unit increase from 124 million in 2018.

However, despite the industry’s progress, about half of all IIoT deployments are failing. All too often, these deployments are being hamstrung by planning breakdowns, including the failure to set reasonable objectives and to gather support and cooperation from critical personnel within organizations. Without addressing these issues, the global IIoT market could face major challenges in reaching its growth potential.

The connection inflection

Industrial assets have traditionally employed fieldbus for connecting to the industrial network, and while Ethernet solutions have been in place for a couple of decades, their adoption has been slow. However, after years of making progress in the market, Ethernet is set to displace Fieldbus as the primary network medium for the first time in 2020. Ethernet will account for 43 percent of IIOT node shipments next year, compared to 41 percent for Fieldbus.

“There are now more than 1 billion connected devices on factory floors around the world,” said Alex West, senior principal analyst, industrial technology, at IHS Markit | Technology. “This massive installed base is about to reach a tipping point, with Ethernet overtaking Fieldbus in 2020. The proliferation of Ethernet is enabling the transmission of larger volumes of data. This will ultimately bring in technologies like the cloud that are going to supercharge the IIOT business.”

Connecting to reduce downtime

The arrival of a faster connectivity solution will allow manufacturers to utilize cloud-based solutions to reduce downtime.

“One of the really significant challenges faced by industrial companies is unplanned downtime,” West said. “Just to quantity that challenge, it’s estimated in the automotive industry that $20,000 to $30,000 per minute is lost through unplanned downtime. New applications enabled through IIoT, maintenance and asset-health monitoring, are really helping overcome these challenges. We’ve estimated around a 30 percent average saving or reduction in unplanned downtime can be achieved through industrial IoT solutions.”

Monitoring assets

The benefits of IIoT solutions facilitated by enabled devices can be realized across the entire lifecycle of production, from product design, to monitoring inventory levels in the supply chain.

For example, Harley Davidson, a few years ago was facing business challenges in terms of fulfilling customer requirements. By improving the connectivity of its plant, the company was able to reduce the time to meet new orders filled from 21 days down to six hours.

Addressing IIoT deployment fails

While faster connectivity holds great promise for expanding the IIoT market, the reality is that current deployments are failing as often as they succeed.

“At the proof-of-concept phase, about half of IIoT projects are failing—which is acceptable for companies attempting to be agile and trial new applications,” West said. “However, there is a similar failure rate when companies move to the deployment stage. This means companies are investing enormous sums in these projects but aren’t getting the payback they expected.”

The failure of a project is defined as not meeting the customer’s expected payback. Many times, the high failure rate can be attributed to inflated expectations. A total of 50 percent of companies expect to see payback within one year, although many of these projects can take much longer to generate returns.

IHS Markit | Technology recommends manufacturers take the following steps to increase their chances of IIoT success:

  • Specify the project by determining in advance which exact challenges you want IIoT to address.
  • Start small, with some pilot projects of concepts to see how the technology can be utilized.
  • Go right to the top, with senior-level management support for projects.
  • Get the urge to converge, by ensuring support from all relevant functional groups.
  • Leverage your people power, by getting staff involved with deploying the technology and encouraging them to view IIoT not as a threat, but as an augmentation to their job capabilities.
Industrial IoT Suppliers From a Different Point of View

Industrial IoT Suppliers From a Different Point of View

I have just returned from a weekend in Eastern Ohio at a youth soccer tournament. You learn a lot about human nature–your own as well as others–when you’re in a competitive tightly compressed space.

The games I refereed had coaches and parents carrying exhuberance carried way too far–probably into less positive descriptions. As director of referees for the tournament, I walked around observing other games, as well. Talked with a 15-year-old girl about her game. She told me the parents were the worst. They yelled unkind things directly at their goalkeeper including calling her a “bitch”. Sometimes I wonder.

This week I’m heading west for another IT conference. This one is Hitachi Vantara. I have had a few interviews lately with people from there as they have ramped up an Industrial IoT practice. I’m sure there will be more later this week.

What started me thinking about human nature and Industrial IoT suppliers was a comment I received a couple of weeks ago at another conference. “The trouble with the IT companies is that their sales people come in and promise that their Industrial IoT solution will solve all their problems.”

What engineer do you know who would believe that? Which ones would immediately tune them out and start thinking about their hobby?

