OK, so I’m on an ABB kick, it seems. Today is the annual report from the ARC Advisory Group on Distributed Control Systems (DCS) market share. And for the 21st consecutive year, the leader is ABB.
When you are older, you have memories. I remember a time when it was just A and BB. The BB part purchased our building when a certain company president drove us into Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code. (Not me, I tried to get us out.) Then A+BB=ABB, then ABB consolidating the DCS market by acquiring a number of companies. And ABB has managed not only to not screw up the acquisitions (which many companies do) but build a sustainable product line. Following is the release from ABB:
ARC estimates the global market valued at $15 billion. Holding an overall share of 19.2%, ABB leads the field thanks to its domain knowledge in multiple industries, extensive service network and a continued investment in technology and digital solutions that meet rapidly changing customer requirements. This puts ABB more than two points ahead of the nearest DCS competitor.
The largest share of 2019 DCS market growth came from oil and gas, chemicals, mining, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, followed by food & beverage, metals, cement, and pulp & paper. With its two main DCS offerings, ABB Ability System 800xA and ABB Ability Symphony Plus, ABB has a strong presence in each of these segments. ABB is also a leader in several of the key DCS trends identified in the report, including Modular Automation, Batch, Characterizable I/O, and Remote Services.
As the DCS leader, ABB continuously develops new control benefits for customers. For example, by processing the massive amounts of data generated by the DCS, ABB continues to develop new data analytics that help customers to increase production efficiency, and leverage machine learning capabilities that improve problem predictability and extend asset life.
“I want to thank our customers for their longstanding support, helping us to shape ABB’s automation offering and expertise into what it is today,” said Bernhard Eschermann, Chief Technology Officer, ABB Industrial Automation. “Automation makes a difference in the world around us. The DCS is the backbone for much of the digitalization transforming our customers’ industries. It helps to provide many of the elements essential to modern society, such as the water we drink, the energy we consume, or the materials used to build our homes.”
“During more robust economic times, process industry producers often rely on new production machinery to increase output. In the current highly demanding economic environment, customers are squeezing as much value as they can out of existing assets, running as efficiently as possible to protect profit margins. Maximizing assets and efficiencies is what DCS do,” he said. “We see it as our duty to continue to develop solutions that offer these benefits and more for our customers.”
A key focus of ABB’s annual $1.5 billion research & development investment is the further expansion of DCS and other digital and automation capabilities in the context of Industry 4.0. In July, ABB brought two new offerings to market that use DCS data with value-added applications to improve customer production availability, process performance and product quality. The ABB Ability Edgenius Operations Data Manager gleans value from DCS data, while the ABB Ability GenixIndustrial Analytics and AI Suite combines data from operations (e.g. DCS), engineering and information technology for multi-dimensional data analytics and decision support.
Services saw the highest growth in relation to software and hardware in the ARC report. This trend accelerated in 2020, which created a high need for remote services. One such service, ABB Ability Collaborative Operations, a remote-enabled network of ABB experts and technologies, uses many ABB DCS technologies to remotely monitor and support customer assets and processes. ABB experts in ABB Collaborative Operations centers globally are available 24/7 to assist customers. The Collaborative Operations network continues to provide remote support for customers in travel-restricted situations.
https://new.abb.com/control-systems/system-800xa
Underground mining future
ABB electrification and automation knowledge and solutions have been employed in a pioneering mine of the future project, which has ultimate ambitions to demonstrate zero carbon dioxide emissions and productivity increases of 50 percent.
ABB has provided electrification, connected control and operations management systems, high-visualization and mobile operator workplaces as part of a global mining partnership to visualize a once-in-a-generation technology shift and reduce climate impact.
Devised by LKAB, the Sustainable Underground Mining (SUM) project has the goal of setting a new world standard for sustainable mining at great depths in partnership with ABB, Combitech, Epiroc, and Sandvik. The framework outlines ambitions for zero carbon dioxide emissions, completely safe mines for humans, productivity increases of 50 per cent and deeper mining.
