Rockwell Automation kicked off its big week at Chicago’s McCormick Place on Nov. 16 welcoming over 900 attendees to its annual Process Systems Users Group (PSUG) conference. Its speakers left no doubt that the Connected Manufacturing Enterprise is still the core strategy.
The significant point is probably less the message than the fact that Rockwell has attracted that many people to Chicago at a time when many companies–especially in the oil & gas sector–are not sending people to conferences and that Rockwell itself is a relatively new player in process.
John Genovesi, VP Information Software and Process Business, gave the Rockwell “Connected Enterprise” talk for his keynote.
The point of the Connected Enterprise lies in leveraging today’s technology to connect people closer to process to drive more efficient business. We can now get into data in your control system–driving IT/OT convergence driving productivity improvement.
Benefits of the Connected Enterprise include decreased time to market, lower total cost of ownership, improved asset utilization, enterprise risk management.
Rockwell’s three strategies to achieve this include integrated architecture; intelligent motor control (Ethernet connection), solutions & services.
Genovesi continued on to argue for customers to consider taking a “modern DCS approach”–Rockwell’s of course. The modern approach includes:
Flexible architecture
Contemporary infrastructure
Robust security
Productive workforce
Rockwell Automation has espoused Connected Manufacturing Enterprise as a consistent strategy and focus for years. It is obviously working for the company as it has continued to grow–especially in the process business.
In advance of this week’s Automation Fair at Chicago’s McCormick Place, Rockwell Automation has announced a couple of new product extensions–SoftwareStudio 5000 development environment and ControlLogix 5580.
“The addition of these applications [to SoftwareStudio 5000] significantly enhances our integrated development environment,” said Mike Brimmer, product manager, Rockwell Automation. “The expanded environment simplifies the design process and reduces the need for multiple tools, providing a more seamless system development experience.”
The Studio 5000 environment now includes the following:
The new Studio 5000 Architect application is the central point within the Studio 5000 environment where users can view the overall automation system; configure devices such as controllers, HMIs and EOIs; and manage the communications between the devices. The Studio 5000 Architect application also exchanges data with other Studio 5000 applications and third-party electrical design tools to simplify the development experience.
The Studio 5000 Logix Designer application is the design and maintenance software for the Allen-Bradley Logix5000 family of controllers and is used to configure discrete, process, batch, motion, safety and drive control. It simplifies the design process by providing an application-centric view of code; enhanced work flows for more efficient re-use of content; and collaborative tools that make it easier for multiple people to work together.
The new Studio 5000 View Designer application is the design and maintenance software for Allen-Bradley PanelView 5500 graphic terminals. The Studio 5000 View Designer application provides an intuitive, modern design environment that helps users more easily build contemporary systems. It enhances integration between the control system and operator interface to improve programming efficiency and runtime performance.
The new Studio 5000 Application Code Manager speeds system development by helping users build libraries of re-usable code that can be managed and deployed across their entire enterprise. Creating projects with Application Code Manager helps improve design consistency, reduce engineering costs, and achieve faster time-to-market and commissioning.
In addition, Rockwell Automation has updated the Studio 5000 environment with enhanced security and localized batch control. New security features include more user-authentication and access-control options, and a new privilege escalation capability. These features help improve productivity and system uptime by granting users the right level of access at the right time. Localized batch control allows controller-based batch sequencing and eventing to simplify system architecture for single-unit control and process skids.
The new ControlLogix 5580 controller provides up to 45 percent more application capacity and includes an embedded 1-gigabyte Ethernet port to support high-performance communications, I/O and applications with up to 256 axes of motion.
“With this new controller, users can meet future capacity and throughput needs as they design smart machines and work toward building a Connected Enterprise,” said Dennis Wylie, global product manager, Rockwell Automation. “The new port and additional capacity cuts the amount of control and communications hardware required, reducing system complexity, costs and required panel space.”
In addition, the product selection process is easier with the ControlLogix 5580 controller because users can now select the appropriate model using the total number of Ethernet nodes required. A single ControlLogix 5580 controller can support up to 300 Ethernet nodes.
The controller also supports enhanced security as part of a defense-in-depth approach to help protect facilities, assets and intellectual property. The controller incorporates advanced security technologies and software features, such as digitally signed and encrypted firmware, change detection and audit logging.
Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the industrial manufacturing industry showed continued strength in the third quarter of 2015, with more than 50 deals worth more than $50 million for the sixth quarter in a row, according to Assembling Value, a quarterly analysis of global deal activity in the industrial manufacturing industry by PwC US. While growing uncertainty about the future prospects for the global economy has created serious underlying fears about the years ahead, manufacturing executives continue to re-evaluate their business portfolios, add scale to better leverage core capabilities, and divest or spin-off non-core operations.
