by Gary Mintchell | Sep 11, 2019 | Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT
Major IT companies have been scrambling to compete in the Industrial Internet of Things market. The control, instrumentation, and automation companies all talk about how this is all stuff they’ve been doing for years, or even decades, this is really quite new.
The first IT company people I talked with talked about selling boxes—gateways or edge computing. I’m thinking that there’s not enough money in that market. And, I was right. As the companies flesh out their strategies, the IoT group leadership keeps moving higher up the corporate ladder. And the vision broadens to include much of the portfolio of the companies enabling them to progressively enhance their competitive positions within their major customers.
Hitachi Vantara has recently been talking with me about their approach to the problem. I learned about Vantara and its focus initially through people I knew who landed new positions there. Life is always about serendipity. In the past, I’ve reported on the Lumada platform and the way the company is building modularly atop it. There was Maintenance Insights and then Video Insights. Now unveiled is Manufacturing Insights. I will get a deeper dive and talk to customers the second week of October when I attend its customer conference.
Note that these applications have more in common with MES than what you might think of as simply connecting devices with IIoT. In other words, the value proposition and integration into the customer grows.
Let’s discuss the latest addition to the Hitachi Lumada platform, Manufacturing Insights, which the company describes as a suite of industrial internet-of-things (IoT) solutions that empower the manufacturing industry to achieve transformative outcomes from data-driven insights. Using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and DataOps, Lumada Manufacturing Insights optimizes machine, production, and quality outcomes.
“Data and analytics have the power to modernize and transform manufacturing operations. But for too many manufacturers today, legacy infrastructure and disconnected software and processes slow innovation and impact competitive advantage,” said Brad Surak, chief product and strategy officer at Hitachi Vantara. “With Lumada Manufacturing Insights, customers can lay a foundation for digital innovation that works with the systems and software they have already to operationalize immediate gains in uptime, efficiency and quality and transform for the future.”
Accelerate Manufacturing Transformations
Lumada Manufacturing Insights applies data science rigor to drive continuous improvement opportunities based on predictive and prescriptive analytics. The solution integrates with existing applications and delivers actionable insights without the need for a rip-and-replace change of costly manufacturing equipment or applications. Lumada Manufacturing Insights supports a variety of deployment options and can run on-premises or in the cloud.
“With Hitachi Vantara, our customers benefit from our deep operational technology expertise and distinctive approach to co-creating with them to accelerate their digital journey,” said Bobby Soni, chief solutions and services officer at Hitachi Vantara. “With our proven methodologies and advanced tools, we can tailor solutions for our customers that enhance productivity, increase the speed of delivery, and ultimately deliver greater business outcomes.”
Providing machine, production and quality analytics, Lumada Manufacturing Insights drives transformational business outcomes by enabling customers to:
• Build on the intelligent manufacturing maturity model and empower the digital innovation foundation for continuous process improvement.
• Integrate data silos and stranded assets and augment data from video, lidar, and other advanced sensors to drive innovative new use cases for competitive advantage.
• Drive 4M (machine, man, material and methods) correlations for root-cause analysis at scale.
• Evaluate overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and enhancement recommendations based on advanced AI and ML techniques.
• Evaluate scheduling efficiency and optimize for varying workloads, rates of production and workorder backlogs.
• Monitor and guide product quality with predictive and prescriptive insights.
• Improve precision of demand forecast and adherence to production plans and output.
Customer Comments
I hope to get more depth while I’m at the Next 2019 user conference Oct. 9-10. Here are some supplied quotes.
“Significant short-lead products have to be designed, prototyped and delivered to meet the demands of our customers and partners as we accelerate the product supply for 5G. Ericsson and Hitachi Vantara have collaborated to test Lumada Manufacturing Insights to gear up for an anticipated increase in new product introductions, establishing a digital innovation foundation for sustained gains,” said Shannon Lucas, head of customer unit emerging business for Ericsson North America. “We are leveraging the same solution that we will take to our joint customers in partnership with Hitachi Vantara, and will further expand IIoT use cases based on our 5G technologies.”
“As a progressive manufacturer, our focus was to accelerate transformative change, eliminate data silos and build a foundation for digital innovation that would accelerate our journey toward Manufacturing 4.0. “We leveraged the IIoT workshop to align our use cases with our business transformation priorities and have a roadmap for success with Lumada Manufacturing Insights,” said Vijay Kamineni, business transformation leader at Logan Aluminum. “The collaboration with Hitachi Vantara enables us to define business goals for each stage of our transformation, with clear outcomes that we believe will accelerate gains in productivity, quality, safety and sustainable manufacturing. “Hitachi Vantara brings a unique IT/OT advantage that will help us in the long run.”
