Schneider Electric Foxboro and Triconex Innovation Days 2019

Schneider Electric Foxboro and Triconex Innovation Days 2019

I’ve followed Foxboro and Triconex for many years now in my coverage of the process automation business. A great company that, not unlike too many others, suffered now and again with very poor management. The company has now settled in nicely at its home in Schneider Electric and appears to be healthy here.

Much credit must go to Gary Freburger. He provided a steadying hand as the leader before and through the transition, as well as guiding the integration into the new home. He is retiring at the end of the year. I’ve met a number of great leaders and a few stinkers in my 20 years at this side of the business. Gary’s one of the great ones. And his chosen successor (see more below) seems more than up for the task of building on his successes.

Marcotte Succeeds Freburger as Process Automation President

This week’s major announcement revealed that Nathalie Marcotte has been selected to succeed Freburger as president of its Process Automation business, effective Jan. 1, 2020.

Nathalie Marcotte Official Picture  jpg

“After a long, successful industry career, including more than 15 years serving Invensys and Schneider Electric in various senior leadership roles, Gary has decided to retire,” said Peter Herweck, executive vice president, Industrial Automation business, Schneider Electric. “We thank him for his many contributions and his strong legacy of success. We wish him well, and I congratulate Nathalie on her appointment. She brings more than 30 years of industry knowledge, expertise and experience, as well as a long record of success. I look forward to working with her as we build on the success Gary has delivered.”

Since joining the Schneider organization in 1996, Marcotte has held several positions of increasing responsibility, including vice president of Global Performance and Consulting Services; vice president, North America marketing; general manager for the Canadian business; and, prior to her current position, vice president, marketing, Global Systems business. As the company’s current senior vice president, Industrial Automation Services, she is responsible for Schneider Electric’s Services business and offer development, ranging from product support to advanced operations and digital services. She is also responsible for the company’s Global Cybersecurity Services & Solutions business, including the Product Security Office.

“As we move through this transition, it will be business as usual for Schneider Electric and our Process Automation customers,” Marcotte said. “Gary and I are working very closely together to ensure there will be no disruptions to our day-to-day operations. This ensures our customers have the same access to the exceptional people, products and technology they have come to trust and rely on to improve the real-time safety, reliability, efficiency and profitability of their operations.”

“I thank Gary for his many contributions to Schneider Electric and to our industry in general. Under his leadership, our customers, partners and employees have never been better situated to succeed, today and tomorrow,” Marcotte said. “This transition will have no impact on our technology strategy and portfolio roadmap. We remain committed to our continuously-current philosophy, which means never leaving our customers behind. Now, by leveraging the strength of the full Schneider Electric offer, we can take the next step toward enabling an easier, less costly digital transformation for our customers, while keeping them on the path to a safer, more secure and profitable future.”

Following the opening keynotes, I had the opportunity to chat privately with Freburger and Marcotte. Following summarizes a few key takeaways.

Digitalization and Digital Transformation.

These topics were prominently displayed in the ballroom before the keynotes. In fact the welcome and opening presentation were given by Mike Martinez, Director of Digital Transformation Consulting. These are common themes in the industry—in fact, not only process automation, but also at the IT conferences I cover. Each company has its own unique take on the terms, but it still boils down to data, data integrity, databases, and data security. All of which were discussed.

Key Points From the Presidents.

Integration across Schneider Electric. One priority has been working with other business units (and their technologies) across the Schneider Electric portfolio. This could be PLCs and drives, but power is a huge emphasis. Schneider Electric management wants very much for its process automation acquisition to integrate well with its historic electric power business. This is seen as a strategic opportunity. One thought-provoking observation—is the process engineer/electrical engineer divide as serious as the IT/OT divide? No direct answer. But these domains have historically had little to no collaboration. One to watch.

Close working relationship with AVEVA. If you recall, Schneider Electric bundled its various software acquisitions including the ones from Invensys (Wonderware, Avantis) and used them to buy into AVEVA—the engineering software company. Bringing automation and software together was a constant source of pain for Invensys. Schneider Electric dealt with it through a separate company. Along the way, cooperation seems to be better than ever. Marcotte explained to me that Foxboro combines its domain expertise with the more broadly general software platforms to achieve customer values. See for example my previous post on Plant Performance Advisors Suite.

Cybersecurity.  Marcotte has been leading Schneider’s cybersecurity efforts. These are seen as a key part of Schneider Electric’s offer. See especially the establishment of the ISA Global Cybersecurity Alliance. They don’t talk as much about Internet of Things as at other conferences, when I probed more deeply about IT, cybersecurity was again brought up as the key IT/OT collaboration driver.

It’s been a struggle, but the Schneider Electric process automation business (Foxboro and Triconex) seems as strong as ever. And the people here—both internal and customers—are optimistic and energetic. That’s good to see.

Automation Experience Center plus Automation Cybersecurity News

Automation Experience Center plus Automation Cybersecurity News

Industrial Automation. I guess sometimes it’s good and sometimes not. Tesla had difficulty ramping up production on its low-end vehicle. Elon Musk blamed automation for his problems. Well maybe it was vaguely automation. But maybe they tried automating too much, or they automated things they shouldn’t have. Maybe Rockwell Automation now has a place he can drive to to learn more about automating production.