According to PwC, there were 55 transactions (worth more than $50 million) in the third quarter for a total deal value of $20.9 billion. Both value and volume declined from the previous quarter which recorded 66 deals totaling $28.2 billion. However, deal activity year-to-date remained healthy with 180 deals raising $69.6 billion. Four megadeals (transactions worth more than $1 billion) were announced for a total deal value of $9.8 billion or 47 percent of the quarter’s total deal value.
“The continued interest in deal making in the third quarter has been especially notable given weakening global manufacturing activity and increased uncertainty regarding the economic outlook,” said Bobby Bono, U.S. industrial manufacturing leader for PwC. “Manufacturing executives in our latest Manufacturing Barometer reported a drop in optimism towards the world economy’s prospects as the economic slowdown in China, along with weak global demand and a strong dollar, continued to weigh heavily on the growth of the manufacturing sector. As we enter the final quarter of the year, we expect the level of deal activity to remain stable as mixed global economic results steer manufacturing executives toward further portfolio reshuffling.”
Similar to previous quarters, strategic buyers continued to align product portfolios with high-growth markets, such as automotive, aerospace, and electric through acquisitions. Strategic investors represented 66 percent of deal activity in the quarter. With plenty of cash at their disposal, both strategic and financial buyers have been active in deals involving diverse end markets, particularly in Asia and areas of Europe on the verge of recovery.
Bono added: “Strategic acquirers remain concerned about the broad economic environment and are taking a cautious approach to their deal strategies. While they continue to execute on sizable transactions, they are continuously evaluating their portfolios and taking advantage of opportunities to divest non-core assets. Divestitures continue to be a viable exit option, representing 27 percent of deal activity this quarter.”
On a regional basis, the U.S. share of global activity remained among its lowest levels in a decade as local activity in Asia continued to dominate deal making. Acquirers from Asia and Oceania accounted for 62 percent of total deal activity in the quarter, while targets in the region represented 56 percent of all deals. The majority (75 percent) of deals in the third quarter were local market deals; however, the strength of the dollar could lead to an increase in U.S. outbound deals in the coming months.
PwC’s industrial manufacturing M&A analysis is a quarterly report of announced global transactions with value greater than $50 million analyzed by PwC using transaction data from Thomson Reuters.
I have resumed the Gary on Manufacturing podcasts that I’ve let lapse for a while. Still on iTunes or Kindle. More to come. This one reports on Emerson Exchange 2015.
Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Cybersecurity risks have become so public that CEOs and Board members are sponsoring projects within their companies and raising visibility of the issue.
PAS Inc. CEO Eddie Habibi and General Manager of Cybersecurity and CMO David Zahn shared that news with me during a conversation this week regarding the release of a new version of PAS Cyber Integrity (5.0).
They further pointed out that this high-level visibility serves to push the long-promised IT/OT integration and cooperation into more meaningful relationships.
A final point concerned approaches to ICS cybersecurity. Most companies and consultants focus on the networking access side of the equation. PAS also looks at such automation assets as patch management, inventory management, and workflow.
The latest release of Cyber Integrity boasts enhanced support for workflows and security policies, automating a closed-loop patch management process, and provides enhanced dashboard capabilities. Says the company’s press release, “Cyber Integrity helps companies better mitigate operational risk from malicious attacks or inadvertent control system changes through automated inventory management, patch management, change management, and backup and recovery.”
“Patch management for today’s control systems lack critical capabilities required to help industrial organizations meet cybersecurity best practices and regulatory standards,” says Peter Reynolds, Senior Analyst at ARC Advisory Group. “Among other issues, plants often have poor visibility into which assets require patching; lack integrated processes that drive testing, implementation, or mitigation; and cannot easily access auditable evidence of a patch management process. ARC supports the development of solutions such as PAS Cyber Integrity that are designed to address these types of patch management issues in mission-critical industrial environments.”
Cyber Integrity works across the heterogeneous control environment found in plants providing enterprise scalability and performance. It enables industrial companies to:
Gather and maintain an accurate inventory of IT and OT cyber assets,
Automate patch processes throughout the enterprise,
Monitor for unauthorized change to cyber asset configurations, and
Implement a program for system backup and recovery.
The latest release also includes an entirely new dashboard that makes it easier for end users to process actionable information, as well as for management to quickly understand the state of ICS cybersecurity.
“The great contradiction within ICS cybersecurity is that the assets most valuable to plant operations and safety are often the most vulnerable,” says David Zahn, Chief Marketing Officer and General Manager of the Cybersecurity Business Unit at PAS. “Inventory management and change management are essential components of a cybersecurity strategy that address this contradiction. By offering patch management within Cyber Integrity, we now provide cybersecurity and operations professionals the ability to identify, address, and audit a process that had traditionally fallen short. Along with our new dashboard, workflow, and policy capabilities, companies have everything they need to harden ICS cybersecurity and streamline compliance efforts.”
