Emerson now bills itself as “global software and technology leader.” I may have pointed this out before, but I find it interesting that after years of asking major automation technology providers about software, Emerson, along with Rockwell Automation and Siemens, have brought software up to a point of being a major competitive advantage.
This news from Emerson highlights an update to its machinery health platform to enable customers to migrate to a more holistic, modern interface for condition monitoring. New support brings data from edge analytics devices directly to key personnel inside and outside the control room.
Emerson has continuously evolved AMS Machine Works‘ condition monitoring technologies for better diagnostics at the industrial edge. Increased connectivity to external systems provides personnel with an intuitive, holistic asset health score supported by maintenance recommendations to help reliability teams quickly see what is wrong and how to fix it. Intuitive information and alerts are delivered directly to workstations or mobile devices to provide decision support, helping maintenance personnel make the best use of their time.
The newest version of AMS Machine Works adds support for Emerson’s AMS Asset Monitor, which provides embedded, automatic analytics at the edge using patented PeakVue technology to alert personnel to the most common faults associated with a wide range of assets. AMS Machine Works also supports open connectivity using the OPC UA protocol to make it easier to connect to external systems such as historians, computerized maintenance management systems, and more to help close the loop on plant support from identification to repair and documentation.
ABB keeps a flow of automation news through my inbox that I can’t keep up with. There are only a few companies maintaining this much publicity. A few of the larger industrial automation (and software) companies have almost completely closed the valve. I have six interesting items from ABB of a variety of process automation use cases.
process upgrade to a cement plant
high payload hoists in mining
Flow Control Mold electromagnetic stirring and braking technology for steel production
production control and process solutions for lithium plant
electromagnetic stirring for steel arc furnace project
digital transformation in a large sawmill
ABB upgrades process control systems and cement grinding units in UAE
ABB upgrades process control systems and cement grinding units in UAE for increased uptime and uniformity across multiple sites
• ABB installs state-of-the-art distributed control system (DCS) automation platform at Star Super Cement cement grinding plants in UAE
• Upgrade to central processing units brings uniformity across Star Cement clinkerization plant as well as Star Cement grinding plants in the Middle East to lower maintenance downtime
• ABB has also installed the latest generation automation controllers for high availability of control applications at the Ultratech Cement subsidiaries
ABB has installed ABB Ability System 800xA to upgrade three grinding units at Star Super Cement in Dubai, UAE, and ensure optimized operations with the Star Cement clinkerization plant in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE.
The scope of work undertaken by ABB included the upgrade of all previously installed central processing units (CPUs) and controllers to the latest version of ABB Ability System 800xA. The project also involved the complete erection and installation for the new panels while keeping the field wiring intact. Minerals libraries were introduced to the system. Project panels were manufactured and delivered locally.
high payload hoists ensure safety and efficiency at major Australian mine
OZ Minerals will install a production hoist (winder) which can carry nearly 40,000kg of ore to the surface
• The hoist system will have the highest available levels of safety through ABB Ability Safety Plus for hoists, the first fully SIL 3 certified suite of solutions for hoists
• Contract is part of a $400 million shaft expansion at the mining company’s Prominent Hill mine in South Australia
ABB has won a large order for its highest payload Koepe production hoist, associated infrastructure, and safety systems from Australian mining company OZ Minerals. The contract will help to ensure efficient processing performance and a long service life as part of an ongoing $400 million expansion at the Prominent Hill mine in South Australia.
The hoist, which will be designed and supplied by ABB, has a capacity of 39,400kg and the strongest drivetrain that ABB has ever installed in Australia. ABB specialists will also supervise installation and commissioning.
Installing the Wira shaft will increase the annual underground mining rate, extend the mine life, reduce operating costs, lower emissions intensity, and reduce overall operational risk, according to OZ Minerals.
optimize production for major steelmaker thyssenkrupp
ABB has been awarded a major contract by Primetals Technologies to help optimize production at thyssenkrupp Steel Europe’s (tkSE) Duisburg-Bruckhausen plant in Germany, using the unique and proprietary ABB Flow Control Mold electromagnetic stirring and braking technology for higher quality steel produced faster and at lower cost.