I was a sales guy once. Or twice. I also was the guy from engineering who tried to explain the technology, benefits, and competitive advantage of our product versus the market. I also watched for when the sales peoples’ eyes glazed over. They didn’t want too much information. Too much gets in the way of a sales pitch. It’s partly just human nature and partly knowing their job.

That was a good comment. I don’t work with sales at these companies. Sure, the CEO is “selling” when they talk to me, but it’s a different selling. I write; I don’t buy.

It taught me to probe a little deeper into all these companies I cover–IT and OT–and get into what message they take to the prospect or customer. It may be entirely different from what I hear. And that would be a valuable part of the story.

​​​​Motor Drives Increasingly An Enabler of IoT Says Market Intelligence Firm

GE Digital Updates IIoT Software

I guess I did attend the last GE software conference Minds + Machines. However, the reconstituted and independent GE Digital recently held a user conference where it announced a number of upgrades to its IIoT software. These are firmly within the current trends of connecting and mobility.

The product updates include:

  • Predix Essentials, which makes it easier for industrial companies to connect, visualize and analyze their data
  • Asset Answers, which helps customers to understand the competitive potential of Asset Performance Management (APM) software
  • Webspace 6.0, a new HTML5 interface that seamlessly brings automation data to operators across any mobile device

Edge-to-Cloud Accessibility

Predix Essentials is an easy-to-use SaaS solution, helping companies connect to disparate data sources, monitor operations, and leverage edge-to-cloud predictive analytics–reducing time-to-value for operational teams looking to reduce waste, lower costs, and increase performance.

Developed in partnership with a number of customers, including silicon chip manufacturer Intel, Predix Essentials is a natural first step for industrial businesses looking to leverage the power of cloud-based Industrial IoT technologies, providing the connectivity, visualization and analysis capabilities that are the cornerstones of a digital transformation journey, regardless of vertical or maturity.

Suitable for industrial companies of all kinds, Predix Essentials is also the foundation of GE Digital’s APM and OPM application suites, providing core functionality and bridging the entire software portfolio by connecting GE Digital cloud-based solutions to on-premises data from its Automation, MES and Historian solutions.

Identifying Maintenance Strategies

Asset Answers is a benchmarking tool that helps customers quickly import and assess data to better understand how their asset maintenance compares with similar companies in their particular domain, or even against their own internal performance across sites.

With this intelligence, customers can determine where best to invest in updating maintenance regimes or capabilities, and ultimately provide a seamless path to products like APM to manage and optimize assets across their business. Asset Answers is available for many sectors, including power generation, oil and gas and chemicals.

Improving Operator Mobility

Webspace 6.0, a web and mobility solution, brings the full visualization and control capabilities from GE’s iFIX and CIMPLICITY HMI/SCADA software seamlessly across devices, including smartwatches, phones, tablets and desktops.

Offering enhanced encryption and new zero-install HTML5 client, Webspace 6.0 improves the way that operators receive and react to operational insights, whether they are in the field, on the plant floor or at a desk, providing them the flexibility to make informed decisions and share their expertise, regardless of location. By dynamically extending automation solutions, Webspace 6.0 increases information sharing across teams, speeds the right operator actions, and improves agility with real-time visualization and control anywhere, anytime.

Availability

“GE Digital continues to release innovations that forge the way for industrial customers working on transforming their operations,” said Pat Byrne, CEO of GE Digital. “By continuing to invest across our portfolio of industrial software, and by making it easier than ever for our customers to unlock the power of the Industrial IoT, GE Digital is strengthening its customers’ ability to become more productive, efficient and safe.”

Predix Essentials, Asset Answers and Webspace 6.0 are generally available today as part of GE Digital’s portfolio of industrial software products covering HMI/SCADA, Historian, Asset Performance Management and Manufacturing Execution System applications. Today’s announcements build on a strong thread of recent investments in product innovations, all designed to solve a broad range of industrial customer challenges, including iFIX 6.0; Historian 7.2, Plant Applications 8.0 and Predix Manufacturing Data Cloud for the manufacturing sector; Grid Analytics for the power transmission and distribution market; and APM Integrity’s Compliance Management for the O&G and Power Generation industries.

