by Gary Mintchell | Mar 19, 2021 | News, Organizations
I wrote about Element Analytics earlier this month. The company has a unique take of breaking through data silos between the various departments of a manufacturing organization. It announced this month the appointment of Vasu Jakkal to its Board of Directors. Jakkal serves as Corporate Vice President of Security, Compliance and Identity Marketing at Microsoft. She will serve as an independent board member.
“We are pleased to welcome Vasu Jakkal to our Board of Directors,” said Andy Bane, CEO of Element. “Her deep industry knowledge, specifically in the software, industrial IoT, and semiconductor industries, combined with her leadership at leading companies like Intel, Microsoft, FireEye and Brocade will be invaluable as we accelerate into this next stage of growth and broaden our reach in the asset intensive process and infrastructure industries.”
In her current role at Microsoft, Jakkal leads the team responsible for security, compliance and identity business and marketing, working closely with the CEO and senior leadership team, as well as all departments, to drive the company’s security strategy and business growth. As part of this she oversees the overall strategy, go-to market execution and her team collaborates closely with engineering to help shape product strategy and roadmaps.
Prior to Microsoft, Jakkal served as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at FireEye, where she led global marketing and communications including brand, demand, product, field, and partner. Earlier in her career, she held several leadership positions at Intel, Brocade and LSI Corporation across strategy, marketing, and general management. She is passionate about technology and inspired by purpose-driven businesses to help people live their possibilities. Jakkal is a member of FirstBoard.io and Athena Alliance, who are dedicated to increasing female representation in top ranks of leadership and corporate boards.
“It’s an honor to join Element’s Board of Directors at a time when organizations must digitally-enable their operations and are realizing how crucial successful IT/OT convergence is in this process,” said Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President of Security, Compliance and Identity at Microsoft. “I am inspired by Element’s vision and look forward to diving right in to help Element serve its customers, expand its reach and accelerate its momentum globally.”
The announcement follows the company’s recently unveiled Element Unify software solution which is designed to align data across information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) to enable digitally-enabled operations for the rapidly expanding industrial IoT market.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 18, 2021 | Business, News, Robots
- 2019-20: unprecedented events caused continuous negative growth for the first time for the industrial robotics sector
- Swift recovery predicted: 9%+ growth forecast for 2021; CAGR of 4.6% predicted for 21-24
- Uneven recovery for different regions and classes of robot – China to lead global revival
- Semi-conductors, chemicals, and food & beverage industries to be major drivers of sector
We’ve seen the market report on robot sales from the trade association. Here is an independent analysis from London-based Interact Analysis. This new report on industrial robotics shows that the industrial robots sector is on track to deliver a swift recovery after a recent unprecedented two-year downturn.
During the economic slow-down in 2019 the industrial robotics sector saw shipments fall by 5.4%. The pandemic of 2020 saw a further fall of 5.9% as 80,000 fewer units were shipped than previously forecast. This was a difficult time for the sector, and it will take time to recover. Interact Analysis acknowledges that pre-COVID estimates of growth up to 2024 have now gone out of the window, but it has identified strong drivers for growth as economies emerge from the pandemic. The company’s in-depth research has concluded that new industry applications for robotics and more advanced technologies coupled with reducing prices will cause an acceleration in revenues in 2021, with an increase of 9.2% in revenue terms, and 9.6% in shipment terms. This will be followed by sustained growth up to 2024.
Articulated robots are predicted to be the slowest to recover to 2019 levels, given that the industry where they are predominantly used – automotive – has been hit so badly by the pandemic. Sales of SCARA robots, used in light duty pick and place and assembly operations are predicted to recover as their potential for use in different applications is recognised. The collaborative robot market, which saw negative growth for the first time in 2020, is forecast to bounce back with an impressive 15-20% year-on-year growth rate up to 2028.
The expected pattern of regional recovery for the industrial robot sector is familiar. The virus started in Asia, and then moved to Europe and North America, and the infection continues to spread. As a result, normal business operations will resume earlier in Asia, and this will impact on robot shipments in those areas, most notably in China, where the virus was brought under control by May 2020. The Chinese market is the only one forecast to surpass 2019 levels by 2021. This is in the main due to the large domestic demand coming from China itself, rather than an increase in China’s export markets which are, of course, still badly hit by COVID.