The construction of a casting rolling mill and the upgrade of an existing continuous casting plant is part of a wider project awarded to Primetals Technologies, a global leader in plant engineering for the metals industry. It is part of tkSE’s Strategy 20-30 which aims to optimize operations for the requirements of automotive customers seeking improved surfaces, thinner and high-performance steels to meet crash safety standards in the growing e-mobility market.
By using FC Mold G3 (generation 3), thyssenkrupp can prevent gas bubbles and impurities from becoming trapped in the solidifying steel as the technology will offer simultaneous stirring and braking from one fixed position on the caster. In continuous slab casting, conditions in the meniscus area of the solidifying steel are crucial to determining end-product quality and have a major impact on productivity and overall operating costs. Integrated with the caster, FC Mold uses electromagnetic fields to control meniscus flow speed and fluctuations. It enables improved process control and increased resource efficiency, requires very little maintenance and typically has a long lifespan.
zero emission lithium project in Europe
• Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Savannah Resources plc and ABB signals intent to work together to explore electrification, automation and digital solutions for the Barroso Lithium Project in Portugal
• ABB will provide technical expertise to outline production control and process solutions for lithium production in line with Savannah’s decarbonization strategy and aim of zero emission operations by 2030
• The project is the largest known resource of hardrock spodumene lithium in Europe and could be a significant source of carbon-neutral lithium concentrate to help meet growing electric vehicle (EV) battery demand
Under the early-stage agreement, ABB will apply its technical expertise to outline production control and process solutions for lithium concentrate production and integrated spodumene mining operations in line with Savannah’s target of zero emission operations by 2030.
Savannah is focused on responsible development of the Barroso Lithium Project by using 238 individual measures to eliminate or mitigate environmental impacts. These measures will be included in the Definitive Feasibility Study on the project, which Savannah is currently completing. This will also incorporate the actions from the current project decarbonization study which supports Savannah’s commitment to target a zero emission operation by 2030 or earlier. Savannah also places great emphasis on its social responsibilities and a comprehensive set of programmes have been designed to share benefits and opportunities with local communities.
charging, melting and electromagnetic stirring solution on a large electric arc furnace (EAF)
• Record-breaking melting unit in operation at steelmaker Acciaieria Arvedi in Italy, with a furnace tapping size of 300 metric tons
• Tenova’s Consteel EAF continuous scrap charging system is complemented by Consteerrer, an innovative ArcSave-based electromagnetic stirring technology jointly developed by ABB and Tenova for continuously charging EAF systems
• Application of electromagnetic stirring results in 5 percent productivity increase and 3.6 percent reduction in electrical energy consumption
• Additional improvements include increased flexibility in the operation of the furnace and in the use of the raw materials mix with significant improvement of the metallic charge yield
The record-breaking electric arc furnace has a 300-ton tapping size and utilizes a charge mix which include Hot Briquetted Iron (HBI). It was installed to meet the demand for increased output following the recent revamp of the continuous Endless Strip Production (Arvedi-ESP) casting and rolling mill line at the plant.
Swedish sawmill takes first steps to realize vision of digitally optimized operations
• Sustainable timber products company Moelven will use the ABB Ability System 800xA distributed control system to find improved ways of running a sawmill
• ABB will digitally connect a steam boiler for better energy usage and production processes at the new Valåsen mill in Karlskoga with start up planned in 2024
The ABB Ability System 800xA distributed control system (DCS) will be installed for the new mill to provide operators with wide visibility and precise control from a central command center to ensure that production is as resource efficient as possible, with reduced energy consumption and limited waste.
The first step is to ensure two steam boilers are integrated into the ABB Ability System 800xA for improved load sharing and optimized energy use. The entire saw line will be consolidated under a single control and information system, enabling better decisions by ensuring the right process information reaches operators at the right time.
The application area in a sawmill is new to both ABB and Moelven as the site is currently running with islands of automation, where each machine operates in its own space. The aim of the collaboration is to not only increase digitalization and result in higher levels of automation, but also realize a new standard in the industry’s operations for the long-term with interfaces between machines and modelling of the entire process flow.