“Humans and machines working together to deliver the vision of ‘digital drilling’ is driven by our ambition to achieve transformative outcomes, drilling our best wells every time and consistently achieving Target Zero for accidents. With Hitachi Vantara, we are realizing time to value with industrial analytics and the powerful Lumada platform to process more than 20,000 data streams per second per rig, providing actionable information to the right people at the right time and helping make optimal decisions. This drives our operational excellence and consequently our competitive advantage,” said Shuja Goraya, CTO at Precision Drilling Corporation. “We’re leveraging insights from video and lidar, integrating it with Lumada Manufacturing Insights to deliver business outcomes. It’s driving process optimization through effectively identifying improvement opportunities and shortening well delivery times for our customers. It’s all about effective use of data to make better decisions and then being able to consistently execute on these learnings. We are excited about our strategic partnership with Hitachi Vantara.”
Availability
Lumada Manufacturing Insights will be available worldwide Sept. 30, 2019.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 10, 2019 | Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT
Sean Riley, Global Director of Manufacturing and Transportation at Software AG, discussed Industrial IoT (IIoT) implementation in industry with me a couple of weeks ago. Now, a survey sponsored by Software AG has been released revealing that manufacturers are not scaling IIoT across the enterprise due to failure to invest in predictive analytics and innovative integration strategies.
The shocking thing to me about the survey is that it mirrors survey results over the past three or four years. Executives and managers recognize a problem further even acknowledging that this is something that could cost them competitively against the market even putting them out of business. Yet, they cannot figure out how to do it right. They whine about how tough it is.
Sounds to me like a new crop of leadership is needed.
There are good practices taught some 40 years ago when I took a deep dive while implementing my first IT project. Things like understanding the system first. Bringing all the departments in on the plans, work to be done, and benefits we all would get. Some recommendations from Software AG sound that familiar—breaking silos, bringing IT and OT organizations closer together (a management problem, not a technical one), transparency in the project roll out.
The survey of over 125 North American manufacturers primarily in the heavy industry and automotive sectors revealed inability to scale IIoT investments across their enterprises results in losing millions of dollars in potential profits.
The survey also revealed that the vast majority of manufacturers queried report that their IIoT investments are limited – locked in one small department or sector of their company – preventing these organizations from sharing the power of IIoT across their enterprises.
Other key findings include:
- 80% of all survey respondents agree that processes around IIoT platforms need to be optimized or they will face a competitive disadvantage but very few are doing this
- IT-OT integration is considered one of the most difficult tasks – with 57% of automotive manufacturers stating that this has prevented them from realizing full ROI from their IIoT investments
- 84% of automotive and heavy industry manufacturers agree that the most important area of IIoT is “monetization of product-as-a-service-revenue.” However, optimizing production is still important with 58% of heavy industry and 50% of automotive manufacturers agreeing with that statement
- Curiously, defining threshold-based rules is considered almost as difficult as leveraging predictive analytics to scale IIoT. More than 60% of respondents stated that defining threshold-based rules was as difficult as integrating IT systems and IoT sensors into existing control systems.
“Manufacturers place a high value on IIoT, but they are encountering serious difficulties in unlocking the complete intended value to unleash their innovation across their organizations,” said Riley. “Fortunately, there is a way for them to quickly and easily resolve this problem. By investing in the right IT-OT integration strategy that leverages sensors, predictive analytics, machine learning, control applications, and product quality control, manufacturers can fix this problem in less than 6-12 months while realizing other key benefits, namely extended equipment lifetime, reduced equipment maintenance costs and accessing more accurate data for production-quality improvements.”
Riley outlined five best practices for manufacturers to follow when looking to scale their IIoT investments across their enterprises and realize immediate profits and competitive advantage. Those best practices are:
1. Ensure clear collaboration between IT and the business by leveraging a step by step approach that starts focused and has clear near term and long- term objectives to scale
2. Create a transparent roll out process and don’t let other plants or departments move ahead outside of it
3. Give IT the ability to connect at speed with a digital production platform that is proven to be successful
4. Leverage a GUI driven, consistent platform to enable an ecosystem of IT associates, business users and partners around the platform
5. Enable the plant or field service workers to work autonomously without continual support from IT through GUI driven analytics, centralized management and easy, batch device connectivity and management
Riley also stated that it is critically important for manufacturers to select the best possible IIoT integration platform supported by key enabling technologies like streaming analytics, machine learning, predictive analytics and a larger ecosystem. Software AG’s Cumulocity IoT platform recently received the highest use case scores from Gartner Group in the brand new “Critical Capabilities for Industrial IoT Platforms” report which included Monitoring Use Case, Predictive Analytics for Equipment Use and Connected Industrial Assets Use Case for its IoT.
