by Gary Mintchell | Jun 22, 2015 | Internet of Things, Interoperability, Networking, News, Operations Management, Process Control
I have business related to an angel investment and too much other travel to attend this week’s Honeywell User Group in San Antonio and Siemens Summit in Las Vegas. Trying to get to both events was both expensive and too exhausting to attempt. I had one friend, at least, who was going to both. More power to Greg.
I’ll analyze from reports I see from those there and from press releases. I know that Honeywell Process Solutions anticipated one major security announcement at HUG, but I would have been gone had I decided to attend anyway.
Meanwhile, I’ve been writing about the Internet of Things, fieldbuses, and networks for some time. The ODVA reached out asking if I’d like an update on its process industry work with EtherNet/IP. Of course, was the reply. It has a stand at ACHEMA in Frankfurt (another place I could have gone…) and sent me this update that would be the centerpiece of its press conference there.
Along with Rockwell Automation’s entry into the process industry automation market, EtherNet/IP usage now must incorporate process industry standards to go along with factory automation (discrete industry) usage. Partner Endress + Hauser has been building out devices that are EtherNet/IP enabled. This is an interesting addition to process industry “fieldbus” market (I know, perhaps EtherNet/IP is not a “real” fieldbus, but it will be used like one).
This was ODVA’s first appearance at ACHEMA, where ODVA members and EtherNet/IP suppliers Endress+Hauser, Hirschmann, Krone, Rockwell Automation, Rosemount, Schneider Electric and Yokogawa have assembled a demonstration of EtherNet/IP to explain to visitors ODVA’s approach to the optimization of process integration. Illustrating typical process applications, such as clean-in-place, highlights of the demonstration include:
- Use of EtherNet/IP to connect best-in-class solutions and devices for process applications;
- Integration of traditional process networks, such as HART, Profibus PA and Fieldbus Foundation, into an EtherNet/IP network; and
- Movement of data between field devices, such as pressure sensors and flow meter, and plant asset management systems.
ODVA’s process initiative, launched in 2013, is intended to proliferate the adoption of EtherNet/IP in the process industries. Initial focus has been on the integration of field devices with industrial control systems and related diagnostic services, leading to a road map for adapting the technology to the full spectrum of process automation needs, including safety, explosion protection, long distances and comprehensive device management.
“EtherNet/IP is at the forefront of trends in convergence of information and communication technologies used in industrial automation. Although industrial Ethernet was first adopted in the discrete industries, today EtherNet/IP is widely adopted in hybrid industries and is spreading into process industries, said Katherine Voss, president and executive director of ODVA. “Because ACHEMA is an international forum for users in chemical engineering and the process industries as a whole, ODVA felt it would be helpful to the ACHEMA’s audience to broadly showcase to process users the opportunities for integration improvements, optimized network architecture and increased ROI that EtherNet/IP can afford.”
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 19, 2015 | Automation, Internet of Things, Networking, Operations Management, Process Control
There are a couple of interesting notes I’ve picked up recently.
Before I get to the first one, I took a long weekend and attended a conference on developing small businesses in developing nations. I met some successful business people who have a passion for helping others survive and thrive in difficult places.
We have learned (or should have) that sending huge chunks of aid money to developing countries has had little effect on changing people’s lives. A significant number of people engage in going to these areas and starting businesses, employing local people, treating all of them ethically, and making a profit for all involved.
If you wish to use your business and/or engineering talents to directly impact people, send me a note. I will get you in touch with the right people.
Are Democrats Throwing In the Towel On Manufacturing
Bill Waddell writes about Lean manufacturing. He is a practitioner and an evangelist. About the only place where he and I part ways relates to accounting. He is a Lean accounting follower. I follow Resource Consumption accounting.
At any rate, Industry Week ran an article authored by the Alliance of American Manufacturing asking if the Democratic Party had thrown in the towel regarding the importance of manufacturing in America.
Waddell responded with his typical acerbic wit by taking political leaders in America (both parties) to task for misunderstanding economics and manufacturing’s place at the table.
If you are a manufacturing professional, I dare you to put aside your party preference blinders for a second and just look at what politicians have to say about manufacturing. Comments are by-and-large ignorant (in the sense of not knowing something).
Where do they get it? Try reading articles about manufacturing in The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. They also have trouble really understanding what’s going on in manufacturing. Those are two sources of information for politicians.
Drones And Internet of Things
Interesting article in Uptime magazine poses the idea of drones as a part of the infrastructure for the Internet of Things. At the time I write this, the article has not made it from print to Web, so I cannot link to it. Hey Terry, try “Web first” journalism 😉
Expanding our thinking about what constitutes “sensing” and how we get the information is a great service to the industry. As we move past the buzz of IoT and start to look for innovative ways to get the information we need, these ideas are needed.
Modbus as Fieldbus?
John Rezebek, a Foundation Fieldbus evangelist and process control engineer writing in Control magazine takes Grant Le Sueur of Schneider Electric (Foxboro) to task for making a comment about Modbus as a fieldbus.
