by Gary Mintchell | Mar 4, 2022 | Cloud, Data Management, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
The movement toward making manufacturing SaaS applications available on Microsoft Azure continues. News from ThinkIQ tells us three of its platforms are now available on that platform—Visualize, Insight and Transform.
The purpose of these platforms is collecting manufacturing and supply chain data, monitoring real-time material traceability, and delivering actionable insights to improve the overall manufacturing processes for greater efficiency and flexibility.
The unique proposition of ThinkIQ is to look at materials, not just equipment. The company points out the old, but still prevalent problem, that data collection within manufacturing processes are often fragmented rendering it unable to extract insights or identify inefficiencies.
With ThinkIQ Visualize, all manufacturing data can be seen from a single contextualized cloud-based system.
ThinkIQ Insight delivers a material ledger for traceability and improved operations across the entire manufacturing supply chain on Azure.
ThinkIQ Transform provides material traceability from supplier to factory to consumers.
ThinkIQ integrates a wide range of Microsoft Azure solutions including Azure Communications Services, Azure IoT, Azure Networking and Azure Storage.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 2, 2022 | Cloud, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management, Software
A news release from GE Digital came my way regarding the latest update to its CIMPLICITY HMI/SCADA software product. I have not had an update on that product line for more than a year, so my friends there set up a conversation with product management director Gimmi Filice.
He told me that product development continues to build on its object oriented architecture. Developers have continued to assure that CIMPLICITY plays well with other products in the GE Digital sandbox, especially the Historian and Operations Hub. And one other key feature of the product it scalability.
This latest news contains three key points.
The release contains the year of release—CIMPLICITY 2022. This implies the intent for regularity of update cadence.
Secondly, this release adds support for Python. This language has become de facto standard for college students. Customers are beginning to request it for a couple of reasons. New hires are proficient in it. Python is now the standard for data analytics work. It has a large development community with a large number of vetted libraries. Finally, digital twins can be constructed in Python that can be part of an object type that can be inherited.
Cloud comprises the third key update. Customers have begun asking for cloud support. This release supports Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. Customers have migrated toward a hybrid cloud architecture with some on-prem servers and a bulk of servers on a commercial cloud.
Following are snippets from the news release.
GE Digital announced the availability of the latest version of its CIMPLICITY 2022 HMI/SCADA software. This new version also provides options to deploy on-prem, in the cloud, or in a hybrid architecture to reduce infrastructure and maintenance costs.
Other new capabilities include: the flexibility of Python scripting, improving extensibility and ease of use; analytics through SCADA data and Python libraries; support for cloud infrastructures including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS); and improved single-server scale and alarm visualization.
Rübig GmbH, a global provider of plasma nitriding systems for steel manufacturing, says that CIMPLICITY provides greater efficiency with remote access and online diagnostics as well as easy-to-use, real-time operator displays. Mekorot, Israel’s National Water Company, achieves high availability and virtually no downtime with connected control featuring CIMPLICITY.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 24, 2022 | Cloud, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
Executives at ThinkIQ have talked with me a few times. They have an interesting story around what they call a SaaS-based Continuous Intelligence Platform. They also released some news last week.
ThinkIQ announced enhancements to its platform to provide more capabilities geared towards Continuous Intelligence for supply chain and production optimization within material centric manufacturing.
ThinkIQ is the first platform-based Continuous Intelligence solution in the market and can be operationalized at many levels – from supply chain, product quality, process improvement, and any time-sensitive process enhanced by the ability to respond to what’s happening right now throughout the entire manufacturing process. Analytics are woven directly into operational processes that can take or trigger actions when specific conditions are met. This ranges from time-sensitive alerts that guide employees on what to do next, to fully automated processes that trigger downstream actions without human intervention.
Continuous Intelligence closes the gap between what is happening in your operations now and the information and insights available. This accelerates how effectively people and processes respond to rapidly changing conditions.
With ThinkIQ, manufacturers are able to collect, analyze, and share information in a way that was not previously possible. ThinkIQ combines the capabilities of continuous ingestion of data with a well-defined model that fits manufacturing and their supply chains, achieving the goal of having current data with meaning. The latest release includes a number of new features, including:
The ability to close the loop from the edge to the cloud where AI can be done, and back to the edge where actions can be taken. This is a key step to enabling the autonomous self-driving supply chain.
- Several modeling enhancements including automatic propagation of model configuration information which enables adoption of corporate standards.
- Attributes on organizations and places. This is critical for continuous roll up of corporate, business-unit, and plant KPIs. ThinkIQ supports rollup of any KPI, including operational, environmental, safety, and financial metrics.
- Strengthening of ThinkIQ’s GraphQL API for stronger integration with third party applications.
- A new Model Browser that makes it easy to find anything anywhere in the model.
- New expressions for attributes for simple and weighted moving average. The expressions take into account how the interpolated data between the recorded points shall be interpreted and do not require that the data input stream is evenly sampled in time.
- Improved robustness and performance of our on-premises gateways and connectors.
- Cyber security enhancements according to our SOC 2 compliance program.
“The supply chain has been in disarray since the pandemic started, and accurate materials tracking is more important than ever before for manufacturers,” said Niels Andersen, CTO and CPO of ThinkIQ. “With our enhanced Continuous Intelligence solution, our customers can respond and adapt their manufacturing processes automatically based on ever-changing conditions leveraging contextualized, time-sensitive data.”