ABB will continue to contribute its knowledge in electrification, automation and workplaces together with other suppliers to the mining industry. The collaboration aims to find new methods and smarter solutions for mining operations in the future. Test work in LKAB’s Kiruna mine, northern Sweden, as well as a virtual test mine will study the best way to build a carbon dioxide free and autonomous production system.
Within the mine, the Konsuln orebody is used to demonstrate future workplaces in a decentralized environment with efficient use of an autonomous electrical mobile transport system in a mixed environment. Real time process information is available to all organizations involved. When combined with the wider efforts of the SUM partnership, this shows a way of bringing completely new technology solutions to market for safer, more sustainable and more efficient mining production processes.
“We are taking significant strides towards a vision of the future operator environment through smarter working and demonstrable results,” said Jan Nyqvist, Global Product Manager for Underground Mining Automation at ABB, and one of the leaders in the project. “Electrification and automation are two important factors for the mining industry to continue its rapid, but effective, modernization. Sharing of information and data is crucial to reach substantial end goals.
“It is becoming increasingly common for suppliers to create dedicated collaboration groups to reach the best possible solutions for their customers. Collective successes and progress and the meeting of key targets for SUM, are initial evidence of the mutual benefits of collaboration.”
ABB has a relatively large team committing time to the project, with experts in digitalization and research, as well as electrification and automation.
By 2022, the ABB electrification and automation solutions will be fully installed, and the aim is that a new standard for mining production will be set globally by 2030.
I have accumulated several pieces of news from ABB. The company has spent the Covid months quite busy.
Peter Terwiesch, President of ABB Industrial Automation becomes executive member of the EU Alliance established to kick-start the European hydrogen industry.
ABB supports India’s Koppal district to ease water shortages with digital water management solutions.
ABB launches ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists ensuring the highest level of personnel and equipment safety.
Clean Hydrogen Industry
ABB has been granted membership into the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance (ECH2A), the official EU body focused on an ambitious deployment of hydrogen (H2) technologies by 2030, as a means to reduce carbon emissions and help achieve European carbon neutrality by 2050.
Peter Terwiesch
Peter Terwiesch will be ABB’s executive sponsor in the Alliance and will be actively working with governments and other Alliance members to scale up the hydrogen value chain across Europe.
The use of hydrogen has been identified as crucial to achieve the objectives of the European Green Deal and Europe’s clean energy transition. It has several uses, from storing renewable energy to fuelling heavy transport, and as energy and feedstock in energy-intensive industry, such as in the steel or chemical sectors.
Most importantly, hydrogen only emits water and heat when used, no carbon. In fact, if H2 is produced from renewable sources, the whole hydrogen value chain is carbon-free. Hydrogen thereby is an excellent complement to electricity and offers a solution to decarbonize industrial processes and economic sectors where reducing carbon emissions is both urgent and hard to achieve.
“Europe’s opportunity to reduce carbon emissions by scaling up the production, transport and use of hydrogen is significant. Automation, electrification and digitalization will play an important role in unlocking this potential. At ABB we are proud to be joining the ECH2A, to continue our collaborations with governments, industries, regulators and academia to further accelerate the implementation of hydrogen,” said Peter Terwiesch, President of ABB Industrial Automation. “We have a unique mix of relevant domain expertise and solutions to support industry and make a real difference in deploying new clean hydrogen technologies.”
ABB enables the transition from carbon-based fuels to hydrogen through its expertise and portfolio of systems, products, services and digital solutions. The company is collaborating with customers, partners and legislators to build the hydrogen ecosystem – from key technology collaborations to explore large-scale green production systems, to a new hydrogen production facility in France, and the development of megawatt-scale fuel cells to power large ocean-going ships.
In a unique project led by L&T Construction Water & Effluent Treatment IC for the Government of Kartanaka, ABB’s end-to-end solutions will help the local water authority to track, measure, and optimize water use in this drought-stricken region of southwest India, as well as pump and distribute clean treated river water to village homes. The solution includes 635 digital flowmeters and technologies to improve control at pumping stations and reservoirs.