Schneider Electric became the owner (or leader) of Modbus when it acquired Modicon almost 20 years ago. And Modbus was long in the tooth then. So it was an interesting comment.
However, Foundation is difficult to use. It perhaps tried to solve too many problems in one package. Modbus is too slow and lacking bandwidth for much of what we do in process control and in the Internet of Things for industrial/manufacturing use.
One thing I find surprising about trying to reinvigorate Modbus is that Schneider (again from absorbing Modicon an early Ethernet supporter) became an ODVA member supposedly to support the CIP protocol and EtherNet/IP. Wonder what’s going on there? I’m writing a post for next week about that protocol’s growth in process.
Check out John’s comments and let us know what you think. Is there a third way? Are we still lacking an adequate fieldbus? (OK, Carl, open mic night 😉 ).
by Gary Mintchell | May 26, 2015 | Automation, Commentary, Internet of Things, News, Operations Management
I saw some Google Internet of Things news on a new site called The Information. As the technology media consolidates and fights for page views in a fragmented advertising market, Jessica Lessen developed a digital site that is subscription only. No fighting over getting ads and eyeballs.
When I started this site two years ago, I gave some thought to ads. But that seemed like a losing proposition. So right now it’s free. And the newsletter is free. You can sign up for it by clicking the link on the sidebar.
Internet of Things
Everybody wants to get into the Internet of Things parade. The Information picked up on a new project at Google. Working through its Android software, The Information notes, “Google wants its software to power any electronic device that connects to the Internet, whether or not it has a digital screen.”
To that end, Google is working on technology that could run on low-powered devices, possibly with as few as 64 or 32 megabytes of random-access memory, according to people who have been briefed about the project.
The analysis is that the technology could make it easier for other companies to build everything from “smart” fridges and light bulbs to garden monitors. Note that this relates to the consumer IoT.
Keep in mind that ever since the PC-based control revolution of the late 90s, industrial automation and control have increasingly leveraged commercial technologies for industrial uses. If Google develops a low-power, low-footprint product, this will no doubt spur further development of industrial “things”.
And, this should have the twin benefits to customers of driving down costs and providing a more open ecosystem.
More from The Information
The project has been referred by the codename “Brillo” and appears to be separate from the upcoming release of the “M” version of Android. Like the open-source version of Android, Brillo could be more like a technology blueprint than a fully loaded operating system tied to apps and services, at first.
Google is expected to discuss the Brillo software, which is initially aimed at devices for the home, during the company’s annual conference for developers next week. Google last year offered a version of Android for smartwatches, called Android Wear, to certain partners.
Google considers Brillo to be a “platform” that will help streamline a fragmented market in which developers are creating or using lots of different operating systems to power Web-connected gadgets and sensors, says one of the people briefed about it. Because the software is so different from Android, Google hasn’t yet decided whether to fold it into the Android brand, this person says.
Having its software power a bevy of home gadgets would give Google valuable insight into people’s behaviors and habits.
Devices running the new Brillo software would be able communicate with devices made by Google’s Nest unit, which include a thermostat and smoke detector. Those have operating systems built using Linux software, and the thermostat is loaded with technology called Thread that could enable it to serve as a hub for communicating with a range of other devices.
Undoubtedly, Google also wants to head off efforts by Microsoft and Samsung Electronics to create similar software and hardware standards for connected devices.
Microsoft has announced a slimmed down version of Windows 10 that runs on a Raspberry Pi, a cheap microcomputer popular among device developers.
Samsung has Artik, a set of standardized circuit boards smart home developers can tap. It also bought SmartThings, which makes a $99 wireless hub and a free app to control compatible devices around the home. But developers have been reluctant to commit to the system because it depends on Samsung’s as-yet unproved ability build up a huge installed base of hubs.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 24, 2015 | Automation, Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT, Networking, News, Operations Management, Organizations, Standards, Technology
News about further adoption of OPC (www.opcfoundation.org) continued to flow from the recent Hannover Fair (Messe) in Germany. Things had gone dark for a period of time from the Foundation. This has changed over the past couple of weeks as the communication technology picks up momentum.
The Platform Industrie 4.0 (I4.0) announced at Hannover Messe 2015 a reference architecture model for Industrie 4.0 (RAMI 4.0). RAMI 4.0 is a unified architecture model where use-cases, standards etc. for I4.0 are necessary. In RAMI 4.0 I4.0 components are defined in their structure and functioning. Thus it enables cross-company networking and integration across value-added networks. Where meaningful, RAMI 4.0 builds on existing and relevant standards.
The Platform Industrie 4.0 trade organizations BITKOM (IT), VDMA (Mechanical Engineering) and ZVEI (Electronics) together collected and analyzed necessary or relevant standards for RAMI 4.0 in technically oriented working groups. In the category “Communication Layer“ the OPC UA (IEC 62541) standard was thoroughly examined and deemed adequate for RAMI 4.0 as the one and only confirmed.
