by Gary Mintchell | Apr 21, 2016 | Automation, Industrial Computers
The PC market, especially for consumers but also for business, is slowing. Manufacturers are turning to industrial PC market.The New York Times recently ran an article about Intel cutting jobs due to the continued slowdown in the PC market. Recently I wrote about Dell entering the embedded PC for industrial applications market, most likely due to the same market forces.
From The New York Times article:
Intel, the world’s largest maker of semiconductors, said on Tuesday that it was laying off 12,000 people, about 11 percent of its work force, as it continues to reel from a long downturn in global demand for personal computers.
The company’s chief executive, Brian Krzanich, announced the layoffs as part of a larger corporate restructuring, which will result in a $1.2 billion charge. Intel also reported lower-than-expected first-quarter earnings and reduced its projected revenue for the year.
“Intel has been known as the PC company,” Mr. Krzanich said in an earnings call with Wall Street analysts. “It’s time to make this transition and push the company all the way over” to supplying chips for things like smartphones, cloud computing, sensors and other devices.
Here is my introduction to the Dell embedded PC announcement:
Faced with a declining market for desktop PCs and a burgeoning market for embedded PC, Dell has announced launch of its first purpose-built industrial PC (IPC) products. This release complements its entry into the Internet of Things market announced last fall at Dell World. [Note: I do some work with Dell on IoT issues, but that has no bearing on reporting this.]
Rising Industrial PC Market to Stabilize
While the global market for industrial PCs has experienced ups and downs in recent years, it is forecast to pick up in 2016 and will start to stabilize in 2018. The key reason for the increase in short-term growth is an expected improvement in the outlook for process industry investment and the continued use of industrial PCs in applications outside the established areas of industrial automation.
Global revenue from industrial PCs is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6 percent from 2014 to 2019, reaching $4.3 billion, according to IHS Inc.
“While the world market for industrial PCs has enjoyed relatively strong growth since 2013, recovery is projected to be slower through 2016,” said Rita Liu, manufacturing technology analyst, IHS Technology. “This slowed recovery is based on poor performance of downstream process-industry sectors in the current economic environment, with very low oil prices, a global downturn in mining, and the like.”
Europe, Middle-East and Africa (EMEA) was still the largest market for industrial PCs in 2014, at $1.2 billion, or 38 percent of the global total, according to the IHS Industrial PCs Intelligence Service. Asia-Pacific was the second-largest market, with estimated revenues of $ 1.1 billion. “It is worth noting that due to the slowing Chinese economy, the Asia-Pacific market for industrial PCs is projected to grow more slowly,” Liu said. “In fact, the Asia-Pacific market is expected to fall behind the American market this year.”
Of course the performance of the industrial PC market depends largely on the underlying growth in the sectors that use them, including discrete and process manufacturing sectors, as well as building automation, medical, transportation and infrastructure and other non-industrial sectors. Industrial sectors accounted for over half of the world market in 2014 and 2015, and they are expected to grow much more slowly than non-industrial sectors. Generally transportation and infrastructure, medical, and gaming sectors will grow more quickly than the general market through 2019.
Robotics is the fastest growing industrial sector for PCs; followed by materials-handling equipment; food, beverage and tobacco machinery; and packaging machinery. “Tobacco and packaging machinery are closely connected with consumer markets and enjoy relatively stable performance, no matter what the overall economic situation might be,” Liu said.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 4, 2016 | Automation, Industrial Computers, Technology
John Bernadin (retired Rockwell Automation executive) posted a comment on my LinkedIn post of my blog post on Protocol Wars–Vendors versus Standards.
