by Gary Mintchell | Dec 17, 2019 | Asset Performance Management, Data Management, Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT, Software
Suppliers of manufacturing software, some from surprising places, are putting sizable investments into products that will help customers reap the rewards of digitalization. Today, I’m looking at both ABB and Emerson Automation Solutions. Previously I checked out GE Digital and Rockwell Automation. Each has taken a slightly different course toward the goal, but notice the common thread of enhancing software products to help customers prosper.
ABB enhances manufacturing management technology
The new version of ABB Ability Manufacturing Operations Management will offer new features including:
- Enhanced user experience based on new HTML 5 web client;
- A new smart interactive dashboard application that provides greater visibility and collaboration;
- A new statistical process control (SPC) application, to determine if each process is in a state of control;
- A new Batch Compare application – for advanced batch analysis.
“ABB Ability Manufacturing Operations Management is a comprehensive, scalable and modular software suite that optimizes visibility, knowledge and control throughout the operations domain,” said Narasimham Parimi, Head of Digital Products – Product Management, Process Control Platform. “This release provides a range of rich new functionality and a new enhanced user experience that enables operations to become more productive and responsive.”
ABB Ability Manufacturing Operations Management is designed to simplify production management by enabling performance monitoring, downtime management, and maintenance support, as well as providing statistical production analysis tools. It provides solutions and tools to facilitate the collection, consolidation and distribution of production, quality and energy information via the plant’s web-based reports, trends, and graphs.
A new, self-service dashboard application promotes increased collaboration, providing visibility from shop floor to top floor and spanning IT and OT environments. It increases data connectivity to all apps and modules within the MOM suite, combining historic and manufacturing data and providing the user with improved customization capabilities. Dashboards can be shared amongst users, further promoting collaboration between teams. Trends and events are displayed together, which enables customers to identify issues and opportunities enabling informed and timely decisions.
The new common services platform features an HTML 5 web platform that runs across all suites ensuring customers have a seamless user experience, so that applications can be viewed on different devices right down to a 10-inch tablet.
Statistical data process control (SPC) is used in manufacturing to determine if each process is in a state of control. The new SPC application works across all the different apps and modules and helps the user to improve quality and production related performance.
In addition to the existing Batch View and Batch Investigate features, a comparison option has been added to the platform’s batch analysis applications, allowing different types of comparison.
Cyber security remains one of the key issues in the advancement of Industry 4.0, and the new features in MOM include enhanced security.
Emerson Expands Analytics Platform
Plantweb Insight platform adds two new Pervasive Sensing applications that manage wireless networks more efficiently with a singular interface to the enterprise.
Emerson has added two new IIoT solutions to its Plantweb Insight data analytics platform that will enable industrial facilities to transform the way they manage their enterprise-level wireless network infrastructure.
As digitalization and wireless technology adoption continue to rapidly expand in industrial facilities throughout the world, the need for greater visibility of network infrastructure performance is key. These new Plantweb Insight applications provide a quick-to-implement, scalable IIoT solution that helps customers advance their digital transformation strategies and achieve greater operational efficiencies.
The new Plantweb Insight Network Management application provides continuous, centralized monitoring of WirelessHART networks. This first-of-its-kind application provides a singular, consolidated view of the status of all wireless networks in a facility, with embedded expertise and guidance for advanced network management.
A key feature of the Plantweb Insight Network Management application is a configurable mesh network diagram, providing visualization of network design and connections along with device-specific information. It also provides an exportable record of syslog alerts, network details outlining conformance to network best practices and more.
While the new network management application provides a holistic look at wireless networks, the Plantweb Insight Power Module Management application drills down to the device level, allowing facilities to keep their wireless devices appropriately powered so they can continuously transmit key monitoring data. By aggregating power module statuses, users can evolve traditional maintenance planning and implement more efficient and cost-effective practices.
“We were able to infuse a decade of experience with wireless technology into these new offerings,” said Brian Joe, wireless product manager with Emerson’s Automation Solutions business. “Our customers will now be able to manage and improve hundreds of networks through a singular interface, realizing significant efficiencies in individual network and wireless device management and maintenance.”
These new applications further enhance the Plantweb Insight platform, a set of pre-built analytics primarily focusing on monitoring key asset health. Other applications in the platform include pressure relief valve monitoring, heat exchanger monitoring and steam trap monitoring.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 16, 2019 | Networking, Standards
Sander Rotmensen of Siemens automotive test center in Nuremberg, Germany and Yongbin Wei of Qualcomm recently discussed the birth of 5G networks for industrial applications. The occasion concerned the press release announcing implementation of a 5G private industrial network.
We’ve all heard about 5G and worries from a variety of national governments about whether another country is embedding spy firmware in its local company’s products. Personally, I think the worry is both silly and well-founded. Every country that houses a company in the market most likely has intelligence agents trying to do the same thing. (I could go into my university education and acquaintance with a professor with “former” CIA ties, but that goes too far afield.) And all companies will deny any tie.
