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.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 22, 2021 | Automation, News, Technology
Not my normal news item, but this has general interest for those interested in the latest developments in autonomous driving. Maybe in my lifetime…
NPS 500 Autonomous Sensing Platform, the Most Compact, AI-Powered, Ultra Long-Range System that Intelligently Fuses and Integrates LiDAR, Radar and Cameras
Disruptive New Technology Establishes New Standard for Transportation Safety –
New High Performance LiDAR of More than 500 Meter Range and Innovative Radar Technology to See Around Corners
Neural Propulsion Systems (NPS), a pioneer in autonomous sensing platforms, today emerged from stealth to launch NPS 500™, the safest and most reliable platform for autonomous vehicles that enables the industry to reach Zero Accidents Vision. NPS 500 is the world’s first all-in-one deeply integrated multi-model sensor system focused on Level 4/5 autonomy.
The radically new sensor-fused system precisely interconnects the NPS revolutionary solid-state MIMO LiDAR, super resolution SWAM radar and cameras to cooperatively detect and process 360° high resolution data giving vehicles the ability to prevent all accidents. The densely integrated sensor system enables vehicles to see around corners and over 500 meters of range with ultra-resolution accuracy together with highly adaptive frame rate. The NPS 500 breakthrough capabilities make it 10X more reliable than currently announced sensor solutions.
“LiDAR, radar and cameras will all play significant roles in creating the ideal autonomous driving platform and there is no question that tightly connected sensors with onboard data fusion for automated driving enables more functionalities,” said Pierrick Boulay, senior analyst at Yole Développement. “This direction is unique and is likely to succeed in a market that could reach $25B in 2025* for sensing and computing in both ADAS and robot vehicles.”
“Our goal to prevent all transportation accidents is the holy grail for autonomous vehicles,” said Behrooz Rezvani, founder and CEO of NPS. “We are the sensing system behind the Zero Accidents Platform for large volume deployment at affordable cost. Existing technologies are not sufficient to achieve this paradigm, so we created our own more powerful LiDAR and radar. Our AI-driven sensor-fusion system processes this ultra-high resolution data to create the safest and most reliable solution in the market today. The NPS 500 slashes time-to-market for autonomous vehicle manufacturers, while being the most cost-effective.”
NPS 500 Product Details
The NPS next generation precision-built, multi-modal sensor system is the industry’s most advance autonomous driving solution that addresses physics-based limitations of each sensory system. The NPS 500 enhances and combines the strengths of LiDAR, radar and cameras to create a platform that leverages the capabilities of each technology, while addressing today’s challenges of Level 4/5 autonomy, including:
- Cameras: Provide high resolution images, but lack depth information and depend on lighting conditions
- Radar: Measure velocity with great precision, but have lower resolution than LiDAR and are vulnerable to interference from other radars
- LiDAR: Provide super precision depth information, but its performance and reliability degrade in adversarial, weather and light conditions, and it can get occluded fairly easily
NPS 500 is the world’s first all-in-one deeply integrated multi-model sensor system focused on Level 4/5 autonomy.
Features:
- LiDAR: Revolutionary new solid-state MIMO-LiDARTM architecture doubles range to ≥ 500 meters with super resolution and adaptive multi-beam search
- Radar: New class of radar technology with 10X better detection reliability, simultaneous, multi-band 360° FoV, 70X better against other radar signal interference
- Software: First ever AI fusion technology to “see-around-the-corner”
- Chips: 650 Tb/s sensor-data processing on network of tightly connected custom signal processing chips
Benefits:
- Range ≥ 500 meters @ 10% reflectivity
- Doubling the reaction time currently available LiDAR
- Significant increase in sensor data reliability
- See-around-the-corner capabilities
- Anticipating pedestrian’s movement well before reaching cross section
- Detecting moving objects approaching intersections well in advance
- Built-in redundancy for maximum reliability in harsh environments, bad driving and tough terrains
- Low maintenance, automakers can efficiently rely on NPS sensors once the vehicles leave the dealership
- Multi-beam adaptive scan up to 100 FPS to detect and track subtle movements
- See thru occlusion
- Reduced time to market
- Cost effective
- Low CAPEX and OPEX for OEM customers
Pricing & Availability
Customers and partners may contact [email protected] for more information.
About Neural Propulsion Systems (NPS)
The NPS mission is to eliminate all transportation accidents to achieve the Zero Accidents Vision. Founded in 2017 by Silicon Valley luminaries, including entrepreneur Behrooz Rezvani, former Ikanos and Quantenna founder and CEO. NPS is delivering the world’s first all-in-one deeply integrated multi-model sensor system for Level 4/5 autonomy for large volume deployment at an affordable cost. Its flagship product NPS 500™ precisely interconnects the NPS revolutionary solid-state MIMO LiDARTM, super resolution SWAMTM radar and cameras to cooperatively detect and process 360° high resolution data. The densely integrated deep sensor-fusion system gives vehicles the ability to see around corners and over 500 meters away, making it 10X more reliable than competitors.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 19, 2021 | Automation, Events, News
My last business trip was to the preview of Hannover Fair 2020. This year, Hannover Fair is once again digital (virtual). Companies are beginning to send previews of their stands and demonstrations. This one is from Festo. This company has some creative engineers who have done some cool things with pneumatics. This description of their 2021 Hannover Fair stand follows.