“From the PLC side, the Auto industry began major efforts to drive standards in the 1990’s like GM’s MAP mfg automation protocol. However, after a decade they realized that even with their leadership and size, the Big Three and their top tier suppliers couldn’t get PLC vendors to agree on a standard. So in 2000, they decided it would literally take an “Act of Congress” to get vendors to agree. Two years later, a bipartisan Congress passed the Manufacturing Enterprise Integration Act of 2002 giving NIST over $150 million to develop and drive Interoperability protocols and standards. What happened next? President Bush never approved the budget for NIST to do it because he philosophically didn’t believe that the federal government should be creating standards. Thus, 25 years later we still have nothing — because this problem is like solving world hunger or world peace. It’s too big. “
Good recap, John.
Then there were PC standards
In those days, there was a PC standard. Actually, there were a few. There was an “XT” bus that standardized PCs on what became known as the PC platform. In the late 80s, IBM thought it would get fancy and recapture some proprietary technology it lost with the XT platform. Anyone remember Microchannel?But then PCI came along driven more by chip makers, I believe, to take the backplane to another level without being vendor specific.
I actually took classes and may still have a certificate around the house having passed tests on IBM’s proprietary, or sort-of proprietary, technologies. Remember also Token Ring? Yep, that was another. The third test had something to do with finance applications on the PC.
In those days you could build cards to plug into the bus. Only Apples were locked down.
There was an “embedded” PC world dominated by VMEbus and in the mid-late 90s PCI and then CompactPCI. PLCs were generally built on a modified VME but nothing was standard.
None of these things I’m talking about were driven by government. IBM allowed its first PC bus to become an industry standard that other companies could build to–and the PC industry took off.
Allen-Bradley CompactLogix I/O
In the 90s the big automakers grew frustrated with what was essentially a single PLC source and tried a bunch of things. Maybe the government. Maybe they were big enough to drive a CompactPCI standard. All PLC manufacturers would build on a single CompactPCI standard. Anyone’s cards would fit in the backplane–just like the PC industry. You could load anyone’s operating system and programming software on the platform.
By driving hardware and then software to commodity, then the automakers could drive the cost dramatically down.
Innovation
Since the 80s and 90s saw tremendous innovation around the standards driven PC platform, it was logical (to users) that similar innovation advances would be seen in the industrial “PC” market.
Many things were tried. Many things failed.
Trouble is–the industrial market is much smaller than the PC market. A commodity industrial market would drive incumbents to seek other markets. Innovation would dry up. Suppliers drove to protect their turf.
And innovation exploded.
We saw many things added to the PLC platform driven by competition (although reducing interoperability):
- PC technologies–memory, processing
- Networking
- Integrated motion control
- Reduced footprint
- Innovative development studios
But, alas, if you bought Rockwell, you were stuck with Rockwell. Same with Siemens, and everyone else.
Users did reap some price concessions. Better, they reaped technology advances because the suppliers could afford to invest in new technology.
New technology cycle
Theses curves always run their cycle.
Where are we now? Is there any reason to need a standard platform PLC? Or has that technology curve been passed?
Do we need a single protocol for moving data in this brave new IoT world? Or, will suppliers build gateways that foster inter-communication–or a bus such as the ws-ISBM? And render the argument moot?
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 24, 2016 | Automation, Industrial Computers, Internet of Things, Operations Management
Faced with a declining market for desktop PCs and a burgeoning market for embedded PC, Dell has announced launch of its first purpose-built industrial PC (IPC) products. This release complements its entry into the Internet of Things market announced last fall at Dell World. [Note: I do some work with Dell on IoT issues, but that has no bearing on reporting this.]
Dell reckons its competitive edge moving into this market include supply chain expertise leading to short lead times, enterprise-class lifecycle, stability, service, built-in security, and global support.
“Customers have consistently told us that current embedded solutions do not meet the level of cost-effective sophistication, scale and support they need for these to be a critical, reliable component of their operations,” said Andy Rhodes, executive director, Commercial IoT Solutions, Dell. “Along with our new embedded products that can be ordered in quantities from one to thousands, Dell will bring our established business heritage to this new market: global scale, end-to-end IT and OT security portfolio, flexible payment solutions, strong customization and award-winning service and support.”