“Companies like ThyssenKrupp are implementing Industrie 4.0 today. The availability of established communication protocols is mission critical for such a timely implementation, OPC-UA is here the best example,” said Dr Achatz head of technology at ThyssenKrupp AG.
“We are proud the Platform Industrie 4.0 thoroughly analyzed OPC UA in the category “Communication Layer” and confirmed its relevance as the only standard for the reference architecture model for Industrie 4.0,” said Thomas J. Burke, President and Executive Director of the OPC Foundation. “This shows that the OPC Foundation is on the right track with our approach of secure, safe, manufacturer- and platform independent communication for heterogeneous systems by means of OPC UA to become a global data exchange standard for Industrie 4.0 and the Internet of Things.”
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 22, 2015 | Automation, Data Management, Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT, Networking, News, Operations Management, Organizations, Software, Standards, Technology
I have been writing about some open source initiatives with OPC UA. I think it’s cool and long overdue that there is so much happening in the OPC world lately. See these:
Open Source OPC UA Development
Open Source OPC UA for Manufacturing
Last week at Hannover, the OPC Foundation announced several items—including the promotion of Stefan Hoppe to Vice President of the Foundation (pictured). Another one deals with an open (sort of) source initiative designed to broaden the appeal of OPC outside of the industrial automation community.
OPC Announces “OPC UA Open Shared Source” Strategy
The OPC Foundation announced that the OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) specifications and technology will be made available to companies, consortiums, and end users without requiring membership in the OPC Foundation. The OPC Foundation is implementing an “open shared source” strategy to facilitate widespread adoption of the technology beyond industrial automation.
OPC UA provides a complete solution for information modeling allowing consortiums and vendors to plug in their simple or complex information models directly into OPC UA and take advantage of all of the OPC UA SOA allowing generic devices and applications to seamlessly share information.
The OPC Foundation open shared source strategy provides developers a quick jump start on the technology enabling prototyping projects without any barriers.
The OPC Foundation vision of interoperability providing the best specifications, technology, certification and process is the core of this open shared source strategy for the technology and specifications. The open shared source will be hosted on open source collaboration community work space. The OPC Foundation OPC UA stacks available to the OPC Foundation members will be under RCL license, allowing OPC Foundation members to build the highest quality OPC UA enabled products and then be able to certify the products through the comprehensive OPC Foundation certification and interoperability programs.
Stefan Hoppe, OPC Foundation Vice President, commented that “Adoption of OPC standards in industrial automation and specifically reaching out to other domains requires new ways of thinking to evangelize and increase awareness about the OPC Technology. OPC Unified Architecture is becoming the dominant infrastructure and information modeling architecture for the Internet of things and Industry 4.0, and these initiatives require complete transparency and open this about the technology to be a core part of their infrastructure.”
Continuing the Conversation
Andy Robinson pointed to a neat little app on OPC on YouTube. I replied and that led to a cool conversation between Andy and Rick Bulotta of ThingWorx. Here is what a nice little conversation can happen on Twitter. I’d like to invite more of these.
Andy Robinson @archestranaut @garymintchell re OPCUA, thought you might be interested in this. It’s a small start but the vision is great! http://ow.ly/LWdXq
Then Rick Bullota chimed in:
Rick Bullotta @RickBullotta why introduce #MQTT into the mix? it is a weak subset of OPCUA (no metadata, RPC, discovery)? #IoT
Andy Robinson @archestranaut 100% for typical in the building plant floor apps. But for weak or expensive connectivity may be better.
Rick Bullotta @RickBullotta living with “all of the above” here @Thingworx. MQTT is more like OPC (actually, NetDDE) than OPCUA.#IoT
Andy Robinson @archestranaut also agree #mqtt maybe not ideal for commands as would probably require Qos2, not a huge deal…
Rick Bullotta @RickBullotta btw, I think it’s quite cool what you did though! nice work!
Andy Robinson @archestranaut not my work. Someone else.
Andy Robinson @archestranaut but I do think the basic idea of accepting not many new #IOT device will speak UA out of box leads us to .. . think about how we might integrate at least a subset of critical info into our already setup SCADA systems.
Andy Robinson @archestranaut I don’t suspect folks like Thingworx are looking to supplant traditional SCADA. At least doesn’t seem logical
Rick Bullotta @RickBullotta we’re already doing this with @ThingWorx via OPC/OPCUA, historians, HMI APIs, databases, and so on.
Andy Robinson @archestranaut which is why you will be fine while other “similar” offerings will disappear on the low end
Rick Bullotta @RickBullotta correct. connecting, augmenting integrating and expanding their reach, whether within the plant or beyond.
Rick Bullotta @RickBullotta been there, done that, twice. 😉 I also founded Lighthammer (now SAP MII).
Andy Robinson @archestranaut nice to have a more civil convo after the last mini-twitp*** of about a month ago with others. 🙂