While I was traveling, Rockwell Automation released some news. I had to seek clarification on some. Here are two interesting items.

The first piece of news concerned Rockwell Automation opening an 8,000 square-foot Electric Vehicle (EV) Innovation Center at 111 North Market Street in San Jose, California, within its Information Solutions development facility. The center will provide live manufacturing demonstrations, hands-on trials utilizing new technology and events showcasing collaboration with industry experts and Rockwell Automation partners.

Upon first glance I thought maybe it was getting into the EV business. Actually it is bringing its experience and products from “Detroit” building cars to Silicon Valley building cars—just with different power trains.

Utilizing augmented and virtual reality modeling, the EV Innovation Center provides automotive start-ups and established manufacturers an environment to learn new technologies and standards, enabling them to deliver electric vehicles to market faster, with less risk and at lower cost.

The Center features not only traditional Rockwell products, but also features partners such as its FactoryTalk InnovationSuite powered by PTC, Eagle Technologies’ battery pack assembly machine, and FANUC robot technologies.

Other partners featured include Hirata, a turnkey assembly line builder, provides an assembly cell that demonstrates electric drive unit assembly and testing; Emulate 3D, Rockwell Automation’s simulation software, helps to prototype and test machines before they’re built; teamtechnik performs functional testing to confirm performance before building the drive into the electric vehicle.

“With growing global consumer demand, electric vehicle companies are challenged to meet aggressive production timelines,” said John Kacsur, vice president, Automotive and Tire Industries, Rockwell Automation. “We established the Electric Vehicle Innovation Center to expand their possibilities and get their products to consumers quickly and at the lowest possible cost, while operating more efficiently.

The second Rockwell news concerns its partner Claroty and cybersecurity services. To help prevent incidents and combat the unpredictable threats that cause them, industrial companies around the world can now manage cyber risk in their operations using the Rockwell Automation Threat Detection Services powered by the Claroty threat detection platform.

“A scary aspect of security threats is what you don’t know about them – what techniques they’ll use, what attack vector they’ll leverage, what vulnerabilities they’ll exploit,” said Umair Masud, manager security services portfolio, Rockwell Automation. “Our Threat Detection Services combine our innate understanding of industrial automation with Claroty’s trusted OT network visibility. The services can give companies peace of mind by protecting not only one facility but their entire supply chain from unpredictable threats.”

The Threat Detection Services help safeguard connected operations in three key ways:

  • Identify and Protect: Identifying all industrial control networked assets, and their vulnerabilities, to help companies know what to protect
  • Detect: Monitoring networks for not only known threats but, more importantly, anomalous traffic or behaviors to alert companies of a security incident – possibly before it even happens
  • Response and Recovery: Developing plans for containing, eradicating and recovering from attacks to keep operations running or more quickly return to a fully operational state

The Claroty threat detection platform creates an inventory of a user’s industrial network assets, monitors traffic between them and analyzes communications at their deepest level. Detected anomalies are reported to plant and security personnel with actionable insights.

“The Claroty platform, used within the Threat Detection Services, can accelerate a company’s journey to more connected and digitally driven operations,” said Amir Zilberstein, co-founder and CEO, Claroty. “Most critically, the platform can help companies detect and quickly respond to threats that bypass their security controls. But it can also give companies a deeper understanding of their industrial assets and improve their ability to keep operations running.”

Automation Experience Center plus Automation Cybersecurity News

Siemens Updates Industrial Cyber Security Initiatives

Siemens invited a couple of writers to the Cincinnati area headquarters of PLM and a Cyber Security Center of Excellence to witness an internal presentation to Siemens employees. The presentation included both an overview of cyber security and the Siemens response plus Siemens’ plans to build a sizable business in the area. I was there along with safety and security writer Greg Hale.

Eric Spiegel, President and CEO, Siemens USA, kicked off the day with a presentation on the importance of cyber security and Siemens’ intent to build the business. In fact, Spiegel noted, “We want to grow the cyber security services in the US at 2x market speed. Cyber was a small part of our business, but we see much potential for growth.”

Spiegel related, “I was at a White House meeting in the situation room, had a chance to meet the President. He talked to me directly about the need to protect critical infrastructure.” Spiegel continued that hacking is top of mind in this area. Recognizing Siemens’ own strategies in the area, he continued, “If digitalization is important for the future of manufacturing, then cyber security is also important. Attacks on critical manufacturing are becoming more frequent and intense. Two-thirds of CEOs rank cyber security as one of the top two things on their agenda. In response, we have 50 differentiated service offerings in cyber today.”

Cyber Security Golden Nuggets

Joanna Burkey, U.S. CISO, moderated the first panel discussion which was more technical in nature. She suggested to look for what she called “Golden Nuggets”, that is, places where a risk-based approach suggests vulnerabilities. For example, she noted, one is source code.