Embedded PC Highlights:
The new Embedded Box PCs offer wired and wireless input/output (I/O) options. The 3000 Series is powered by Intel Atom processors and designed for space-constrained applications, such as retail kiosks, automated vending devices and vehicles.
The 5000 Series is optimized for performance and I/O scalability. Powered by Intel Core processors, it includes two PCI/PCIe card slots for adaptability. It provides high-bandwidth for industrial PC and IoT use cases (multi-HD video streaming apps and high frequency sensor data sources) as well as manufacturing and automation control.
Other features:
- Operating temperature range from 0°C to 50°C
- Designed to MIL-STD 810G specifications
- DIN-rail, VESA, or wall mount options
- 5-year lifecycle and OEM-ready options
- Global availability with Dell Support and Deployment services
- Microsoft Windows 7 Pro, Windows 7 Embedded, Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSB, and Ubuntu Desktop operating systems
Customers can take advantage of Dell’s global availability, trusted security and manageability options, and Dell Support and Deployment services including ProSupport which provides up to five years of end-to-end hardware support for the entire IoT product lifecycle, helping customers maximize their environment and minimize time spent on maintenance. Dell also provides flexible payment solutions to qualified embedded PC customers through Dell Financial Services, a full-service finance company that annually funds approximately U.S. $4 billion of IT equipment for Dell customers across consumer and commercial business segments.
Availability
The Embedded Box PC 5000 Series and 3000 Series will be available in select countries in summer 2016 starting at USD $1,099 and $1,699.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 22, 2015 | Automation, Industrial Computers, News, Technology
Anyone who thinks PCs when the company name Dell comes up (“Hey, Dude, You’re getting a Dell.”) has missed the company’s growth over the past decade. I’ve written about its new foray into Internet of Things with a product specifically targeted at manufacturing industries. The company has announced some advances in its High Performance Computing platform.
High Performance Computing
These advances include innovative new systems designed to simplify mainstream adoption of HPC and data analytics in research, manufacturing and genomics. Dell also unveiled expansions to its HPC Innovation Lab and showcased next-generation technologies including the Intel Omni-Path Fabric.
HPC is becoming increasingly critical to how organizations of all sizes innovate and compete. Many organizations lack the in-house expertise to configure, build and deploy an HPC system without losing focus on their core science, engineering and analytic missions. As an example, according to the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, 98 percent of all products will be designed digitally by 2020, yet 95 percent of the center’s 300,000 manufacturing companies have little or no HPC expertise.
“HPC is no longer a tool only for the most sophisticated researchers. We’re taking what we’ve learned from working with some of the most advanced, sophisticated universities and research institutions and customizing that for delivery to mainstream enterprises,” said Jim Ganthier, vice president and general manager, Engineered Solutions and Cloud, Dell. “As the leading provider of systems in this space, Dell continues to break down barriers and democratize HPC. We’re seeing customers in even more industry verticals embrace its power.”
Accelerating Mainstream Adoption
Dell HPC System Portfolio, a family of HPC and data analytics solutions, combines the flexibility of custom systems with the simplicity, reliability and value of a preconfigured, factory-built system that includes:
- Simplified design, configuration, and ordering in a matter of hours instead of weeks;
- Domain-specific design that’s designed and tuned by Dell engineers and domain experts for specific science, engineering and analytics workloads using flexible industry-standard building blocks; and,
- Fully tested and validated systems by Dell engineering with a single point of hardware support and a wide range of additional service options.
New application-specific Dell HPC System Portfolio offerings include:
- Dell HPC System for Genomic Data Analysis is designed to meet the needs of genomic research organizations to enable cost-effective bioinformatics centers delivering results and identifying treatments in clinically relevant timeframes while maintaining compliance and protecting confidential data. The platform is a result of key learnings from Dell’s relationship with Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) to help clinical researchers and doctors expand the reach and impact of the world’s first Food and Drug Administration-approved precision medicine trial for pediatric cancer. TGen has been able to improve outcomes for more patients by creating targeted treatments at least one week faster than they could be accomplished previously.
