by Gary Mintchell | Sep 24, 2014 | Automation, Internet of Things, Operations Management
National Instruments (NI) has been a pioneer in thinking about what is now known as the Industrial Internet of Things–along with what it calls “Big Analog Data”, Industrie 4.0, cyber-physical systems.
NI InsightCM Enterprise–a condition-monitoring solution that fits nicely within all the buzz words cited above–gained mention during NI Week the first of August. It is now formally announced as a new software solution that helps companies gain insight into the health of their capital equipment for machine maintenance and operations.
NI InsightCM Enterprise acquires and analyzes sensory information, generates alarms and allows maintenance specialists to remotely diagnose machine faults. Ready-to-run condition monitoring systems based on the CompactRIO hardware platform can acquire from a wide range of sensors for improved fault diagnoses. This hardware and software solution simplifies the configuration of and measurements from thousands of sensors, so users can remotely monitor device health, configure channels and upgrade firmware on deployed systems.
Companies in a variety of industries, including oil and gas, power generation, mining, rail and industrial manufacturing, that need to optimize machine performance, maximize uptime, reduce maintenance costs and increase safety will benefit most.
Key Benefits
- Cost-effective: Lowers the instrumentation cost for monitoring both critical and other plant equipment at a fleet-wide scale.
- Open: Offers open software architecture to access data and gain interoperability with third-party enterprise software packages, such as CMMSs, database historians and prognostics tools
- Easily scalable: Scales from one to hundreds of nodes per NI InsightCM Enterprise server and replicates one solution at multiple facilities
- Flexible: Incorporates CompactRIO to adapt to changing sensory needs while maintaining the user’s investment in the platform
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 24, 2014 | Operations Management, Software
Here is news from a press release I just received from Schneider Electric (which dubs itself the global specialist in energy management) which has introduced a unified supply chain management solution for the hydrocarbon processing industry.
This new product appears to be a major step on the road laid out at the old InFusion launch by Invensys in Boston several years ago. I knew that the vision was ambitious. The gradual release of products is not a surprise–except that it is releasing product just after acquisition by Schneider. That in itself is good news.
Built on its Spiral Suite platform, the new offering closes the value gaps left by poorly integrated legacy tools. By improving collaboration across the refinery, Spiral Suite software helps traders, planners and schedulers make reliable decisions, manage risks and ultimately increase profitability.
“Spiral Suite promises to transform the refinery business environment from being a place where hundreds of people work in isolation—not seeing or understanding how their bits of individual work contribute to the whole—to a place where workers first see and understand how their decisions impact others and then cooperate to collectively unlock the maximum value of their economic forecasts,” said Ravi Gopinath, Ph.D., executive vice president, Schneider Electric Global Solutions, Software Business. “It improves understanding and cooperation between traders, planners and schedulers and replaces several disjointed point solutions with a single, easy-to-use application.”
Spiral Suite users can contribute to and add value to one another’s decision making without the risk of overwriting data or causing downstream processing issues at the plant. Combined with powerful, intuitive visualizations, everyone is able to view, understand and respond to incidents. All refinery activities are supported within a single, highly intuitive environment, and accurate, up-to-date information is available across the business. Planners can see future scheduling constraints; schedulers can assess their decisions against commercial impact and operational feasibility. Users from different disciplines and locations are now able to work together effectively to create the most flexible, optimal plan for any set of circumstances, unlocking potential cost savings and margin improvements that could total millions of dollars each year.
According to Schneider, Spiral Suite’s SaaS deployment model, off-the-shelf integration and ease of use mean the application can be learned within days. Legacy point solutions can be replaced quickly and simply, without incurring the high cost of implementing or maintaining data transfer. Inadequate, unsupported integration bridges are removed, as is the need for application experts and extensive training courses, which lowers total cost of ownership. Data from in-house and external systems can be made available automatically within workflows, and people from across the business can work in parallel to build the supply chain model within weeks, without needing to know matrix math. [Gary’s note: This paragraph comes from the press release. There is no mention of how this happens. I’ll flesh out this information next week at the Schneider Software User Conference in Orlando.]
Spiral Suite takes advantage of the advanced features of modern processors, exploiting multi-core and cloud environments to generate results in seconds and then presenting them in a way everyone can understand. Users can explore the business and operational implications of millions of scenarios and receive real-time feedback on how their changes would impact the rest of the supply chain. Integral cargo tracking and assay management mean crude oil quality variations can be analyzed within minutes, rather than weeks, to swiftly assess their financial impact on the business, as well as any potential operational and reliability issues prior to purchase. The software also automatically reconciles all available data and performs backcasting to understand how and why there are deviations to the plan.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 19, 2014 | Automation, Commentary, News, Organizations, Technology
I saw on the Automation World and Packaging World Websites that the company, Summit Media LLC, has sold to the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI). I figured that there had to be a sale endgame for the owners. They have had a long relationship with PMMI, and this makes sense for it–at least as far as Packaging World goes. It’ll be interesting to see what becomes of Automation World. Maybe they’ll leave it alone. It should be profitable.
Congratulations
All I can say is congratulations to the principal owners Lloyd Ferguson and Joe Angel. The took a chance starting a magazine (first Packaging World, then with Dave Harvey, Automation World), worked hard, invested shrewdly. They deserve the payout.