With a population of around one million people, the Koppal district is regularly challenged by water shortages. Until now, responses have ranged from preserving ancient wells to following age-old water conservation practices, but thanks to digital technologies, the Kushtagi and Yelburga villages will soon benefit from ABB’s digital water management solutions as part of a multi-village clean drinking water scheme.
Koppal needed solutions that could effectively monitor water flow and manage leaks to reduce non-revenue water and achieve overall productivity improvement in a widely dispersed water distribution network set-up. L&T Construction Water & Effluent Treatment IC, the lead contractor for the project, chose ABB Ability Symphony Plus SCADA and ABB’s AquaMaster 4 flowmeters for the project, sanctioned by the Rural Water Supply & Sanitation Department, Koppal, Karnataka.
ABB’s engagement spans the end-to-end automation and instrumentation of the project, from the pumping station at the river to the treatment of clean drinking water. The route comprises 620 overhead tanks and 16 reservoirs. The project involves putting in place a network of RTUs (remote terminal units) for remote locations and pumping stations and ABB Ability Symphony Plus SCADA to supervise and control the operation. ABB Ability Symphony Plus SCADA is designed to maximize reliability and availability of water plants and networks through integrated information management, integration of equipment, and process optimization based on the entire water network data for safer and enhanced operations.
The SCADA solutions help monitor and analyze daily flow consumption patterns thereby identifying possible leaks and sending the information in real-time to the central control room. This helps to avert water loss because it means that leaks are identified and can be repaired swiftly.
ABB’s AquaMaster 4 elctromagnetic flowmeters, running on battery power, will offer reliability even in low flow conditions, in areas where most mechanical flowmeters would fail. They offer measurement accuracy down to flow velocities lower than 0.1m/s where most meters struggle to even detect flow. As the vast majority of leaks are small but continuous, the ability of AquaMaster to detect small variations in flow is crucial in combating the water shortage challenge in the Koppal district.
G Srinivas Rao, Head of ABB Measurement & Analytics in India, said: “As India moves swiftly towards smart and sustainable villages, towns and cities, one of the key challenges is water management. This project shows how ABB’s digital water management solutions can be deployed not only in cities but also to provide clean, drinking water in the villages that are crucial to our agrarian economy. We are proud partners in this project in the state where ABB India is headquartered, and in the district which contributes so significantly to our agricultural output.”
ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists
Global technology company ABB is launching ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists, a suite of mine hoist safety products that brings the highest level of personnel and equipment safety available to the mining industry. The products include Safety Plus Hoist Monitor (SPHM), Safety Plus Hoist Protector (SPHP) and Safety Plus Brake System (SPBS) including Safety Brake Hydraulics (SBH).
Designed in accordance with the international ‘safety of machinery’ standard (IEC62061), the products have been independently certified by research institute RISE (Research Institute of Sweden) which works with companies, academia and the public sector in industrialization, quality assurance and certification.
ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists includes the new ABB SIL 3 Safety Plus Brake System (SPBS), which is the mining industry’s first fully independently certified Safety Integrity Level 3 (SIL 3) mine hoist brake system. SPBS will increase the safety of personnel riding mine hoists as well as the safety of the equipment, hoist and shaft infrastructure. The new SPHP provides enhanced protection for the mine hoist and mine shaft infrastructure equipment.
ABB SIL 3 SPBS handles the application of the safety brakes during emergency stops and the prevention of brake lift. ABB SIL 3 SPHP monitors the speed and position of the hoists. It also monitors the instrumentation used by personnel accessing or using the hoist from different levels, for example, at gates and maintenance platforms, emergency stop buttons and remote lockout points. The ABB SIL 3 SPHP interfaces with the safety brake system to bring or keep the hoist to a safe state. It also interfaces with the drive and hoist control system.
“This is a significant milestone in mine hoist safety representing a world first for fully certified Safety Integrity Level 3 hoisting,” said Oswald Deuchar, Global Product Line Manager for Hoisting, ABB. “Labor safety is a key priority for mine operators and increasing legislation underlines this imperative. The ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists suite of products, SIL 3-rated components and self-diagnostics will ensure high availability of the mine hoist while providing the highest level of safety. These products are ready-made safety solutions, which are exhaustively tested in house, and designed for tough mine environments.”