Siemens began the effort to uncover these golden nuggets and then decided to take what it learned to its customers. When Siemens goes out to a customer to consult on cyber risks, it follows a process that includes mapping IT assets (for example, SAP, end points, encryption), developing an asset classification system, designing an holistic protection process coordinating with business, IT, and vendors.

Siemens has identified about 700 of these golden nuggets and is in the process of mitigating 121 of them. It expects the number to grow to about 1,000.

Rolf Reinema, Head of Technology Field, added that protecting Intellectual Property goes beyond hardware and software, but it also includes algorithms. In process industries, these might be called recipes residing in a processor. “OT attacks are complex. Having so much legacy equipment creates vulnerabilities.” Then he left us with this sobering thought, “If a hacker shows they can attack, they’ll ask for a substantial deposit of bitcoins so that they won’t carry out the attack.” Think of the blackmail you could be open to.

Udo Wirtz, Head of Technology Field, calls the Internet the new company Intranet. “We are shining a light in a cave, we now can see some of the problems where five years ago not so much.” Wirtz also addressed phishing attacks. These attacks are still an important problem tricking people into clicking on what looks like a legitimate link which instead gives the hacker access to user accounts and even administrative rights. “So they are phishing all of us,” he concluded.

In March the FBI came to Siemens and GE and said that both had been contacted by Facebook. It seems that someone was “friending” employees on Facebook and building an innocuous relationship. Then they sent a link that turned out to be malicious. “It used to be stupid to click on a link. But today the messages are so sophisticated that it is hard to tell legitimate from phishing.”

Growing Cyber Security as a Business

The next session was a Marketing Panel addressing how Siemens will move cyber from internal to a customer service. Rajiv Sivaraman, VP and Head of Plant Security Services, said that given the development of digital manufacturing, cyber is high on the enterprise list. Siemens is laying foundations for taking customers on a journey to awareness. Answering the question about scaling the business, Sivaraman noted a progression of going from consulting and “hand-holding” to ultimately scaling to managed services. Siemens is also checking out partners for both C-Level and operations level consulting.

Ken Geisler, VP of Strategy & Markets, Energy Management Digital Grid, reported grid suppliers do have compliance requirements. As they grow many more points of access, e.g., smart meters on homes, there is growing concern for cyber security. Cyber is a huge potential market with many competitors.

Judy Marks, Executive Vice President, Global Solutions, Dresser-Rand, A Siemens Business, says that with the oil & gas market it’s all about business and enterprise risk. Especially with the exposure of offshore facilities. They also have the challenge of operating in a heterogeneous environment. Siemens, through acquisitions, is now a leading service provider to O&G and plans to leverage that into growing the cyber business.

In his first year at Siemens, Leo Simonovich, Director, Global Cyber Strategy, said operations is the new frontier for attacks. Of all attacks, 30% are targeting of coming from OT. Customers are turning to Siemens “because we understand that environment. We can secure the technology stack.” Another sobering thought, your chances of an attack? 100%.

Jeremy Bryant, Head of PD PA secure networking solution business, added that customers (and Siemens) need to be worried about inside-out attacks as well as outside-in.

Overall, a profitable day in Cincinnati to learn what Siemens was up to. Several of the majors have some type of cyber division or initiative. Siemens appears to be ahead of that pack right now. As a user, you should be happy that suppliers are developing solutions to help in the battle.

Manufacturing Lack of Cyber Security

Manufacturing Lack of Cyber Security

During media interviews (more accurately mini-presentations) in November at Rockwell Automation’s media/analyst day “Automation Perspectives,” Sr. VP and CTO Sujeet Chand met with us individually along with several managers from Cisco Systems to discuss cyber security. This marks at least the third year where Chand’s role was to explain the Cisco/Rockwell relationship.

I’ve been thinking about the presentation for the past couple of weeks (OK, except for during Christmas). When they broached the idea of cyber security, I jumped to a conclusion about how thinking about security would lead engineers to more thoroughly thinking about their overall network leading to overall improvement in manufacturing.

What they seemed to be actually saying was much less than that. The message seems to have been about engineers should actually begin thinking about their network architecture.

Suddenly it dawned on me what the problem was that they were trying to solve. Automation engineers are evidently just cobbling together Ethernet networks in their processes and factories with no thought of network cyber security. But they will start—and buy some Cisco/Rockwell managed switches and security services. (Sorry, I don’t mean for that sound cynical. What they do is sell products and services to help their customers succeed.)

There has been NO thought to cyber security!?

They evidently thought that even with the several years of intense media coverage of security holes in SCADA and other processes engineers were still not taking security into account.

If that is true, then we truly need the new generation of computer/networking/security-savvy engineers (millennials?) now.

Thinking ahead

I know that one of my problems is jumping ahead. Companies will show me a new product, and I’ll immediately start thinking of all the uses and potential additions.

Any engineer who has not been building in some defense in depth and getting help from IT about security policies needs to be trained or replaced. We’ve known about this for at least five years.

Going back to re-engineer (or engineer intentionally for the first time) the factory network, should lead to significant improvements in the automation system, information flow, and ultimately manufacturing profits.

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