- Dell HPC System for Manufacturing is designed for customers running complex manufacturing design simulations using workstations, clusters or both. Applicable use cases include Finite Element Analysis for structural analysis using ANSYS Mechanical & Computational Fluid Dynamics for predicting fluid behavior in designs utilizing ANSYS Fluent or CD-adapco STAR-CCM+.
- Dell HPC System for Research is designed as a foundation, or reference architecture, for baseline research systems and numerous applications involving complex scientific analysis. This standard cluster configuration can be used as a starting point for Dell’s customers and systems engineers to quickly develop research systems that match the unique needs of research customers requiring systems for a wide variety of research agendas.
Accelerating HPC Technology Innovation and Partnerships
Dell announced a new expansion of its Dell HPC Innovation Lab in cooperation with Intel specifically for support of its Intel Scalable System Framework. This multi-million dollar expansion to the Austin, Texas, facility includes additional domain expertise, infrastructure and technologists. The lab is designed to unlock the capabilities and commercialize the benefits of advanced processing, network and storage technologies as well as enable open standards across the industry.
Beyond becoming the first major original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to join the Intel Fabric Builders program, Dell is working closely with Intel to support its Intel Scalable System Framework, which includesIntel Omni-Path Fabric technology, next-generation Intel Xeon processors, the Intel Xeon Phi processor family, and the Intel Enterprise Edition for Lustre. Announcements include:
- New Dell Networking H-Series switches and adapters for PowerEdge servers featuring the Intel Omni-Path Architecture. These provide a next-generation fabric technology designed for HPC deployments. The architecture includes advanced features such as traffic flow optimization, packet integrity protection and dynamic lane scaling allowing for finer-grained control on the fabric level to enable high resiliency, high performance and optimized traffic movement.
- Dell and Intel support for the Linux Foundation’s OpenHPC community. The community is designed to provide a common platform on which end-users can collaborate and innovate to simplify the complexity of installation, configuration and ongoing maintenance of implementing a custom software stack and easing a path to exascale.
“We’re excited to collaborate with Dell to bring advanced systems to market early next year using the Intel Scalable System Framework,” said Charles Wuischpard, vice president and general manager of HPC Platform Group at Intel. “Dell’s position as our largest and fastest-growing customer for Intel Enterprise Edition for Lustre, their work on Omni-Path Architecture and next-generation Intel Xeon Phi, and their initiatives to expand the Dell Innovation Lab demonstrate their commitment to rapidly expanding the ecosystem for HPC.”
Mellanox Partnership
Dell and Mellanox announced additional investment in Dell’s existing HPC Innovation Lab to provide an end-to-end EDR 100Gb/s InfiniBand supercomputer system. The system is designed to showcase extreme scalability by leveraging the offloading capabilities and advanced acceleration engines of the Mellanox interconnect as well as provide application specific benchmarking, and characterizations for customers and partners.
“With this new investment, Dell’s HPC Innovation Lab will now enable new levels of applications efficiency and innovative research capabilities. Together we will help build the solutions of the future,” said Gilad Shainer, vice president of marketing, Mellanox Technologies.
Availability
- The Dell HPC System for Genomic Data Analysis is available today.
- The Dell HPC Systems for Manufacturing and Research will be available in early 2016.
- The Dell Networking H-series switches, adapters and software based on the Intel Omni-Path Architecture will be available in the first half of 2016.
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 10, 2015 | Automation, Industrial Computers, Internet of Things, Networking, News
When we wish to bring new technologies into industrial applications–especially connectivity ones, devices known as gateways bridge the gap from old to new.
For example, when we were moving toward a variety of industrial wireless protocols and some analysts and engineers were concerned about a multiplicity of connectivity points and networks, I told them that gateways would be a solution on the path to complete integration. I guess I learned that in the 80s when my first resource for computing connectivity problems was a great catalog from “Black Box.”
I wrote previously about Dell’s announced Internet of Things Gateway. Two additional ones have hit my Inbox.
