by Gary Mintchell | Mar 24, 2021 | Data Management, Manufacturing IT, News, Operations Management
Open Source, standards-based data platform to stimulate innovation, industrialize data management, and reduce time to market for new solutions in the energy industry.
Readers here know The Open Group perhaps mainly through the Open Process Automation Forum. But this technology consortium has many open-source projects in the works. Today’s news shows the continued vitality of the open-source movement.
The Open Group announced the OSDU Data Platform Mercury Release. Developed by The Open Group OSDU Forum, the OSDU Data Platform is an Open Source, standards-based, and technology-agnostic data platform for the energy industry that stimulates innovation, industrializes data management, and reduces time to market for new solutions.
The OSDU Data Platform will provide over time access to a vast portfolio of open and proven vendor-developed applications from a broad range of energy sources. By accessing this ecosystem, developers no longer have to develop and maintain the monolithic architecture needed to deliver unique value-add services. Now, with a single set of well-defined and industry-specific APIs, organizations can easily accelerate platform design and develop proprietary applications on top of the OSDU Data Platform.
With an open-source approach, any company – from established corporations to start-up challenger companies – can contribute new features to the platform, supporting a variety of business workflows. All work is validated by the OSDU Program Management Committee (PMC) to ensure it is aligned with the overall direction of the Forum.
With a single view of industry data, the OSDU Data Platform can be harnessed for innovative business applications. The Mercury Release of the OSDU Data Platform is now available to Operators and Software Developers who want to:
● Liberate data from traditional silos and make all data discoverable and usable in a single data platform
● Enable new integrated exploration and development workflows that reduce overall cycle time
● Take advantage of emerging digital solutions to provide scalability and accelerate decision making
Steve Nunn, President and CEO of The Open Group, commented: “The OSDU Data Platform Mercury Release represents an important achievement by the OSDU Forum in a very short space of time. Established in 2018, the OSDU Forum has accumulated over 185 Member organizations who are collaborating together to accelerate innovation and reduce costs in the energy sector. With a standard data platform, energy companies will be able to drive innovation by integrating digital technologies and utilizing open standards for better decision making. Looking ahead, this will be imperative to meet the world’s increasing energy demands while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
Johan Krebbers, GM Emerging Digital Technologies / VP IT Innovation, Shell, commented: “At the heart of most energy companies’ strategies is embracing the transformational technologies taking us forward in today’s digital era. This makes the need for a common architectural design clear, one that underpins how our industry works with its data.”
David Eyton, EVP Innovation & Engineering, bp, commented: “Data is at the heart of bp’s transformation into an integrated energy company. We believe that the future of the energy industry will be data driven and dependent on its ability to manage data in a manner that promotes data sharing with partners, innovation through data science, and rapid decision making throughout the lifecycle of the energy value chains. Being a founding member of the OSDU, bp has had an opportunity to be part of an organization that is fundamentally changing the data landscape for our industry. By integrating energy organizations, cloud services providers and software vendors the OSDU is providing an opportunity for collaboration that will be beneficial for all involved. We are very excited about the release of OSDU Mercury and look forward to expanding this approach into engineering, emissions, and new energy.”
To learn more about how to develop applications the OSDU Data Platform, visit the application developer community page here.
The current OSDU Forum Member List is available here.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 23, 2021 | Automation, Robots
What news I receive that isn’t related to software or networking seems to be about collaborative robots. Every time I think that there can’t be anything new in grippers, here comes another announcement. Check this from OnRobot.
Large, unwieldy bags of dog food, non-airtight clothing or consumer goods packages, and bulky, porous cardboard boxes. These are just some examples of demanding packaging and palletizing applications that OnRobot’s new VGP20 gripper can address. VGP20 is the world’s most-powerful electric vacuum gripper. Compatible with all leading robot brands, the gripper can handle payloads of 20kg (44.09lbs), making it a great fit for a wide range of applications in industries from cosmetics and electronics to pharmaceuticals and food and beverage.
“Our customers asked for a cost-effective, easy-to-deploy vacuum gripper that can pick up bulky, heavy-duty payloads while being intelligent enough to handle a wide range of items, including those with irregular shapes and porous surfaces,” says Enrico Krog Iversen, CEO at OnRobot. “The VGP20 combines power, intelligence and ease-of-use that competes with expensive, complex pneumatic grippers.”
End-of-line operations such as palletizing are labor-intensive and costly. Researchers estimate that, on average, labor costs account for 65% of warehouse facility operating budgets, dwarfing the costs associated with utilities, taxes, distribution and rent combined.
On this basis alone, automation is a compelling proposition for companies of all sizes. According to researchers, adoption of automated palletizing solutions in the food and beverage sector is estimated to have increased at a CAGR of more than 13% since 2017 and is set to reach USD390 million by 2022.