Moelven already sources its materials from sustainable spruce and pine forests in Norway and Sweden, and has a vision of a connected, digital sawmill to create greater efficiencies in processing. It manufactures wood products for the home, lumbar for industry, glulam, building modules, flexible office solutions and wood chips for bioenergy.
Through the collaboration with Moelven there will be the potential for ABB to work with a number of Europe-based original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and technology innovators, ensuring the vision for the sawmill of the future is achieved successfully. ABB is committed to helping its customers reduce their emissions and preserve resources as part of its Sustainability Strategy 2030.
GE Digital has been busy recently updating its manufacturing software. This news concerns making its Proficy Historian available on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Last January, I wrote about the latest update to Proficy Historian for 2022.
From the news release: GE Digital announced the availability of the world’s first cloud-native operational data historian available in the AWS Marketplace, Proficy Historian for Cloud. This cloud-based industrial data management software is designed to facilitate a more simplified and reliable movement of OT data to the cloud spanning from device level to enterprise.
The AWS Marketplace is a digital catalog that makes it easy to find, test, buy, and deploy software that runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
This operational historian provides secure encrypted OT data streaming to the cloud designed to reach up to 150,000 values per second per interface and to provide store and forward capabilities to protect against data loss if the cloud or network is unavailable. Advanced compression combined with proprietary file-based storage makes it cost effective to use in a cloud infrastructure. Because it is designed for the cloud, Proficy Historian for Cloud provides the benefits of cloud-based technologies including zero downtime upgrades, data replication, and high availability. Native interfaces to data lakes and other cloud-based analytics platforms combined with being deployed in the company’s virtual private cloud (VPC) enables more simplified data integration, shrinking time to value and reducing implementation costs.
GE Aviation uses Proficy Historian to manage OT data in 32 manufacturing plants. “Managing this amount of data is costly,” said Bill Andrews, Technical Product Manager, GE Aviation. “By moving from 32 distinct deployments to a single deployment of Proficy Historian on AWS, we can dramatically reduce management costs and downtime while improving value, scalability, and reliability.”
The company expects to reduce infrastructure costs by more than 20% and annual resources by $185K. The team will also improve system availability by eliminating more than a month of planned downtime and enabling a common data store accessible by thousands of enterprise-wide employees.
I wrote yesterday about some new developments in DataOps. Then I found this news about a survey into users’ needs and lacks in that technology and use case area. This comes from a company called Unravel Data. It bills itself as “the only data operations platform providing full-stack visibility and AI-powered recommendations”. If you’re not sure about DataOps, perhaps the attached infographic from the company will help. Briefly, the survey reveals poor visibility and lack of perspective as the top challenges for DataOps this year.
Unravel Data released key findings from a survey administered to several hundred attendees at the most recent DataOps Unleashed event in order to gauge the priorities, challenges, and progress of leading data teams as they seek to modernize their big data management and analytics capabilities.
“Data is the lifeblood of the modern enterprise and those organizations who have dedicated the resources and budget to modernizing their data stacks are the ones who will be best positioned to drive innovations in the coming decade,” said Kunal Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of Unravel Data. “The results of this latest survey show just how complex the modern data stack has become and illustrates the many unanticipated challenges that come with efficiently managing and optimizing data pipelines across multiple public cloud providers and platforms. It also serves to validate that there is an obvious demand for a purpose-built solution that can help these teams gain the critical visibility they need to drive the most value from their data operations.”
Some of the key findings collected from the most recent survey, which benchmarks responses from the year prior, include:
DataOps as a practice is hitting an inflection point: There was an almost 80% increase from the year prior of respondents who said they are in the active stage of adopting a formal DataOps approach to manage and optimize their data pipelines. This year, more than 41% of attendees reported they are actively employing DataOps methodologies, compared to just less than a quarter (24%) in 2021.
Visibility into data pipelines remains the top challenge: For the second year in a row, when participants were asked what they viewed as the top challenge with operating their data stack, respondents cited the lack of visibility across their environment as their most significant obstacle. Whereas in the previous year respondents reported that “controlling runaway costs” was the second biggest, this year the “lack of proactive alerts” was noted as the second most challenging aspect.
