Virtual Appliance Provides Entry Point for Small Deployments

Virtual Appliance Provides Entry Point for Small Deployments

A short blurb on a product that I didn’t know that Rockwell Automation had—a rack-mount compute platform that can be used as a virtual machine server.

The information did not come through a traditional press release. It was a New Product Spotlight with a request to run in the products section. Well, I’m not a magazine or traditional media, so I don’t have a “products section.” However, I have great empathy for PR firms these days. They really have to push to keep clients happy in a tough market with demanding client executives.

Given that I’ve been spending so much time at IT conferences and everyone speculates about what Rockwell is up to, I found this one intriguing. “The new VersaVirtual appliance from Rockwell Automation provides all the computing, networking and storage capabilities needed to deploy and maintain up to 15 virtual machines in one ready-to-use appliance.”

Two key features:

First, it avoids the potential pitfalls of a do-it-yourself virtualized architecture. This appliance is pre-engineered. It arrives as a complete product from one source.

Second, it is an Industrial Data Center with scaled down cost and complexity for smaller applications.

They even remove the objection of needing an IT department. The VersaVirtual appliance comes with one-year remote monitoring and administration so that users receive around-the-clock system monitoring to help prevent downtime. Customers will also receive support from certified IT/OT professionals who have an average response time of three minutes to help resolve technical issues.

It is a hyperconverged (compute, networking and storage) appliance for entry-level virtualization. And the benefits: Virtualization brings an average of 74% decrease in total cost of ownership, reduces downtime, adds compute capability, and comes with trusted IT/OT services and support.

Looks like an entry-level IT platform from the OT leader. Interesting.

Schneider Electric Asset Performance Management Offering Shows Growth

Schneider Electric Asset Performance Management Offering Shows Growth

So last week I shared an update on Schneider Electric from the ARC Forum–mostly on cybersecurity. A helpful marketing person guided me to the press release with all the data that updated the software side of the week’s news–specifically asset performance management. For the most part the discussion did not center on product updates but on “increasing momentum surrounding customer adoption”. In other words, Schneider wanted to highlight an area of software not often brought to center stage and show that it is a growth area.

Kim Custeau (I misspelled her name in my last post, I believe–thank you autocorrect), Asset Performance Management Business Lead, shared how investments in the cloud, advanced machine learning, and augmented reality, coupled with new partnerships, have empowered customers.

“Defining and executing an asset performance strategy is a critical component to improving productivity while safeguarding business continuity,” she said. “We have been delivering proven, industry leading asset performance solutions for nearly 30 years, and continue to invest in a long-term strategy to drive innovation in this area. Our focus is to provide real value to our customers by empowering them to maximize return on capital investment and improve profitability. We are proud to see our customer results speak for themselves with significant savings.”

Machine learning and prescriptive analytics:

  • Duke Energy prevented an estimated $35 million cost from early warning detection of a steam turbine problem
  • Ascend Performance Materials now responds faster to alerts saving an estimated $2 million through avoided plant shutdowns

Augmented Reality:

  • BASF is implementing AR to improve asset performance, reliability, and utilization while increasing production efficiency and safety because technicians leverage an augmented digital representation of the asset.

Cloud and Hybrid Deployment:

  • WaterForce partnered with Schneider Electric to develop and IIoT remote monitoring and control system in the cloud that allows farmers to operate irrigation pivots with greater agility, efficiency, and sustainability.

New Partnerships:

  • MaxGrip and Schneider Electric announced a partnership to expand APM consulting and add Risk-based Maintenance capabilities. The APM Assessment is a first step for industrial companies to evaluate asset reliability and digital transformation strategy.
  • Schneider Electric and Accenture completed development of a Digital Services Factory to rapidly build and scale new predictive maintenance, asset monitoring, and energy optimization offerings. As a result, a large food and beverage company saved over $1 million in maintenance costs
Companies Discover IoT Applications Boost Performance

Companies Discover IoT Applications Boost Performance

I am still stung by a comment and ensuing discussion made by a maintenance manager during a talk I gave a few years ago. The talk was an early IoT description of networks, data, information, and the like. The guy raised his hand and said, “The engineers in my plant tell me that this stuff doesn’t work. So just forget about it!”

Emerson Automation developed a strategy called Top Quartile Performance and a service plan called Operational Certainty in order to operationalize Industrial IoT to benefit customers. This report comes from Covestro, one of the world’s largest polymer companies, which has selected Emerson to provide Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to help achieve its goals of minimizing risk and improving uptime at nine high-utilization plants.

As part of the $14 million, five-year contract, Emerson will provide remote monitoring and predictive maintenance to help Covestro optimize these manufacturing facilities for improved production, safety and reliability.