OnRobot’s new VGP20 electric vacuum gripper can take on applications that have traditionally been handled by powerful pneumatic grippers–at a fraction of the cost and complexity.
While pneumatic grippers require compressed air to operate, the VGP20 is all-electric and ready to go out of the box, enabling companies to save up to 90% on operating and maintenance costs compared to traditional pneumatic gripper deployments.
The VGP20 provides unlimited cup and airflow customization and multichannel functionality, allowing it to be deployed on multiple items of different shapes and sizes.
Additionally, the VGP20 gripper’s built-in intelligence, combined with its easy-to-use software, provides precise air flow control functionality that is beyond the capabilities of traditional pneumatic grippers. This functionality allows users to vary the type of grip used in different applications, such as the soft grip used to handle delicate items to the hard grip required for handling bulky, heavy cardboard boxes with porous surfaces.
The costs of carboard for packaging has risen by nearly 40% from 2010-2020. And with continued strong growth of e-commerce demands, estimates of further increases lead shippers to look for lower-cost options for packaging materials. Thinner, more porous cardboard and lightweight shipping bags present challenges for traditional automated packaging and palletizing, however. The powerful, customizable OnRobot VGP20 easily handles these thinner and less expensive packaging materials, allowing shippers to save considerably on both automation and shipping costs.
OnRobot’s VGP20 gripper also provides an option to enable continuous monitoring of the gripper’s air flow. If this option is selected, and the vacuum is interrupted for any reason, the robot will come to an immediate halt and an alert pop-up window will be displayed in the gripper software.
“Efficient packaging and palletizing performance is crucial to success for manufacturers, e-commerce and logistics companies. However, labor shortages present an ongoing challenge and performing these jobs by hand is both monotonous and unergonomic,” says Iversen. “The powerful and versatile VGP20 gripper enables companies to automate these tasks, providing relief to workers while improving overall productivity and quality.”
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 23, 2021 | Manufacturing IT, News, Organizations, Software
As our world in manufacturing technology moves ever more quickly into software, open-source software becomes more prominent. This news is significant given funding from Google and the amount of work going on at the Linux Foundation that is benefiting manufacturing.
Google and the Linux Foundation announced they are prioritizing funds to underwrite two full-time maintainers for Linux kernel security development, Gustavo Silva and Nathan Chancellor.
Silva and Chancellor’s exclusive focus is to maintain and improve kernel security and associated initiatives in order to ensure the world’s most pervasive open-source software project is sustainable for decades to come.
The Linux Foundation’s Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) and the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard(LISH) recently published an open source contributor survey report that identified a need for additional work on security in open source software, which includes the massively pervasive Linux operating system. Linux is fueled by more than 20,000 contributors and as of August 2020, one million commits. While there are thousands of Linux kernel developers, all of whom take security into consideration as the due course of their work, this contribution from Google to underwrite two full-time Linux security maintainers signals the importance of security in the ongoing sustainability of open-source software.
“At Google, security is always top of mind and we understand the critical role it plays to the sustainability of open-source software,” said Dan Lorenc, Staff Software Engineer, Google. “We’re honored to support the efforts of both Gustavo Silva and Nathan Chancellor as they work to enhance the security of the Linux kernel.”
Chancellor’s work will be focused on triaging and fixing all bugs found with Clang/LLVM compilers while working on establishing continuous integration systems to support this work ongoing. Once those aims are well-established, he plans to begin adding features and polish to the kernel using these compiler technologies. Chancellor has been working on the Linux kernel for four and a half years. Two years ago, Chancellor started contributing to mainline Linux under the ClangBuiltLinux project, which is a collaborative effort to get the Linux kernel building with Clang and LLVM compiler tools.
“I hope that more and more people will start to use the LLVM compiler infrastructure project and contribute fixes to it and the kernel – it will go a long way towards improving Linux security for everyone,” said Chancellor, Linux maintainer.
Gustavo Silva’s full-time Linux security work is currently dedicated to eliminating several classes of buffer overflows by transforming all instances of zero-length and one-element arrays into flexible-array members, which is the preferred and least error-prone mechanism to declare such variable-length types. Additionally, he is actively focusing on fixing bugs before they hit the mainline, while also proactively developing defense mechanisms that cut off whole classes of vulnerabilities. Silva sent his first kernel patch in 2010 and today is an active member of the Kernel Self Protection Project(KSPP). He is consistently one of the top five most active kernel developers since 2017 with more than 2,000 commits in mainline. Silva’s work has impacted 27 different stable trees, going all the way down to Linux v3.16.