The Software AG IIoT Implementation survey was completed in Q2 2019 by Software AG and an independent third-party research house. The survey queried nearly 200 respondents at large manufacturing companies across automotive, heavy industry, high-technology, electronics, pharmaceutical and medical device industries. The respondents were primarily senior executives leading Manufacturing or Information Technology with the breakdown of 50% Managers, 38% Directors and 13% Vice Presidents or higher.
Software AG product
The press release contained some information about the company’s IoT platform—Cumulocity.
Being device and protocol agnostic allows it to connect, manage, and control any “thing” over any network. Cumulocity IoT is open and independent, letting customers connect to millions of devices without being locked into one single vendor.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 5, 2019 | Internet of Things, Operations Management, Software
Industrial Internet of Things plays the starring role in the new digital transformation theater, but digital twin is the supporting actress without whom there would be no drama. Simulation comprises an important element of this whole digital enterprise scene. ABI Research has been releasing some interesting research reports, and this one just hit my inbox that is quite interesting.
The Manufacturing Simulation Software Competitive Assessment analyzed and ranked seven major vendors in the industry – Siemens, Dassault Systèmes, Arena (Rockwell Automation), AnyLogic, FlexSim, Simio, and Simul8 – using ABI Research’s unbiased innovation/implementation criteria framework. For this competitive assessment, innovation scores examined the technical capabilities of the vendor’s software and implementation scores focused on the vendor’s commercial ability to deliver their solution around the world across a variety of manufacturing verticals.
Ranked as the top manufacturing simulation software vendor, Siemens scored highest in implementation and topped four of the ten scoring criteria. Dassault Systèmes came in a close second, having scored the highest in innovation and topped three of the ten criteria.
A key judgment criterion within the innovation category was digital twin capability, the software’s ability to align end-to-end physical processes with a dynamic digital representation that provides two-way feedback and ongoing optimization. Vendors were also judged according to data ingestion, the software’s ability to utilize high volumes of real-time data from a variety of sources, including industrial equipment and sensors on the factory floor. Further assessment included UX, data modeling and analytics, and virtual commissioning capabilities.
ABI Research chose these vendors for the assessment due to their simulation capabilities in discrete manufacturing specifically, where software is used to simulate physical processes digitally to optimize engineering, planning, and operations on the factory floor.
Siemens scored strongest overall due to its ability to integrate simulation with the widest range of adjacent industrial software and hardware. This integration provides the most robust end-to-end product offering to manufacturers. Another major strength of Siemens is virtual commissioning, delivered through its Simcenter and PLC Sim Advance tools. These tools allow simulation capabilities to extend to the machine control level, where individual machines can be virtualized and modeled to improve equipment efficiency and reduce failure rates. Dassault Systèmes very closely followed Siemens and topped the innovation category due to outstanding digital twin capabilities and analytics performance via the company’s impressive 3DExperience platform. These two companies stood out from the field and were therefore named Leaders in the report.
“It is no coincidence that the two companies with the strongest end-to-end software offerings across the smart manufacturing value chain have emerged as Leaders in this report,” said Ryan Martin, Principal Analyst at ABI Research. “Siemens and Dassault Systèmes can leverage their broad service offerings and industrial expertise to feed innovation and to implement complete solutions that equate to powerful and reliable simulations in discrete manufacturing.”
Three companies- Arena (Rockwell), AnyLogic and FlexSim- were named as Followers in the report. While these companies lack the full range of simulation capabilities of the Leaders, especially at the machine and equipment level, they have strong modeling and analytics capabilities. They, therefore, provide effective solutions for simulating factory floor layouts to optimize discrete manufacturing performance according to key metrics such as product throughput, machine downtime, capacity, and inventory levels. Arena, owned by Rockwell Automation, topped the Followers category due to strong performance in data modelling and analytics. Arena’s complex variability modeling capabilities and its strong installed base within the market contributed to a strong score in implementation.