The Emerson program is a tenet of Covestro’s comprehensive digitization program called Digital@Covestro that considers and implements new Industrial IoT strategies and operating procedures to deliver improved performance and meet defined financial targets. Covestro’s reliability program will leverage strategies, solutions and technologies in Emerson’s Operational Certainty program designed to help manufacturers achieve Top Quartile performance. Emerson data shows that Top Quartile companies spend half as much on maintenance compared to average performers and operate with an additional 15 days of available production each year.

Emerson will remotely monitor and maintain 40 of its DeltaV distributed control systems at Covestro plants in China, the United States and Germany. Remote teams at Emerson’s Innovation Center in Austin, Texas, will monitor and provide best practices-based maintenance strategies for local Emerson teams to implement at each Covestro plant. “By collaborating with Emerson to stay proactive about plant availability, we can drive toward always-on production and continue to satisfy customers in our high-demand market,” said Klaus Schaefer, chief technical officer, Covestro.

The Emerson-Covestro agreement reflects an emerging business model in industry, where manufacturers rely on a strategic supplier’s software solutions and deep automation expertise to monitor and execute maintenance, equipment health or energy management programs, allowing customers to focus their attention on critical operating functions that drive plant performance.

“Covestro and Emerson have a shared focus on driving Top Quartile operational performance,” said Jamie Froedge, president of Emerson’s Process Systems and Solutions business. “Connecting Covestro’s global product manufacturing expertise with our remote and local service capabilities allows the right expert to be available, real time, to ensure reliable operations.”

Software-Powered Connected Services Drive Digital Transformation

Software-Powered Connected Services Drive Digital Transformation

Rockwell Automation continues its path of Connected Enterprise. In the grand scheme of RA products, I’ve never thought of software and networking as having a major impact on sales numbers. But the company continues to roll out some innovation. The “Shelby” bot and Project Scio analytics reveal some unexpected software advances for what has been a devotedly hardware-centric company.

To accompany software and networking and connectivity, Rockwell has beefed up its services offering. Its Connected Services offerings are designed to help customers plan for, deploy, and maintain new digital transformation solutions.

This is the last of my reports from interviews during Automation Fair in November in Houston. It seems the more work that I complete, the more that comes my way. I don’t think I’ll catch up in January either since it appears that my off-season soccer administrative responsibilities keep growing.

Back to Connected Services.

Connected Services offerings include industrial infrastructure assessment, design, implementation, support and monitoring capabilities including Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), remote asset monitoring and predictive maintenance, cybersecurity threat detection and recovery, training and consulting offerings. These software-powered services build on existing application and product support services to help organizations access and use production data to improve asset utilization and productivity, while reducing risk and time-to-market.

“Industrial operators have been using cutting-edge technology since the Industrial Revolution,” said Sherman Joshua, global portfolio manager for Connected Services, Rockwell Automation. “Our customers understand that digitizing operations or building a Connected Enterprise is about much more than rolling out new technology. They need the right infrastructure, process and people in place to transform operations and capture the value new technology is unlocking. That value is huge. Our Connected Services are making it easier and faster for our customers to uncover it.”

For example, according to ARC Advisory Group, the cost of unscheduled downtime in industrial operations exceeds $20 billion. Through traditional means of detecting, diagnosing and fixing downtime, approximately 76 percent of downtime occurs before any corrective action is undertaken. Connected Services can help users detect and resolve issues quickly, reducing downtime by as much as 30 percent.

Connected Services offerings start with building a secure information infrastructure. Network and cybersecurity services include assessments and design, technical support, IT/OT training, remote monitoring, threat detection and recovery, turnkey implementation, pre-engineered network solutions, and network monitoring and management. These services can speed the integration of new equipment and systems, vastly improve security and help reduce downtime with access to technical resources.

Remote support, monitoring and response services can prove especially valuable for critical processes through around-the-clock operations and remote operations. These services can complement on-site maintenance teams, providing everything from continuous machine monitoring and incident response to 24/7 remote support and software/firmware updates. Deployments can make use of the FactoryTalk Cloud gateway, on-premise Rockwell Automation Industrial Data Center servers, or a hybrid model that combines both options to help improve productivity and reduce downtime.

Data integration and contextualization services can help capture a wealth of data and convert it into actionable information. These services can provide new opportunities to help increase productivity. Producers can reduce skills gap challenges by relying on Rockwell Automation to monitor, maintain and manage the network, equipment or entire applications. Additional digital transformation and data scientist consulting services will be available in 2018.

Connected Services offerings are also scalable, allowing producers to build ROI as they go, and rely more on OPEX than CAPEX funding. Rockwell Automation can deliver and execute Connected Services offerings globally, giving organizations consistent support across operations.

ABB Launches New Products And Digital Enterprise Platform

ABB Launches New Products And Digital Enterprise Platform

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.

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