Jan Zhang, senior director at Interact Analysis says: “The downturn of 2019 and the shock of the pandemic tripped up the industrial robotics market, but it only stumbled. Factors such as staff shortages, social distancing, the ever-pressing need for efficiency and speed, and the realisation of the need to build in resilience in the face of world shocks such as COVID-19 mean that now more than ever, industries across the globe recognise the value of robotics. We believe the next few years will see the sector recover its footing and thrive.”
About the report
During the process of compiling this report, the Interact Analysis team conducted over 30 hours of interviews with 30 key industry personnel at leading robot companies and end-users. These were conducted face-to-face or by phone. Banks of data were collected and analysed, some direct from companies and held confidentially, some, such as company reports, from public sources. It must be emphasised that this report, more than any other, is an organic and evolving tool, offering a newly introduced product tracking service, ensuring users of the report have the latest data.
About Interact Analysis
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.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 18, 2021 | Manufacturing IT, Operations Management, Software
GE Digital has updated a couple of its HMI/SCADA and MES products to work with Proficy Operations Hub making it available for remote operations. The release follows.
- New releases deliver increased integration with Proficy Operations Hub and Proficy Historian to provide centralized web-based visualization, control, and data in context
- Proven multi-purpose, multi-industry HMI/SCADA and MES routing solutions are highly scalable and offer powerful development tools to promote efficient operations
GE Digital unveiled enhancements to its CIMPLICITY and Tracker software that provide decision support for operators to make them more efficient. CIMPLICITY HMI/SCADA provides client-server visualization to precisely monitor and control operations. Tracker, part of GE Digital’s Proficy Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) offering, automates routing and sequencing to accelerate time to market, reduce warranty and recall exposure, and support Lean operations and building right the first time.
Key to these newest versions is Proficy Operations Hub integration. Centralizing operations with Operations Hub enables businesses with multiple locations or large sites to centralize operational views and enables remote access to information and control to support site operations, increasing efficiency and reducing downtime.
“Today’s digital plant and its mobile, connected workforce accelerate and sustain continuous improvement to drive greater productivity and efficiency, lower total cost of ownership, and increase profitability,” said Richard Kenedi, General Manager for GE Digital’s Manufacturing and Digital Plant business. “Connected workers enable industrial companies to accelerate digitization enabling more advanced insights into operations. Whether you are looking at multiple sites that you need to manage or you have multiple applications at a site, centralizing views makes operations more efficient.”
Providing a single-entry point for operations, CIMPLICITY enables a consistent, paperless view for operators, plant management, and quality personnel. The new Operations Hub Widget for viewing CIMPLICITY provides multi-site views for Lean operations, offers reduced training through consistent operator experience, and leverages displays and data from existing installs. The new Widget also allows for mashup displays of CIMPLICITY and other Proficy application screens in Web Apps, in context.
Another new feature is multi-user development for Tracker, which accelerates configuration and deployment. Tracker is a comprehensive routing, tracking and order execution management system that helps manufacturers raise productivity and cut costs by monitoring and managing the execution of production orders. It is ideal for high volume, high variability, and high value operations. Combined with CIMPLICITY, Tracker is a unique, proven solution that increases throughput with detailed, continuous information to help manufacturers make the best decisions. It enables faster time-to-market with powerful order execution and reduces risk in the manufacturing process by minimizing recalls with genealogy and traceability data for audit trails and regulatory compliance. Supporting Lean initiatives, Tracker helps manufacturers and suppliers understand real-time sequence requirements and handle situations that occur on the plant floor when the sequence is broken –enabling manufacturers to build right the first time. It helps facilitate a large reduction in WIP inventories along with finished goods inventories while meeting production targets.
Both CIMPLICITY and Tracker are available now.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 18, 2021 | Automation, Networking, Security
Network cybersecurity news updates from Indegy, now part of Tenable, and Nozomi’s partnering efforts.