“Ultimately the companies that scored best in the ranking can go beyond high-level factory layout simulation by also accurately modeling and commissioning industrial equipment on the factory floor and incorporating product design into the simulation environment. This means the way machines behave and how they are used to manufacture actual products is considered more comprehensively, a key factor in generating more reliable simulations. For this reason, Siemens and Dassault Systèmes stand out as market leaders in discrete manufacturing simulation software,” concludes Martin.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 3, 2019 | Operator Interface, Safety, Wireless, Workforce
I was working with controls, instrumentation, computers, software when I traded it in for media work first with Control Engineering and then with Automation World. Through a lot of those media years, Honeywell was one of the Big Four or Five in process control and systems. Over the past 6-10 years, those big companies have diverged into differing specialities. It’s been interesting to observe that part of the industrial market.
Honeywell began leveraging expertise of its various divisions into wireless, mobile, and wearables. Much of the emphasis has been safety with a spillover effect into productivity.
Wearables comprise a growing market category with much promise. I’ve had the opportunity to try on a number of different products. These increasingly solve real world problems with ever reducing interference in the real work of the person.
In this latest release, Honeywell announced that Braskem Idesa has adopted a hands-free, wearable connected technology solution at its plant in Veracruz, Mexico. Honeywell’s Intelligent Wearables will allow Braskem Idesa to improve productivity and compliance with process procedures, capture the expertise of experienced workers and provide critical insights and information effectively to trainees and support workers in the field.
Honeywell is delivering a complete outcome-based solution that tracks specific key performance indicators and integrates hardware, software and services, and a full Wi-Fi infrastructure to support use of the solution across the plant. The wearable technology will also accelerate training and ensure safety for field operators at the Braskem Idesa facility.
“With this solution, Braskem Idesa is embracing the digital transformation that will enable us to retain our leadership in the petrochemicals industry,” said Roberto Velasco Gutiérrez, industrial director, Braskem Idesa. “Capturing all the relevant expertise and data within the organization and getting it to workers wherever and whenever needed, will help get trainees safely into the field faster and ensure that every worker operates to Braskem Idesa’s best standards.”
A comprehensive range of applications from Honeywell will boost the speed, safety and reliability of field workers thanks to the following services:
- Expert on Call: Provides field workers with live, real-time access to experts in the central control room or elsewhere for troubleshooting, support and advice
- Video support: Enables users to view videos demonstrating key tasks
- Paperless rounds: Provides step-by-step instructions for common and complex tasks
“Braskem Idesa has not only taken an important step toward Industry 4.0 but has now also replaced paper-based and manual operations with a sophisticated solution that’s both digital and wireless,” said Vincent Higgins, director of technology and innovation, Honeywell Connected Enterprise, Industrial. “Wearable, voice-controlled computer headsets and software eliminate the need for clipboards, pens, and flashlights. Our offering will help Braskem Idesa capture expertise and document critical tasks to ensure operational compliance.”
Honeywell’s solution for field worker competency and productivity enables Braskem Idesa to tie its plant performance directly to the performance of its workers, critical to the success of any industrial enterprise. By connecting field workers with remote advice, Honeywell Intelligent Wearables also reduce the need for site visits from experts, empower workers to continue learning, become their best and effectively share their knowledge with peers.
by Gary Mintchell | Aug 30, 2019 | Workforce
The local Y, the place where I work out daily, recently hired a maintenance guy. His attention to detail is phenomenal. His first week was a Daylight Saving Time change weekend. When I saw him pull out his smart phone and check the time as he set clocks in the locker room, I knew we had a winner..
Especially during the years when I went into plants daily helping customers solve problems and hopefully selling some products, I’d look in electrical panel enclosures with an eye toward the workmanship of the wiring. Were the wires pulled and uniformly bent? Neatly terminated in devices and terminal blocks? Labeled?
One day I called on a small stamping plant in my area. There was a new general manager, whom I met with. he was interested in press safety equipment. We walked out to the machinery. On one operating press, the cover of the electrical enclosure was hanging open held by a single screw out of the four that should be there. Wires were sticking out in a rat’s nest tangle of spaghetti.
I couldn’t get out of there quickly enough. And I never went back. There was no way I was selling a piece of sophisticated safety equipment in a plant with such poor electrical practices and attention to detail.
In my youth I hung out at times with older guys who could be described as “good ol’ boys” or “rednecks” I guess. But they could tune cars and rebuild engines better than the factory guys.
I have a lot of respect for people like that. Attention to detail. Caring about their work. Developing skills mostly on their own.