US seeing much lower negative growth than previously thought
Chinese manufacturing output now predicted to surpass 2019 levels in 2020
Semiconductor and textiles sectors on road to swift recovery; aerospace will continue to lag
MIO Tracker dataset now features Argentina
There is manufacturing market research—and then there is manufacturing market research. I have had a few chances to talk with Interact Analysis’ CEO Adrian Lloyd and came away impressed with the way they do market research. This report has sat on my desktop for a couple of weeks. I needed to start catching up with all the cool information I’ve accumulated. Check it out. You can download the report (link below).
Interact Analysis has published its newly updated Manufacturing Industry Output (MIO) Tracker report – a comprehensive and highly-detailed report on the status of the global manufacturing sector. The latest update shows a notable upward revision to key manufacturing economies, with both China and the US being much less impacted than previously predicted. This quarter’s update report is available free to all here.
The research shows that the -10% contraction previously forecast for the US in 2020 has been reduced by more than half. This is largely due to the fact there have been no lockdowns, so while the virus has raged, manufacturing production has continued. China, whose government operated a stringent regime of virus-control, is now forecast to see a small amount of growth, of the order of 0.9% in 2020. Other Asian economies have fared better than expected, but the forecast for Europe remains roughly the same. As a result of these reassessments, the global forecast of negative growth for 2020 has been revised down from -7.8% (predicted in August) to -4.8%, and global manufacturing output is now predicted to surpass 2019 levels by 2022, rather than 2024. While radical, this reset is based on evidence collected on the ground by Interact Analysis’s team of experts.
Where specific manufacturing sectors are concerned, all except aerospace will return to 2019 levels by 2023, and most will burst through the barrier in 2022. Strong performance in APAC regions means the semiconductor industry is now forecast to surpass 2019 levels this year, rather than in 2021, and monthly indicators from Eurostat and the US point to a far swifter recovery in the textiles sector than previously forecast. While aerospace is predicted to struggle over the medium term, automotive, another major sector hard-hit by the pandemic, is now predicted to surpass 2019 levels by 2023, rather than 2024 as previously forecast. The post-COVID stimulus packages, provided by European governments, often supporting their push towards hybridisation or full electrification of vehicles, is a factor here.
Adrian Lloyd, CEO of Interact Analysis, says: “Is there light at the end of the tunnel as far as manufacturing is concerned? Interact Analysis’s updated MIO Tracker gives good reason to think so. For me, it is particularly interesting, yet at the same time in hindsight perhaps also unsurprising, to see that the US’s ultra-lax virus controls appear to have resulted in improved performance for manufacturing; surpassed only by the performance that has been delivered by China’s ultra-strict approach.
“I am also excited to announce to those of our clients doing business in the Latin America region that, as of this update, Interact Analysis’s Manufacturing Industry Output tracker now includes Argentina – the third largest economy in South America. Finally, as a leading industrial market research agency, we want to do our part to help the industrial sector get back on its feet. That’s why we’ve made this quarter’s update report from the MIO Tracker free to all and you can download it here. To speak to me directly about prospects for global manufacturing, please get in touch: Adrian.Lloyd@InteractAnalysis.com.”
About the report
The Manufacturing Industry Output (MIO) Tracker offers the most complete and unified analysis of the manufacturing industry globally. It quantifies the total value of manufacturing production with deep granularity for over 35 industries and machinery sectors, across 39 regions; presenting 13-years of historical data alongside a credible five-year forecast. Country data from across the globe has been carefully organised around a common taxonomy to provide easy-to-interrogate, like-for-like comparisons. The historical data reveals the relationship between industry and machinery production for a complete business cycle, going back from pre-recession to the present day. Understanding these complex correlations, alongside current country and industry projections, provides a more accurate forecast by country, industry and machinery sector.