“We are working towards building a high-quality kernel that is reliable, robust and more resistant to attack every time,” said Silva, Linux maintainer. “Through these efforts, we hope people, maintainers in particular, will recognize the importance of adopting changes that will make their code less prone to common errors.”
“Ensuring the security of the Linux kernel is extremely important as it’s a critical part of modern computing and infrastructure. It requires us all to assist in any way we can to ensure that it is sustainably secure,” said David A. Wheeler, the Linux Foundation. “We extend a special thanks to Google for underwriting Gustavo and Nathan’s Linux kernel security development work along with a thank you to all the maintainers, developers and organizations who have made the Linux kernel a collaborative global success.”
Funding Linux kernel security and development is a collaborative effort, supported by the world’s largest companies that depend on the Linux operating system. To support work like this, discussions are taking place in the Securing Critical Projects Working Group inside the OpenSSF.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 23, 2021 | Automation, Workforce
My grandfather influenced me in the direction of manufacturing through his stories of life. He left high school at the urging of his step-father to apprentice as a machinist at the Monarch Machine Tool Co. and then worked up to production superintendent at a GM plant. He had a lot of interesting stories. I never apprenticed at much anything, but I always thought it was a win-win for people and companies. Finally, others are coming around to that view. Here is news from FANUC and Rockwell Automation.
FANUC America and Rockwell Automation officially formed a coalition to kick off accelerated work and learn apprenticeship programs designed to upskill current and future workers for jobs in advanced manufacturing, robotics and automation.
The coalition includes APT, a FANUC and Rockwell Automation systems integrator, and NOCTI Business Solutions, which provides independent assessments of occupational standards and validation using recognized International Organization for Standardization (ISO) process validation methods. Franklin Apprenticeships is also a key partner of the coalition, ensuring apprenticeship support structure and success enablers for employers and apprentices.
The coalition has developed new apprenticeship programs offering people opportunities to gain credentials that include fundamental robotics (Robot Operator) and automation (PLC Operator). The program offers a second level of credentials for Robot and PLC Technicians. A third credentialing level called Integration Specialist builds on the fundamental and technical skills that teaches people to operate and troubleshoot integrated FANUC-Rockwell Automation technologies. All of the new apprenticeship offerings will provide more people with fulfilling careers and help companies to bridge the demand for skilled workers.
“Our number one goal is to help create a worker pipeline that will not only help people increase their skills and future earning potential, but to help manufacturers achieve their production goals and maintain a thriving economy,” said Paul Aiello, Director of Education, FANUC America. “In most cases, current and future workers can complete the apprenticeship skills training and achieve their industry-recognized certifications in less than one year. It’s also important to note that these programs support all types of apprenticeship and certification models, including pre-apprenticeships.”
“As industry adopts new technologies, it is vital to be able to quickly adapt with a well-trained workforce,” said Michael Cook, Director Global Academic Organization, Rockwell Automation. “Having the most current standards will drive manufacturing competitiveness and simultaneously grow new talent to these new occupations, upskill current employees, and allow companies to be more agile in their workforce planning.”
The apprenticeship programs aim to help companies rapidly upskill employees at every level from Operator to Technician to Integration System Specialist. In addition to improving the skills of current production workers, these programs will be extremely valuable for engineers who are working to implement new automation systems and processes that require new employees trained in the latest automation technologies.
“As technology advances at a fast pace, it is important that companies play a bigger role in education to ensure a safe, productive and sustainable work environment,” said Aiello. “FANUC and our coalition look forward to helping as many people as possible take advantage of these accelerated work and apprenticeship programs.”
Over 40 leading companies, including Dana, Magna, Tyson Foods and Flex-N-Gate, have agreed to support and participate in apprenticeships for automation technologies, ensuring that their employees receive adequate training and are qualified to succeed.
Customer Testimonials
“Automation is imperative to a competitive U.S. manufacturing base. In order to meet our demand in automationexpansion, we will need skilled candidates to fill high-demand, and technically driven positions like Robot Operator, Robot Technician and Integrated Systems Specialist.” Heidi Koedam, Manager, Engineering Learning Organization, Dana Incorporated.
“In order to support the expansion of manufacturing automation and create growth and development opportunities for our employees, we join this project team to engage skilled candidates and help fill technically driven positions like robot operators, robot technicians and integrated systems specialists. Magna Seating projects it will support a number of maintenance technician trainees between 2021 and 2023.” Paul N. Myles, Sr. Manager, Government Workforce Development and Training Programs, Magna International Inc.