First–Mentor Graphics
Mentor Graphics Corporation announced the availability of the embedded industry’s first [note: marketing people are never shy] customizable edge-to-cloud IoT solution that enables companies to get to market quickly while reducing risk, cost, and development cycles. The Mentor IoT solution comprises a customizable IoT gateway System Design Kit (SysDK), a cloud backend, and runtime solutions on which to build a wide array of IoT edge devices. It enables the most demanding IoT requirements with support from 8-bit microcontrollers to the latest 64-bit microprocessors, and deployments of 100,000+ gateways each supporting dozens of edge devices.
Customizable Gateway Reference Design
Mentor Graphics provides a feature-rich hardware and software gateway platform that can be used as-is or customized in both hardware and software to meet specific gateway requirements, including compatibility with legacy and new IoT deployments. The Gateway SysDK reference hardware utilizes the ARM Cortex-A9 based i.MX 6 series applications processor from Freescale Semiconductor.
The base reference software includes a rich Linux BSP with full support for the reference board. To support secure convergence, the Mentor Gateway SysDK can be customized to include secure gateway partitions using ARM TrustZone, which enables secure applications such as certificate management and secure remote firmware upgrades. The integration of cloud middleware supports the functionality provided from the cloud backend. By leveraging the Gateway SysDK, customers can move from concept to production in as little as eight weeks.
Connected and Secure from Edge to Enterprise
The Mentor Graphics end-to-end IoT solution includes support for a comprehensive set of physical connections complemented by a breadth of IoT and cloud protocols for wired and wireless edge device aggregation, and secure communication between the cloud backend, gateway, and edge devices. End-to-end security is provided for data communications, access control, software execution, and intrusion detection. Security integration with enterprise IT infrastructure is provided by Icon Labs’ Floodgate for McAfee ePO.
Second, Advantech
Advantech’s Industrial Automation Group announced the UNO-1252G industrial computer designed to act as a gateway for industrial applications. As small as a micro-sized PLC, the UNO-1252G is only 10cm high and DIN-rail mountable. It comes with a low power Intel Quark processor which only uses 10 watts but powerful enough to perform data transmission and sensing in IoT gateway applications.
Gateway computers are useful because they help to connect legacy devices to the IoT without needing to replace the entire infrastructure. This small, economic UNO-1252G is ideal for this purpose since it has an array of integrated I/O ports and the ability to expand even further by using a choice of iDoor modules which is Advantech’s new modular way of adding versatile functionality to choose functions that are needed without purchasing devices that have excess cost or functions that are not needed. iDoor modules can be used to add additional cards such as Wi-Fi and GPS making the UNO-1252G ideal for use in remote locations.
The UNO-1252G includes one GB SD card to run a Yocto Project Linux distribution. The Yocto Project is an open source Linux distribution which allows the development of applications using an SDK. The UNO-1252G supports Advantech software applications such as SUSIAccess for remote control and monitoring. Also, two 10/100 LAN ports, a mPCIe card slot, five LED indicators for power, battery, SD card, COM ports and three programmable indicators to assign your own functions.
by Gary Mintchell | Jul 29, 2015 | Automation, Industrial Computers, Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT, News, Operations Management, Security, Technology
Personal interlude
After leaving the “magazine editor business” a year ago, probably for good as a full-time editor anyway, I turned to just keeping this blog active. Readership has increased slowly but steadily over the past eight months. About as many people will see an article here as on a magazine Website (not as many total as a magazine Website, but they have much more content).
I decided not to pursue advertising as a revenue source. That seems to be the old way. It’ll hang on for a long time, but growth is not there.
Most of my business is consultation of various kinds including messaging and marketing, research, analysis, Web and digital development, and leadership.
It is more fun and insightful than trying to keep sales people and advertisers happy while forging a new message in a crowded field.
However, Manufacturing Connection will continue to bring the latest relevant news along with analysis about why you should care.