This Monday is Labor Day in the US. A last vestige of the labor movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it’s a Federal holiday to remember and celebrate the nation’s workers.
Certain management types may have condescending views of workers, but I respect these people–electricians, pipe fitters, mechanics, millwrights, and all the other trades and workers. We would not have built great manufacturing without them.
by Gary Mintchell | Aug 27, 2019 | Manufacturing IT
I devoted a lot of time over several years working with an organization trying to construct a manufacturing IT platform that, using internationally adopted standards, would allow data to move seamlessly from engineering to construction to startup to operations and maintenance. Worley had key members on the team and provided time and effort to proof of concept work. The idea was to close the loop of as-designed to as-built to as-operated such that maintenance technicians could easily locate all necessary data about components and systems during startup and operations.
The project was under the umbrella of MIMOSA, of which I was chief marketing officer for a year. I still believe in the reason for the project, but for many reasons it just didn’t seem to take off. One reason was reluctance of major automation suppliers to sign on for a standards-based approach. With this announcement, it appears the work will be done through one supplier’s proprietary approach.
AVEVA announced that Worley has selected AVEVA’s Enterprise Resource Management solution as its preferred materials management platform. The partnership combines Worley’s Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) knowledge with AVEVA’s industrial software expertise “to deliver the first cloud-based Enterprise Resource Management solution optimized for the EPC market.”
Like many businesses, today’s EPCs are challenged with reducing project costs while keeping pace with changing IT environments. However, as EPC projects operate as mini-enterprises, on-premises configuration and hosting of enterprise projects within private networks is not only costly, but restrictive and unsustainable in an industry undergoing mass consolidation. For global EPCs to remain competitive, the move from an on-premises infrastructure to cloud-based enterprise resource management is necessary.
Worley sought to help its customers find a way to streamline their materials management to deliver on these challenges while also creating process improvements, increased efficiency, ease-of-use and the ability to deliver in-house training. After reviewing AVEVA’s Enterprise Resource Management solution, which had historically been used in marine settings, Worley and AVEVA committed to developing the AVEVA solution to become the industry’s first cloud-based enterprise resource management platform purpose-built for EPCs.
“The EPC market is undergoing a period of change and our customers are looking to us to help them find solutions in this new world. The advances in technology and digital disruption have provided us with an opportunity to rethink our approach to materials management. We needed to deliver an efficient, cloud-based solution customized for the nuances of our market,” said Andrew Wood, CEO Worley. “With AVEVA, we saw a commitment to developing this solution together to create something best-in-class for engineering. We believe the AVEVA Enterprise Resource Management solution marks a step forward for productivity, efficiency and effectiveness that will drive the EPC industry forward.”
The cloud-enabled solution from AVEVA and Worley is the first of its kind and will be fully optimized for the EPC market. By embedding Worley’s subject matter expertise in EPC supply chain management, major updates to the AVEVA Enterprise Resource Management solution for EPCs includes:
- Project-specific functionality: Enabling EPCs to view and work on projects in AVEVA Enterprise Resource Management as standalone entities
- Updated catalogs and specifications module: Migration of Worley’s legacy corporate catalog and specifications to create a robust, easy-to-use model for EPCs
- Training solution: Allowing EPCs to streamline internal training on the new solution
In April 2019, Worley and AVEVA kicked off the final stage of a four-phase program to develop the AVEVA Enterprise Resource Management solution for EPCs. Phase one included design, while phase two incorporated the solution build, moving onto phase three integrations and catalog readiness, and now into phase four—project go-live and decommissioning of Worley’s legacy solution.
As part of the program, AVEVA Enterprise Resource Management reduced training time across engineering, procurement and project controls by 23%. Participants noted the solution was easy to use, provided quality training materials and the right functionality for EPC projects.
“The construct of the co-managed project team exceeded all expectations. We set up stringent delivery benchmarks and executed the project in phases to ensure alignment between the teams remained in place. A transparent and open working relationship with a keen focus on the success of the initiative played a crucial role in adjusting to all project challenges, and this solution is something we are proud to have delivered together,” commented Craig Hayman, CEO AVEVA.
The first official project roll-out for Worley on the AVEVA Enterprise Resource Management solution for EPCs will begin this month. Worley will use AVEVA Enterprise Resource Management and AVEVA Everything3D innovative plant project execution software in tandem, and the two companies have agreed to work to continually mature enterprise resource management for the EPC market.