Things changed a lot when Dave Harvey passed away four years ago that led to new ownership situation. It was time for me to move on. Not that it wasn’t somewhat traumatic. Now things will change a lot again. I’ve been through numerous buyouts as an employee. There are always many assurances at the beginning, and then reality sets in.
When I was contemplating a change in 2013, Dr. Henry Cloud released “Necessary Endings.” It seemed to speak directly to my situation. Now, I’m refocusing again. And Cloud has released a new book, “Never Go Back.” Again he seems to be talking directly to me. I recommend both books as a means to help you open your eyes to your situation and help you move on and grow.
In 10 days or so, I’ll be at a Schneider Electric software user group. This is the old Wonderware/Invensys event. I’m betting that it will be totally different from the old Wonderware gatherings. Even different from the ones Invensys held. It is looking like marketing is moving to the old APC group. Its message is energy management and power. Sometimes they don’t even pay lip service to automation.
<sigh> Many changes in the industrial control and automation market over the past 11 years. What I’m trying to do now is figure out the new directions and hot technologies and go there. I’m not tied to advertisers or tradition. So, let’s dive into what’s new. All thoughts welcome. Drop me a line at gary@The ManufacturingConnection.com with your thoughts of what I need to cover to keep all of you at the forefront ot technology and stratagies.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 18, 2014 | Automation, Data Management, News, Operations Management, Organizations, Standards, Technology
OGI Pilot
MIMOSA, an Operations and Maintenance Information Open System Alliance association, held its annual meeting last week at the Chevron Innovation Center in Houston.
The most amazing thing about MIMOSA, the organization, and the Oil&Gas Interoperability Pilot specifically, is the amount of progress they have made over the past few years. Some of the work has been ongoing for over a decade. Emphases have shifted over time reflecting the needs of the moment and the readiness of technology.
MIMOSA is a not-for-profit trade association dedicated to developing and encouraging the adoption of open information standards for Operations and Maintenance in manufacturing, fleet, and facility environments. MIMOSA’s open standards enable collaborative asset lifecycle management in both commercial and military applications.
Interoperability, not integration
The theme was manufacturing software interoperability from design to operations and maintenance. I use the term manufacturing in a generic sense, because I couldn’t find a more general, yet specific, term. The initial impetus for this work lies in the oil & gas industry.
MIMOSA’s strategy is a “federation of standards” approach. It does not try to write standards for every model, data, or object. It incorporates existing standards and attempts to tie them together into a workable system.
The beauty of this lies in the ability to just use data models from a variety of relevant sources and focus on the needs of owner/operators.
The OGI Pilot demonstration project, first unveiled in 2012 at ISA Automation Week, revealed that it is possible to pass live data from the engineering system (Aveva, Bentley, Intergraph in this case) into an operations & maintenance database (see the image accompanying the article).
Solves big headache
The beauty of the system is that as-designed data can be passed to operations. With proper business processes and management of change, updates can be made live. This means that when the project moves to handover and start up, engineers and technicians can find information they need quickly and can have a high degree of trust in that data. The way it is today, pdfs of the engineering data are handed over. These are hard to search. They are also hard to keep current.
Non-threatening
Two roadblocks have stood in the way of progress. One is that the voice of the owner/operator is often fragmented. They often settle for totally proprietary solutions entailing custom programming at great expense and little assurance of reliability. The other is the reluctance on the part of suppliers (understandably) to be told by a standard how to write their data.
Using the federated standards approach with what I’ll call translators, each software application can expose data in a format that allows interchange with other software applications without anyone tinkering with what’s “under the hood.”
Other standards organizations have failed on this latter point. They have tried to construct a standard that forced products to commodity status. This not only threatens suppliers, it also threatens innovation. The MIMOSA / OGI approach does away with that constraint.
We are starting to get to where the owner/operators need the technology to be. This work will benefit everyone.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 12, 2014 | Automation, News, Operations Management, Technology
I wrote quick releases from both ABB and Schneider Electric yesterday. Then I started thinking more about the situation.
My analysis was that one factor among many for Schneider’s acquisition of Invensys was along the lines of European competitive situation. Siemens is huge in many technology areas in Europe. ABB has become a strong player especially in process systems and components along with power systems. Schneider’s roots are power systems, and it has strengthened that portfolio over time. It lacked a strong automation and control systems presence.
I looked at the situation and surmised that Schneider was looking at competing alongside ABB throughout the entire portfolio. For all I know, there could be some national pride going along with it. Schneider is French, ABB Swiss/Swedish, and Siemens German. We know that there has been a resurgence of French national pride on technology issues. I’m sure that could have been in the mix.
Meanwhile, ABB, following an acquisition binge, has replaced the CEO for reasons that are not clear. It has lately been divesting. This week it announced a major restructure and emphasized organic growth rather than growth by acquisition.
At the same time, Schneider announced a major investment in the US.
Siemens, on the other hand, has been uncharacteristically quiet. Rockwell Automation, Emerson Process Management, Honeywell Process Solutions and Yokogawa have not been making much noise. The Emerson Exchange is coming up in a few weeks that will generate some news. Rockwell’s Automation Fair and PSUG are in November. One wonders how the deck chairs are being arranged now.
The competitive interplay of large companies is interesting. It also can have a major impact on customers. This will be an interesting time to watch corporate interplay and see how things shake out.