A visitor to the show floor of the annual ARC Advisory Group Industry Forum in Orlando a few years ago might have been surprised at the sheer number of new cybersecurity companies exhibiting. Adding to this number were a couple of established companies who had drunk the kool-aid and established cybersecurity practices.
My first thought, having been down this worn path too many times in my career, centered on how these companies could survive and, indeed, even find enough market to grow. Many companies are formed to sell. I figured that most of these new cybersecurity company founders were as much looking for exits at the Forum as much as looking for customers. Since that time, many have been acquired.
We only hope that, in the long run, this burst of creativity in the field will improve industrial control system (ICS) cybersecurity. Although the recent incident at a Florida water treatment facility shows how far we still need to go.
Tenable Cybersecurity
I had a brief chat with Barak Perelman, VP of OT Security at Tenable and former CEO of Indegy to discuss the threats to cybersecurity opened up by the great dispersion of industrial workers due to the Covid pandemic.
Indegy was an operations technology (OT) firm brought into an IT company (Tenable) in late 2019. This is one way to bring IT and OT together. Perelman told me that overall IT and OT networks are more interconnected than ever. Threats can freely flow between networks. And 67% of OT organizations are reporting new and more sophisticated tactics being used against them.
I asked Perelman who within a prospective customer company Indegy had called on and who was the effective buyer. He said this was the biggest shift of the last two years. The customer was plant manager, engineering manager, etc. Now more likely the buyer is the IT cybersecurity team. The biggest success they’ve seen is with a combination of the forces, for example placing an engineer from the plant on the security team. Strategically, senior-level executives and the board level have become concerned. They went to their CISO first for results. So most Tenable projects are led by IT teams.
Another big change in the market is reflected in his slide deck. He used to have a slide on “air gap” but that has been dropped. “Everyone now understands that everything is connected.”
Prior to the pandemic and the movement to remote work in 2020, companies thought that they didn’t have exposure to remote access. Then they discovered that an engineer somewhere added an unauthorized cell modem for the ability to access the system remotely for troubleshooting purposes. After the pandemic, utilities, for example, have as much remote as possible. Many organizations understood they wouldn’t fight it anymore. If you can’t fight it, then join it.
Nozomi Partnerships
Companies forming partnerships has been one of the biggest trends in the market during the past couple of years. Here are a couple featuring cybersecurity company Nozomi.
Tempered Combines Strengths with Nozomi Networks
Tempered Networks and Nozomi Networks announced a new partnership and product integration to deliver a full-featured industrial security solution for network visibility, threat detection and remediation. The joint offering integrates Nozomi Networks’ leading network visibility, threat detection and incident response system with Tempered Network’s Zero Trust policy enforcement and centralized software-defined perimeter management console. Today’s sophisticated security threats are driving requirements for not only extreme visibility and intelligent threat detection, but also automated remediation that can lock-down vulnerable systems while ensuring continued availability for authorized access and continuity of business.
“As the leader in OT and IoT security visibility and threat detection, Nozomi Networks gives us a powerful partner to deliver greater insight and remediation capabilities to our customers,” said Jeff Hussey, Founder and CEO of Tempered Networks. “The AI-powered network analysis and anomaly detection that they provide can drive more accurate micro-segmentation and security policy enforcement into our Airwall platform, providing a more secure, rapid response approach against industrial-grade network attacks.”
“Tempered Airwall delivers the military-grade encryption and secure access policy enforcement that many of our joint customers rely upon to quickly remediate anomalies and threats in their networks,” said Chet Namboodri, Nozomi Networks Senior Vice President of Business Development and Alliances. “The combination of threat visibility and automated enforcement significantly improves security response. Ubiquitous threats like the SolarWinds attack continue to emerge and industrial connectivity for remote work and connected smart devices continue to accelerate. Our combined offerings provide strong detection and defense against the rapid proliferation of advanced persistent threats, actively buttoning down attack surfaces.”
The product integration includes the ability of Tempered to mirror secure traffic to Nozomi Networks solutions through a fully encrypted overlay for greater analysis and insight. Armed with AI-driven insights from Nozomi Networks, Airwall customers can take remediation steps or refine Tempered security policies through the Airwall Conductor management console API. The Nozomi Networks solution and Tempered Networks Conductor work in concert to refine Airwall zero trust policies and address identified threats, going beyond the capabilities of traditional network security devices like firewalls or remote access solutions.