The Productivity Master, a modular demonstration system for personalized USB memory sticks from Festo, shows how automation technology will evolve along the value chain when combined with digitalization. The Productivity Master demonstration will be the centerpiece of the Festo exhibit at the upcoming Hannover Fair Digital Edition April 12-16.
Thanks to seamless connectivity, everything fits perfectly, from the mechanical and electrical systems to the intelligence. The Festo automation platform provides an integrated and practical system to link all Festo engineering tools, components, and solutions in hardware and software.
The demonstration shows how a plant can achieve a balance between mass production and individualization of a finished product. The electrical products, the axis mechanics, the electrics, and the software are planned as a complete automation platform with seamless connectivity.
With this consistency, users save a lot of time in their machines and systems – from planning to commissioning – and gain process reliability because everything fits together – Industry 4.0 included.
Cloud-based concept
For example, the Productivity Master uses a cloud-based concept for registering and storing customer data complying with data protection regulations. This allows USB sticks to be produced with a personalized design as well as personalized data content. Customers could do this from home via the Internet without having to enter further data from other people on the supplier side.
Customers can use the same concept to reduce labor costs and coordinate the process from the home office. Festo’s IoT gateway securely connects the machine to the cloud so that operators cannot only retrieve production data from the cloud, but also access the machine’s diagnostic data, even if they are sitting hundreds of miles away in their home office.
Mask production and vaccines
The pandemic year 2020 revealed just such a contrast between mass production and individualization or small series production in the examples of mask production and vaccine research. The latter is more focused on precise data collection. For mass production, however, it is crucial to be able to use remote diagnostics and maintenance tools to maintain machine uptime as long as possible while protecting operator health.
“It doesn’t matter if the product weighs a few ounces or more than 200 pounds – being a technology-neutral company, Festo has the product range to do this,” explained Nigel Dawson, Head of Business Development Electric Automation at Festo. “While the Productivity Master features a mix of pneumatic and electric automation, from flow sensors to servo drives, from pneumatic slide units to electric Cartesian robots, it is the way these products are connected that enables true digitalization.”
Seamless connectivity
By leveraging industry-standard networks such as EtherCAT, OPC-UA, IO Link, and MQTT, Festo can create a seamless data stream from individual sensors to remote IO, servo drives, controllers, and the cloud. “This technology-neutral approach has a major impact on energy efficiency and sustainability. We call this ‘seamless connectivity,’” added Dawson.
The Productivity Master was designed in record time utilizing Festo’s state-of-the-art unified engineering environment which includes project planning capabilities and management of digital twins. This allows designers and developers to work collaboratively worldwide. With the Festo Handling Guide Online HGO, users select and dimension 2D or 3D gantries in just three steps. For quick and easy programming, configuration, and commissioning in a shared virtual environment, they use the Festo Automation Suite.
Digital Customer Journey
“Along the journey to digitalization, we enable customers to correctly and efficiently select and size products online, add them to a shopping cart in a seamless process, view pricing and delivery in real time, and track products throughout the supply chain,” said Dawson, describing this digital value chain. “With developments in artificial intelligence (AI), Festo is expanding concepts such as digital nameplates, digital twinning and, of course, AI-driven predictions of machine conditions for remote maintenance.”
Four fully connected stations
In a show setting, attendees create the production order at the first station by registering with their name and perhaps a picture. A QR code identifies the visitors at the machine. A vision sensor SBSI from Festo registers the visitor and starts the production order, followed by stock management. This mechatronic complete solution, made up among other things of a planar surface gantry EXCM in size 40 for fast picking and placing of the USB memory stick, offers all the options from stock management and workpiece handling to the cloud.
The USB memory stick is transported, printed, turned over, and then passed on. The work steps at the second station involve holding, moving, handling, rotating, positioning, and identifying the workpiece position as well as identifying, separating, gripping, and applying labels. Fast transfer to a label printer is carried out at station 3 by a highly dynamic linear gantry EXCT with dynamic servo motors EMMT-AS and servo drives CMMT-AS. The rotation functions are performed by electric rotary drives ERMH.
The process is completed in station 4, where files are uploaded to the USB memory stick. Station 4 operations include holding the workpiece, turning, and carefully positioning the cap and press-fitting delicate parts. This is done using the attractively priced electric cylinders EPCO and rotary drives ERMO.
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 | 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.”