And…we are going to use 5G because the benefits are great. A benefit everyone mentions is the ability to build private networks for a local facility. The network has very low latency and built-in 5-9s (99.999%) uptime.
And what are some of the use cases we can anticipate? Rotmensen and Wei provided a list of ideas:
- Mobile equipment (tablets, etc.)
- Assisted Workers (remote video/audio to experts, etc.)
- Backhaul depending upon geography
- Autonomous machines–robots, cobots with communication and low latency
- Autonomous logistics
- Edge computing, larger amounts of data with low latency
With the final release of IEEE Time Sensitive Networking still years away, 5G is looking very good. We are on release 15 presently. Release 16 is anticipated in June, 2020. With release 17, the increased capacity would easily handle pretty dense machine-to-machine and IoT applications.
First Private Standalone Industrial 5G Network
Showing the benefits of today’s trend toward cooperation and partnerships, this joint proof-of-concept network will explore the capabilities of 5G standalone networks for industrial applications.
The private 5G standalone (SA) network in a real industrial environment uses the 3.7-3.8GHz band. Both companies have joined forces in this project: Siemens is providing the actual industrial test conditions and end devices such as Simatic control systems and IO devices and Qualcomm is supplying the 5G test network and the relevant test equipment.
The 5G network was installed in Siemens’ Automotive Showroom and Test Center in Nuremberg. Automated guided vehicles are (AGV) displayed here which are primarily used in the automotive industry. New manufacturing options and methods are also developed, tested and presented before they are put into action on customer sites. This allows Siemens’ customers, such as automated guided vehicle manufacturers, to see the products interact live.
The Automotive Showroom and Test Center enables Siemens and Qualcomm to test all the different technologies in a standalone 5G network under actual operating conditions and to come up with solutions for the industrial applications of the future. Qualcomm Technologies installed the 5G test system comprising infrastructure and end devices in less than three weeks. Siemens provided the actual industrial setup including Simatic control systems and IO devices.
“Industrial 5G is the gateway to an all-encompassing, wireless network for production, maintenance, and logistics. High data rates, ultra-reliable transmission, and extremely low latencies will allow significant increases in efficiency and flexibility in industrial added value,” says Eckard Eberle, CEO Process Automation at Siemens. “We are therefore extremely pleased to have this collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies so that we can drive forward the development and technical implementation of private 5G networks in the industrial sector. Our decades of experience in industrial communication and our industry expertise combined with Qualcomm Technologies’ know-how are paving the way for wireless networks in the factory of the future.”
“This project will provide invaluable real-world learnings that both companies can apply to future deployments and marks an important key milestone as 5G moves into industrial automation,” said Enrico Salvatori, Senior Vice President & President, Qualcomm Europe/MEA. “Combining our 5G connectivity capabilities with Siemens’ deep industry know-how will help us deploy technologies, refine solutions, and work to make the smart industrial future a reality.”
The German Federal Network Agency has reserved a total bandwidth of 100 MHz from 3.7 GHz to 3.8 GHz for use on local industrial sites. German companies are thus able to rent part of this bandwidth on an annual basis and to make exclusive use of it on their own operating sites in a private 5G network whilst also providing optimum data protection. Siemens is using this principle to evaluate and test industrial protocols such as OPC UA and Profinet in its Automotive Showroom and Test Center together with wireless communication via 5G.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 13, 2019 | Manufacturing IT, Software
Proficy Historian 8.0, that GE Digital recently launched. It is aimed at addressing steadily increasing industrial data as the number of industrial edge devices and sensors increases. New significant enhancements to our industry-leading Historian software are aimed specifically at collecting and aggregating industrial data and extending data migration from edge to cloud. Key benefits include:
- Putting industrial data to work: this scalable solution comes with advanced trend analysis and modeling to help users put data in context with business needs
- Extending asset lifecycle: optimized data aggregation helps operators see around corners by monitoring asset performance, diagnosing asset issues and increasing efficiency
- Total integration: Proficy Historian is tightly integrated with other GE Digital applications, enabling operators to seamlessly manage processes and allowing systems to work together intuitively
I connected with Dan Lohmeyer, GE Digital SVP, Product Management, this week to get some insight into the new Historian along with all the other software in the portfolio. He referred often to the “New” GE Digital. It was reformed following a significant reorganization of GE corporate. The GE Digital CEO has referred publicly to the company as a $1.2 B software company.
With GE bringing in a new CEO from Danaher, and he brought in other Danaher and industrial executives, the company is growing from a Silicon Valley software company to an industrial software company. I think we are all going to have to step back and reevaluate the company and its offerings to see how it manages the changes and perhaps brings improved industrial solutions to market.
It could be good since we all need a new blend of IT and operations technology in order to serve production and the enterprise better.