OT coming together with IT
I have been fascinated with what we now call the IT/OT divide (information technology professionals versus operations technology professionals) since about 1986. About that time my company was designing, building, and selling automated assembly machines to industry. Our largest customer was General Motors.
General Motors, in a gigantic brain fart, acquired EDS. And, predictably, it succeeded in totally destroying the EDS culture and making it like GM. That is to say, cumbersome, lethargic, bureaucratic.
But one day a senior manager went through the controls engineering department of one of my best customers and said, “You’re EDS,” “You’re GM.” Then they told us, “GM has the wire from the controller to this terminal block, and EDS has the wire from that terminal block to computers.”
Thus began our difficulties with GM and controls on our machines.
Rockwell and Cisco
These days, noted GM (and many others) OT supplier Rockwell Automation and noted IT supplier Cisco have joined forces to provide architectures, technology, and training designed to bring these forces together.
After 30 years, it’s about time.
Previously the two companies tackled training. With this news, they have tackled security for the Industrial Internet of Things. Most of the following is taken from their joint press release (meaning I didn’t delete some of the superlatives).
The two additions to their Converged Plantwide Ethernet (CPwE) architectures are designed to help operations technology (OT) and information technology (IT) professionals address constantly changing security practices. The latest CPwE security expansions, featuring technology from both companies, include design guidance and validated architectures to help build a more secure network across the plant and enterprise.
The Industrial IoT is elevating the need for highly flexible, secure connectivity between things, machines, workflows, databases and people, enabling new models of policy-based plant-floor access. Through these new connections, machine data on the plant floor can be analyzed and applied to determine optimal operation and supply-chain work flows for improved efficiencies and cost savings. A securely connected environment also enables organizations to mitigate risk with policy compliance, and protects intellectual property with secure sharing between global stakeholders.
Core to the new validated architectures is a focus on enabling OT and IT professionals to utilize security policies and procedures by forming multiple layers of defense. A defense-in-depth approach helps manufacturers by establishing processes and policies that identify and contain evolving threats in industrial automation and control systems. The new CPwE architectures leverage open industry standards, such as IEC 62443, and provide recommendations for more securely sharing data across an industrial demilitarized zone, as well as enforcing policies that control access to the plantwide wired or wireless network.
“The key to industrial network security is in how you design and implement your infrastructure and holistically address security for internal and external threats,” said Lee Lane, business director, Rockwell Automation. “The new guidance considers security factors for the industrial zone of the CPwE architectures, leveraging the combined experience of Rockwell Automation and Cisco.”
Rockwell Automation and Cisco have created resources to help manufacturers efficiently deploy security solutions. Each new guide is accompanied by a white paper summarizing the key design principles, as follows:
The Industrial Demilitarized Zone Design and Implementation Guide and white paper provide guidance to users on securely sharing data from the plant floor through the enterprise.
The Identity Services Design and Implementation Guide and white paper introduce an approach to security policy enforcement that tightly controls access by anyone inside the plant, whether they’re trying to connect via wired or wireless access.
“Security can’t be an afterthought in today’s plant environment. As we connect more devices and create more efficient ways of operating, we also create certain vulnerabilities,” said Bryan Tantzen, senior director, Cisco. “Cisco and Rockwell Automation have been teaming for nearly a decade on joint solutions, serving as the standards-based resource for security in industrial environments. These new architectures and guides build on our collaboration by helping organizations recognize and proactively address today’s security concerns.”
Companies can now take advantage of industry-leading solutions from Rockwell Automation and Cisco to address security from a holistic perspective. Together, the two companies provide a common, scalable architecture for ruggedized industrial Ethernet and enterprise networks, along with unique services, such as security assessments and managed security, to help manufacturers define and meet performance metrics and scale in-house resources.
This announcement further extends the commitment by Rockwell Automation and Cisco to be one of the most valuable resources in the industry for helping manufacturers improve business performance by bridging the gap between plant-floor industrial automation and higher-level information systems.