“A two-way integration of network monitoring of IoT devices and secure, zero-trust, communications is brilliant,” said Richard Stiennon, industry analyst with IT-Harvest and author of Security Yearbook 2020. “Ensuring that all communications is stealthed and encrypted while preserving visibility into traffic is a winning combination.”
NanoLock Security and Nozomi Networks to Provide End-To-End Cyber Protection for Critical and Industrial Infrastructures
NanoLock Security, a leader in OT and IoT device-level protection and management and Nozomi Networks Inc, a leader in OT and IoT security and visibility, announced they have partnered to provide an end-to-end cyber protection and management solution to secure OT in critical and industrial infrastructure. The joint solution will be deployed in the Atlantica Cybernext Security Operations Center (SOC) to serve clients with the most technologically advanced solutions for protecting their business and infrastructure.
Nozomi Networks’ real-time OT and IoT security solution provides network visibility, threat detection, and operational insight for OT and IoT environments, while NanoLock’s device-level protection and management solution tackles the rapidly growing Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) from both outsider and insider adversaries.
Together, the joint security solution from NanoLock and Nozomi Networks introduces a holistic approach that spans the entire IoT and OT network. Adding NanoLock’s device-level protection and forensic data to Nozomi Networks’ advanced network visibility, threat, vulnerability and anomaly detection extends cybersecurity coverage to include:
- Lightweight, passive cyberattack prevention for devices such as smart meters, data concentrators, and controllers, with near-zero processing, power requirements and memory footprint
- Anomaly detection covering the network as well as IoT and OT devices
- Unified alerts and deeper device-level as well as network-level forensic data
- Centralized device visibility, risk monitoring, and intelligence management
- Secured and enforced OTA (Over-The-Air) device updates
“With cybersecurity threats to critical infrastructure on the rise, our partnership with NanoLock Security delivers advanced, end-to-end protection,” said Chet Namboodri, Nozomi Networks Senior Vice President of Business Development and Alliances. “We’re teaming with NanoLock to strengthen utilities’ defenses against cyberattacks, using robust device and network-level detection and protection alongside extensive network visibility and risk assessment.”
“We’re delighted to partner with Nozomi Networks to introduce a broader IoT and OT cybersecurity solution,” said Yanir Laubshtein, NanoLock’s Vice President of Cyber Solutions. “We see a critical need for a cybersecurity solution that starts at the device level and spans the network to bring comprehensive detection, protection, and management. Our joint offering addresses that need, while also bringing operational efficiency analytics to critical and industrial infrastructure.”
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 17, 2021 | Uncategorized
My day has had a bit of a delayed start. I left the house about 6:45 this morning to go obtain my second Covid vaccination. There was perhaps a slight amount of fear and trepidation. I’ve heard a variety of stories ranging from no reaction to being very tired and achy. Sitting in the observation room (unlike YoYo Ma, I didn’t bring my cello (well, guitar) to the room to entertain during the wait), I did begin to feel a little soreness in the area of the shot. But that feeling left. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.
I like historical fiction, but I don’t read much of it. Steven Pressfield wrote a popular work of nonfiction, The War of Art: Break Through The Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, cited by many creatives I follow. I recommend it. Mostly, he writes historical fiction. I decided to buy his latest book, A Man at Arms. I could not put it down. Totally destroyed yesterday’s productivity. The setting is the eastern Mediterranean in 55 AD. A “Man at Arms”, a warrior and mercenary, accepts a job from the Jerusalem-based Roman Authority to track down and capture a man and girl child who have a letter from the Apostle Paul to the Christians in Corinth. Early on, he attracts to him a male youth who follows him. The story is gripping. You can’t guess the end until the next-to-last page.
Note: it is a warrior story, so there are pretty graphic battle scenes as well as scenes of Roman brutality. Pressfield gives you a look at the cultural backdrop of Roman occupation that is only alluded to in the Bible. I think it’s great. It may be one of those few books I’ll read again.