Industrial Manufacturers Are Behind the  Industrial IoT Innovation Curve

Industrial Manufacturers Are Behind the Industrial IoT Innovation Curve

Sean Riley, Global Director of Manufacturing and Transportation at Software AG, discussed Industrial IoT (IIoT) implementation in industry with me a couple of weeks ago. Now, a survey sponsored by Software AG has been released revealing that manufacturers are not scaling IIoT across the enterprise due to failure to invest in predictive analytics and innovative integration strategies.

The shocking thing to me about the survey is that it mirrors survey results over the past three or four years. Executives and managers recognize a problem further even acknowledging that this is something that could cost them competitively against the market even putting them out of business. Yet, they cannot figure out how to do it right. They whine about how tough it is.

Sounds to me like a new crop of leadership is needed.

There are good practices taught some 40 years ago when I took a deep dive while implementing my first IT project. Things like understanding the system first. Bringing all the departments in on the plans, work to be done, and benefits we all would get. Some recommendations from Software AG sound that familiar—breaking silos, bringing IT and OT organizations closer together (a management problem, not a technical one), transparency in the project roll out.

The survey of over 125 North American manufacturers primarily in the heavy industry and automotive sectors revealed inability to scale IIoT investments across their enterprises results in losing millions of dollars in potential profits.

The survey also revealed that the vast majority of manufacturers queried report that their IIoT investments are limited – locked in one small department or sector of their company – preventing these organizations from sharing the power of IIoT across their enterprises.

Other key findings include:

  • 80% of all survey respondents agree that processes around IIoT platforms need to be optimized or they will face a competitive disadvantage but very few are doing this
  • IT-OT integration is considered one of the most difficult tasks – with 57% of automotive manufacturers stating that this has prevented them from realizing full ROI from their IIoT investments
  • 84% of automotive and heavy industry manufacturers agree that the most important area of IIoT is “monetization of product-as-a-service-revenue.” However, optimizing production is still important with 58% of heavy industry and 50% of automotive manufacturers agreeing with that statement
  • Curiously, defining threshold-based rules is considered almost as difficult as leveraging predictive analytics to scale IIoT. More than 60% of respondents stated that defining threshold-based rules was as difficult as integrating IT systems and IoT sensors into existing control systems.

“Manufacturers place a high value on IIoT, but they are encountering serious difficulties in unlocking the complete intended value to unleash their innovation across their organizations,” said Riley. “Fortunately, there is a way for them to quickly and easily resolve this problem. By investing in the right IT-OT integration strategy that leverages sensors, predictive analytics, machine learning, control applications, and product quality control, manufacturers can fix this problem in less than 6-12 months while realizing other key benefits, namely extended equipment lifetime, reduced equipment maintenance costs and accessing more accurate data for production-quality improvements.”

Riley outlined five best practices for manufacturers to follow when looking to scale their IIoT investments across their enterprises and realize immediate profits and competitive advantage. Those best practices are:

1. Ensure clear collaboration between IT and the business by leveraging a step by step approach that starts focused and has clear near term and long- term objectives to scale

2. Create a transparent roll out process and don’t let other plants or departments move ahead outside of it

3. Give IT the ability to connect at speed with a digital production platform that is proven to be successful

4. Leverage a GUI driven, consistent platform to enable an ecosystem of IT associates, business users and partners around the platform

5. Enable the plant or field service workers to work autonomously without continual support from IT through GUI driven analytics, centralized management and easy, batch device connectivity and management

Riley also stated that it is critically important for manufacturers to select the best possible IIoT integration platform supported by key enabling technologies like streaming analytics, machine learning, predictive analytics and a larger ecosystem. Software AG’s Cumulocity IoT platform recently received the highest use case scores from Gartner Group in the brand new “Critical Capabilities for Industrial IoT Platforms” report which included Monitoring Use Case, Predictive Analytics for Equipment Use and Connected Industrial Assets Use Case for its IoT.

The Software AG IIoT Implementation survey was completed in Q2 2019 by Software AG and an independent third-party research house. The survey queried nearly 200 respondents at large manufacturing companies across automotive, heavy industry, high-technology, electronics, pharmaceutical and medical device industries. The respondents were primarily senior executives leading Manufacturing or Information Technology with the breakdown of 50% Managers, 38% Directors and 13% Vice Presidents or higher.

Software AG product

The press release contained some information about the company’s IoT platform—Cumulocity.

Being device and protocol agnostic allows it to connect, manage, and control any “thing” over any network. Cumulocity IoT is open and independent, letting customers connect to millions of devices without being locked into one single vendor.

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