This release provides customers with a scalable solution for data collection and aggregation across deployments of any size and extending data migration from edge to cloud. The powerful updates include tag mapping, advanced trend analysis with annotations, and the ability to define an asset model, allowing users to put data in context with business needs. As industrial software becomes increasingly vital to production and operations, GE Digital’s Proficy Historian 8.0 is a fundamental building block for industrial companies seeking to improve operational performance, increase efficiency and reduce downtime.
“GE aims to leapfrog market leaders as part of its overall hybrid cloud/premise data architecture initiative. If you haven’t settled on a historian or want to unify multiple historians in a cloud database ready for advanced analytics and enterprise performance management, take a look at Proficy Historian.” says Joe Perino, Analyst at LNS Research.
Today, industrial companies amass millions of data points that require analysis and interpretation throughout various aspects of the production and supply chain as they adopt more and more edge-to-cloud enabled systems across their operations. Proficy Historian collects and distributes data that improves asset lifecycle and performance, allowing customers like automotive leader Subaru, consumer packaged goods companies Toray Plastics and Cascade Tissue Group and water utilities such as the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati to derive greater business value and increase efficiency. It is also the ideal data collector for its cloud and on-premise based Asset Performance Management and Grid Optimization solutions in the power generation, transmission and oil & gas sectors.
“Our customers are demanding more from their data and their equipment, and often there is a disconnect with how one works with the other,” says Lohmeyer. “With GE Digital’s Proficy Historian, customers are able to collect data from any edge device to analyze and apply insights throughout their plant operations, while also easily migrating data across plants in large-scale deployments.”
The Proficy Historian software solution is tightly integrated with GE Digital’s Proficy HMI/SCADA applications, including CIMPLICITY and iFIX, and Proficy Manufacturing Execution Systems. This integration enables operators to seamlessly manage machinery and plant processes. GE Digital also introduced a Linux-based Proficy Historian earlier this year that creates a standard time-series product for edge analytic applications. The Linux version of Proficy Historian revolutionizes data collection by pushing machine data to the plant level instead of polling from higher level systems, providing a new, more efficient mechanism.
Proficy Historian 8.0 is now generally available and follows a number of other recent investments in product innovation and enhancements from GE Digital this year.
GE Digital is transforming how industry solves its toughest challenges. GE Digital’s mission is to bring simplicity, speed and scale to its customers’ digital transformation activities, with software that helps them to better operate, analyze and optimize their business processes. GE Digital’s product portfolio – including grid optimization and analytics, asset and operations performance management, and manufacturing operations and automation – helps industrial companies in the utility, power generation, oil & gas and manufacturing sectors put their industrial data to work.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 12, 2019 | Productivity, Technology
Buzz words could well be the story of the year–digital twin, digital transformation, internet of things, industrial internet of things, digital thread, smart manufacturing, Industrie 4.0, etc. and ad nauseum.
I spoke to a couple of hundred elementary school students this morning about my career path of technology, liberal arts, and writing (not in those exact words, of course). In preparation, I pulled out Volume 1, Issue 1 of Automation World from June 2003. [Note: I left there in 2013 to pursue my own thing. I have no idea what they do anymore. The entire team that put this together, except for a sales person, has left. That’s the way of the world.]
I had a theme to the 10 years I was Editor of the magazine. It wasn’t just to put words between ads. Or just regurgitate product news. It was
How do you apply technology intelligently in order to make your business more competitive–more successful?
Back to today’s buzz words (marketing words?) of the year. Really, these reflect technologies and sometimes strategies that are worthless unless applied to make your business stronger.
Let us not lose sight of the goal!
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 11, 2019 | Education, Personal Development
Skin in the game is an old phrase that meant that you had something to lose if things went bad.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb tells us not to accept advice from a consultant/advisor who doesn’t stand to lose something if you lose something with the advice–they don’t have skin in the game. On the other hand, if you are trying to win through investing or even otherwise, you’d be better with skin in the game.
Following up on The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Taleb’s latest book is Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymetries in Daily Life. In it, he offers many practical examples for success and takes pointed swipes at his adversaries also noting that being an intellectual doesn’t mean that you can detect satire.
Here are a few insights:
For social justice, focus on risk sharing and putting skin in the game. He pokes at the Wall Street bankers who walked off with personal millions by transferring risk from themselves to citizens of the US.
The world is not run by consensus majorities, but by stubborn minorities imposing their tastes and ethics on others.
You can be an Intellectual yet an Idiot. Educated Philistines have been wrong on everything from Stalinism to Iraq to low-carb diets.
Beware of complicated solutions (that someone was paid to find). Remember, a simple barbell is better for strength fitness than an expensive machine.
True religion is commitment, not just faith. How much you believe in something is manifested only by what you are willing to risk for it.
Intellectual monoculture prevails in the absence of skin in the game.
The symmetry of skin in the game is a simple rule that is necessary for fairness and justice, and the ultimate BS-buster.
I am a fan.