“Tyson Foods currently has a US DOL Industrial Maintenance Apprenticeship underway and we are successfully developing our team members. FANUC has won our national account and it makes a lot of sense to collaborate with FANUC and other vendors, such as Rockwell/Allen-Bradley on these Level 1, 2, and 3 apprenticeship standards. I applaud FANUC’s support of workforce development across the nation at secondary and post-secondary institutions.” Mike Rogers, Senior Director Maintenance and Refrigeration, Tyson Foods.
“We take pride at Flex-N-Gate in helping our employees build fulfilling careers. As we expand, we’re looking for qualified and ambitious people for our team, and we feel high-value apprenticeships are an ideal avenue to helping people start or expand their careers.” Bill Beistline, Executive VP – Flex-N-Gate Metals Manufacturing & Procurement.
FANUC and Rockwell Automation have worked together over the past decade developing training, certifications and an education and training delivery network. FANUC’s network of educational partners includes more than 1200 high school and post-secondary FANUC-certified training organizations, and over 150 university and career technical training partners associated with this industry team. FANUC’s network of schools coupled with Rockwell Automation’s education partners represent nearly 1600 schools, the largest nationwide collaboration of industry and education working to narrow the skills gap.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 22, 2021 | Automation, News, Organizations, Robots
The superlatives and hyperbole in this press release masked a good idea—bringing robotic programming into the 21stCentury. “Pioneering the next frontier of manufacturing through a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and industrial robotics,” proclaims the press release. The meat of the announcement—Symbio Robotics announced its official company launch armed with $30M and a goal of modernizing industrial manufacturing by breathing new life into existing industrial robots — making them faster, more capable and more flexible.
At the heart of Symbio’s strategy is the introduction of SymbioDCS, an industrial robotics middleware and python programming framework that radically simplifies the programming of industrial robots to make them far more intelligent. SymbioDCS enables robot programmers to leverage real-time sensor information and feedback from existing automation sensors in combination with advanced control software. As a result, industrial robots that are programmed and managed with SymbioDCS quickly learn and execute tasks — increasing efficiency, improving quality and reducing ergonomic hazards.
Symbio currently is working with Nissan Motor Corporation and Toyota in addition to other major companies.
The recent investment was led by ACMECapital, with participation from existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Eclipse Ventures and The House Fund.
“Symbio is doing for manufacturing what Windows did for DOS. Existing industrial manufacturing robots run proprietary programming languages making them slow and cumbersome. Not only do these robots lack dexterity, they lack the intelligence to make them do what they need to do,” said Max Reynolds, Symbio CEO and co-founder. “Our technology is designed to fundamentally reframe these existing manufacturing pain points by utilizing the best practices of AI and human robot interaction. That’s what we believe will drive success.”
Symbio is focused on a different problem: building automation that enables the best of human-machine collaboration. Its framework is designed to support the programmers that are already working in these environments.
“Developers are humans too, so the human-machine collaboration paradigm should apply to them as well!” said Anca Dragan, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS), at UC Berkeley. “Instead of exclusively providing automation solutions, Symbio is also designing the tools that enable the developers and domain experts working in manufacturing to create their own automation solutions and easily adapt them to new tasks. To do this, they are building products that leverage AI strengths and human insight in a symbiotic way.”
Symbio’s focus is on providing generalized solutions that enable companies to adopt AI as a core competency, as opposed to the traditional automation approach, which is to provide a custom solution to a specific problem. This means that AI solutions will look very different because it’s not just about creating the automation, it’s about creating and providing the tools that empower teams to design their own solutions through the use of AI, and easily adapt to the task at hand.
“We’ve seen cars become much more complex and customized in the decades since the onset of industrial automation. Today’s automakers need more nimble and nuanced robotics to perform increasingly sophisticated assemblies,” said Greg Reichow, Partner at Eclipse Ventures and the former head of global manufacturing and automation engineering at Tesla. “Symbio provides the exact solution for forward-thinking manufacturers, through an AI-powered platform that combines advanced compute, sensing and precision-control software.”
The company’s framework runs on edge computing infrastructure through industrial networks to inform and instruct current factory systems to make final assembly tasks available that were never automated before. This allows, for the first time, the development of new sets of applications and programs that can inform and instruct current factory systems to perform more complex and dexterous tasks, in addition to improving automation that already exists like door, wheel and windshield assembly, fastening, welding and painting.
“We believe that tech-enabled automation is defining the modern economy. Symbio is on the leading edge of the shift toward an era of software-defined manufacturing where
intelligent, self-aware devices will be capable of automating even the most complex tasks like assembly. The company is taking a thoughtful approach and has proven that their technology works with some of the toughest customers possible, Automotive OEMs. We are excited to partner with the Symbio team as they scale across the automotive sector and beyond.” Hany Nada, Co-founder and Partner, ACME Capital.