Interact Analysis is an international provider of market research for the Intelligent Automation sector. Our team of experienced industry analysts delivers research into three core sectors: industrial automation, robotics and warehouse automation, and commercial vehicles. Intelligent Automation – which is the integration of artificial intelligence and automation – will change virtually every industry imaginable. This combination enables greater efficiencies, productivity, convenience, and scale. It has the potential to drastically alter the outlook for many traditional industries such as manufacturing, healthcare and automotive as well as to lead to the emergence of entirely new industries.
Stratus Technologies appeared on my radar many years ago at a Rockwell event showing a robust, redundant, secure server meant for industrial applications. These days in IT circles the conversation is all about the edge. And Stratus has some edge solutions to accompany its server strategy.
Its most recent news includes enhancements to its ztC Edge computing platform with the release of Stratus Redundant Linux (SRL) version 2.2 and a preview of a new, comprehensive edge systems management solution, ztC Advisor. These enhancements enable optimal infrastructure performance, utilization, and faster time-to-value to ensure simple, protected, and autonomous business operations.
Stratus Redundant Linux 2.2, ztC Edge’s core operating system, features an enhanced application interface, REST API, that provides more information via the web about ztC Edge’s virtual machines (VMs) and their current state. This capability allows teams to remotely optimize infrastructure performance and utilization. SRL 2.2 also includes additional software and security updates.
ztC Advisor: Comprehensive Remote Systems Management
With ztC Advisor, Stratus introduces a new edge systems management solution to simplify centralized monitoring and management of a customer’s entire ztC Edge computing infrastructure. The new solution offers a secure web-based portal that anyone in operations or IT can use to quickly and easily view the health and utilization of their entire ztC Edge inventory, remotely triage issues, improve productivity, and mitigate risk.
“These ztC Edge platform enhancements, including the introduction of ztC Advisor, represent our continued investment in edge innovation as well as our commitment to deliver simple, protected, and autonomous zero-touch Edge Computing solutions,” said Jason Andersen, Vice President of Business Line Management at Stratus. “With ztC Advisor, we are simplifying how customers manage their fleet of ztC Edge platforms – and they don’t need to be operations or IT experts. Customers point to the availability of comprehensive edge management tools and dashboards that anyone can use as critical to their success.”
Released as a preview, ztC Advisor’s first features include:
A comprehensive asset management overview of all ztC Edge platforms owned by a customer, including systems that have been deployed but have not been provisioned. The overview makes it easier for administrators to holistically maximize resource utilization and optimize their hardware refresh and software patching schedules.
A centralized dashboard view of individual system status and resource utilization presented in real-time, enabling administrators to easily see platform status at-a-glance.
User-defined groups for customers to assign individual systems to groups and use the ztC Advisor dashboard’s built-in sorting and filtering functions to quickly access information from specific platforms.
Secure-push technology between ztC Advisor and ztC Edge. The web-based solution is architected so that ztC Edge platforms initiate sessions and periodically push information to ztC Advisor which minimizes cyber-security risk by limiting data transfer.
Integration with Stratus Service Portal and ztC Edge platforms, allowing customers with portal access to use their same credentials to access ztC Advisor. One-click enablement from the ztC Edge Console automatically sets up the corresponding ztC Edge platform to be visible and present data through ztC Advisor, minimizing setup and configuration time.
ztC Advisor and its remote system monitoring capabilities are compatible with ztC Edge platforms running SRL 2.2, and build on updates to ztC Edge platforms released early last year, that address customers’ most pressing needs for enhanced security, monitoring and performance at the edge.
New technology improves quality control in manufacturing by identifying inconsistencies and anomalies in vision inspection datasets.
Neurala Announces Strategic Partnership with IMA Group to Accelerate AI Technology
Collaboration will improve quality inspection with AI-powered data analysis for Industrial IoT
Vision AI software company Neurala has made some news recently. At the end of October, it announced a strategic partnership for AI-powered data analysis, and today it announced a new quality control AI technology.