Complexity of cloud migrations is more time consuming than previously thought: Sixty percent of respondents from this year’s event estimated that their cloud migration project would take between 12-24 months, representing a 150% increase over the prior year’s projection. The challenge of forecasting the duration of these cloud migration initiatives reveals the vast amount of complexity and uncertainty that data teams face when attempting to map out these critical projects.
Automation continues to be a key driver: When asked about the role of automation in managing their DataOps pipelines, three in four DataOps professionals in both years reported that the ability to “automatically test and verify before moving jobs/pipelines to production” was the most important automation priority when compared to other aspects such as automating troubleshooting of platform or pipeline issues.
Data teams spend more time building than deploying/managing pipelines: For both years, data professionals reported that they spent the majority of their day building their data pipelines (39% in 2021 and 43% in 2022). In 2022, respondents reported spending slightly less time maintaining or troubleshooting their pipelines (30%) than the year prior (34%) while the time spent deploying data pipelines remained the same at 27% for both years.
I just released a podcast that can also be seen on YouTube where I discuss whatever happened to IIoT. The reason for the whole IIoT frenzy came from management’s need for data. That was all more of an IT-driven project than OT. From the various IoT-related technologies, the industry has moved on to Data Orchestration and DataOps. One of the earlier companies I talked with about data ops was Hitachi Vantara. Additional news from that company follows. Note, also talking “Edge-to-Cloud” which has become the new IoT term in the IT world.
Hitachi Vantara, the digital infrastructure, data management, analytics, and digital solutions subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd., introduced new Lumada DataOps capabilities for automated, AI-driven data operations for all enterprise customers and Lumada Industrial DataOps, providing advanced analytics capabilities for industrial use cases.
Data sprawl and governance have become more difficult as data becomes increasingly distributed across the data center, edge, hybrid, and public cloud infrastructure. This complexity can hinder an organization’s ability to turn data into business value. In a recent DataOps Survey by 451 Research, data privacy, compliance, and data access and preparation are top priorities for data-driven organizations.
Today’s additions to the Lumada DataOps portfolio allow organizations to create a seamless data fabric governed by an enhanced data catalog for automated data quality improvements and governance. With the latest updates to Data Integration powered by Pentaho technology, customers can reduce time and complexity to discover, access, prepare and blend data across multiple data sources and locations. The new Lumada Industrial DataOps portfolio includes IoT analytics models for industrial environments that seamlessly merge IT and OT data to unlock transformational business insights.
Lumada DataOps lets you automate the daily tasks of collecting, integrating, governing, and analyzing data on an intelligent platform providing an open and composable foundation for all enterprise data, while providing self-service data access to their choice of tools and analytics.
Today’s updates to Lumada DataOps include:
Data Catalog – Accelerate business insights with Data Catalog v7.0 using trusted data built on IO-Tahoe technology including a powerful new user interface, data quality and Collibra connectivity.
Data Integration – Integrate data across hybrid cloud with Pentaho v9.3 through flexible cloud deployment and new connectors for cloud data stores like Snowflake, MongoDB Atlas, Teradata, Elastic Search7.x and IBM MQ 9.2.
IT and OT Data Convergence for Digital Industrial Operations
Hitachi Vantara’s new Lumada Industrial DataOps portfolio enables real-time insights and outcomes that power critical operations to be more predictable and manageable. It accelerates IT and OT data convergence by building a data fabric for analytic solutions from edge to multi-cloud. Lumada Industrial DataOps IIoT software automates data pipeline delivery across OT and IT sources, feeding industrial AI and ML models for predictive maintenance and operations optimization. Capabilities of the new Lumada Industrial DataOps portfolio include:
IIoT Core – Accelerate and scale operation application deployment with a complete IIoT data platform including Core, Gateway, Digital Twins, and Machine Learning Services.
IIoT Analytics – Simplify AI and ML solutions creation through toolkits that simplify delivery through packaged Digital Twins with pre-trained ML models