Today, Neurala announced the launch of AI “explainability” technology, purpose-built for applications in industrial and manufacturing. The new feature helps manufacturers improve quality inspections by accurately identifying objects in an image that are causing a particular problem or present an anomaly.
“Explainability is widely recognized as a key feature for AI systems, especially when it comes to identifying bias or ethical issues. But this capability has immense potential and value in industrial use cases as well, where manufacturers demand not only accurate AI, but also need to understand why a particular decision was made,” said Max Versace, CEO and co-founder of Neurala. “We’re excited to launch this new technology to empower manufacturers to do more with the massive amounts of data collected by IIoT systems, and act with the precision required to meet the demands of the Industry 4.0 era.”
Neurala’s explainability technology was built to address the digitization challenges of Industry 4.0. Industrial IoT systems are constantly collecting massive amounts of anomaly data – in the form of images – that are used in the quality inspection process. With the introduction of Neurala’s explainability feature, manufacturers can derive more actionable insights from these datasets, identifying whether an image truly is anomalous, or if the error is a false-positive resulting from other conditions in the environment, such as lighting. This gives manufacturers a more precise understanding of what went wrong, and where, in the production process, and allows them to take proper action – whether to fix an issue in the production flow or improve image quality.
Manufacturers can utilize Neurala’s explainability feature with either Classification or Anomaly Recognition models. Explainability highlights the area of an image causing the vision AI model to make a specific decision about a defect. In the case of Classification, this includes making a specific class decision on how to categorize an object; or in the case of Anomaly Recognition, it reveals whether an object is normal or anomalous. Armed with this detailed understanding of the workings of the AI model and its decision-making, manufacturers will be able to build better performing models that continuously improve processes and efficiencies.
Explainability is now available as part of Neurala’s cloud solution, Brain Builder, and will soon be available with Neurala’s on-premise software, VIA (Vision Inspection Automation). The technology is simple to implement, supporting Neurala’s mission to make AI accessible to all manufacturers, regardless of their level of expertise or familiarity with AI. With no custom code required, anyone can leverage explainability to gain a deeper understanding of image features that matter for vision AI applications.
Strategic Partnership
Neurala announced a new strategic partnership with global manufacturing leader IMA Group. The partnership will deliver AI solutions for industrial machines, focused on field testing of AI that enables monitoring and provides actionable insights from data collected through industrial internet of things (IIoT) systems.
IMA is a global leader in the design and manufacture of automation equipment for the processing and packaging of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food and beverages. The company’s partnership with Neurala is the latest in its efforts to help industrial organizations realize Industry 4.0 initiatives, with AI and automation playing a key role.
“As the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) becomes commonplace – with dozens of sensors and cameras gathering product data, as well as basic diagnostics from industrial equipment – manufacturers critically need human-level AI that can extract actionable insights from that data at the compute edge,” said Max Versace, CEO and Co-Founder, Neurala. “Data without AI is not useful, and off-the-shelf cloud-based AI is not cut out for the manufacturing floor. Unlike traditional AI solutions, Neurala’s technology is trained at the edge, enabling it to continuously learn based on manufacturers’ data as it varies across specific machines and production runs. We are incredibly excited to bring this technology together with IMA’s industry-leading solutions and expertise. Our new partnership will demonstrate just how far edge AI can go in solvingindustrial monitoring challenges on a global scale.”
Neurala will work with IMA to deliver its technology directly on industrial machines, at the compute edge, allowing operators to quickly and independently set up advanced AI systems without requiring specialized expertise.
“Today, factory floors are more complex than ever, and manufacturers are challenged when it comes to managing the extremely high volume of data they’re amassing. To become even more competitive on the global stage, and to help manufacturers overcome this complexity, IMA must improve not only the quality of our products, but also, internal visibility on equipment health and productivity,” said Dario Rea, Director of Corporate Research & Innovation, IMA Group. “These competitive factors are even more acute in light of the global changes we have seen this year. Our commitment to building a company that is defined by innovation, technology and AI is greater than ever before, and our partnership with Neurala represents a key step in that commitment.”
As part of the partnership, IMA has made a targeted investment in Neurala.