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 13, 2022 | Cloud, Data Management, Operations Management, Software
Steve Pavlosky, Principal Product Manager Proficy Historian and Data at the Edge, talked with me about this latest release of Proficy Historian by GE Digital. I asked him for the important points. He responded, “It’s our extreme scalability of up to 100 million tags.” Further, this release allows customers to choose their cloud environment and how much data they want sent to the cloud of their choice. It sounds like there are some cool things coming later in the year. Glad to hear about the progress. With OSIsoft now part of AVEVA, I am interested in how market competition may (or may not) change. So this is interesting.
Here is the release.
GE Digital today announced the availability of its latest version of Proficy Historian, a historian software solution that collects industrial time-series and Alarms & Events (A&E) data to analyze asset and process performance to drive business value. Proficy Historian 2022 has a flexible and scalable architecture – from sensor to enterprise – that makes it foundational for Industrial Internet deployments.
Used by thousands of companies around the world, Proficy Historian has helped a global chemical company create a single industrial data repository across its plants for improved visibility and insights, delivering a 20% increase in capacity; a large power monitoring and diagnostics center achieve tens of millions in cost savings for customers in just one year along with 5% reduction in unplanned downtime and 20% reduction in IT infrastructure costs; and a leading industrial gas company reduce costs by consolidating to one historian and eliminating more than 100 servers.
This new version boosts large-scale deployments with enhanced system management and connectivity, value from data with a new Asset Model associated with Historian data, and significant improvement in collection throughput and encryption. Proficy Historian 2022 also features improved system management with a modern single administrator across the Proficy portfolio that increases productivity. It also provides new capabilities for managing multiple systems from a “single pane of glass.”
“GE Digital has made significant strides with Proficy Historian 2022. With features like decentralized data collection, excellent data volume handling, scalability from on-premise to hybrid Cloud to full Cloud, plus remote management, and an OPC UA Server, Proficy Historian is now one of the leading historian products on the market,” said Joe Perino, Principal Analyst, LNS Research. “No longer is there a default choice in historians. If GE Digital’s Proficy Historian is not on your short list, it certainly should be.”
A centralized collector configuration within Proficy Historian 2022 allows companies to utilize remote data collectors to reduce maintenance costs and downtime. This simplified enterprise-wide management makes Proficy Historian the best solution on the market for widely distributed data collection in large water utilities, organizations such as oil & gas and power generation and grid operators, and multi-plant manufacturing. In addition, it provides horizontal scalability, so all clients have access to all data, without the need for consolidation in a central enterprise historian.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 24, 2021 | Cloud, Commentary, Data Management, Manufacturing IT, News, Security, Standards, Workforce
The first business trip involving airplane and car in 18 months took me to Houston in November to Automation Fair, the Rockwell Automation user conference and trade show. They offered five press conferences via remote conferencing. I felt the urge to visit with people in person. Several thousand visitors wandered the show floor along with me. And I sat in the press conferences in person with a couple of editors from Control, a couple of analysts from ARC Advisory Group, an editor I didn’t know for one session, and an editor from Automation World for one other session. It felt good to be back, but this was hardly like old times. I was not rushed from appointment to appointment—I had no appointments.
The content was not like old times. No motor control or programmable controllers, although I did look up a PLC product person on the show floor to dive into a couple of things. The press conferences were somewhat IT oriented with cybersecurity and cloud, workforce issues around culture and diversity, and sustainability. Following are summaries of the press conferences and of three news items released at the show.
Cybersecurity Steps Needed for 2022
No discussion of industrial technology can begin without considering cybersecurity. Angela Rapko (Regional Vice President, Lifecycle Services, Rockwell Automation), Shoshana Wodzisz (Manager, Product Security, Rockwell Automation), and Theodore Haschke (Manager, Business Development, Functional Safety & Cybersecurity, TUV Rheinland) talked standards with us. High-profile cyber and ransomware attacks rocked the manufacturing industry in 2021 and raised government attention to the need for stronger oversight to protect businesses worldwide. Global cybersecurity standards have been established based on guidance from industry leaders for both the IT and OT level, but adoption still wanes. We’ll share how businesses can utilize standards to improve security in 2022, and why OT can’t be left behind when updating best practices.
Leveraging Culture and DEI as a Competitive Advantage
Bobby Griffin (Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer, Rockwell Automation) and Becky House (Senior Vice President & Chief People & Legal Officer, Rockwell Automation) discussed how many companies have put a more intentional focus on company culture and DEI – but how do you know you’re having the right impact? Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core principles at Rockwell. This has a KPI associated and manager’s compensation is tied to it. Among other things, check out the senior leadership page on the Rockwell website. There are women on it. And a couple of other faces that are not old white men. There is a refreshing mix of ages, genders, ethnicities.
Why Cloud? Why Now? Three Factors Driving Adoption of SAAS-Based Solutions
I could understand the discussion of cybersecurity, which can be expected given the several-year-old vision of Rockwell regarding the Connected Enterprise. The discussion of computing in the cloud would never have happened with a straight face even three years ago. Maybe two. Let us consider two very recent acquisitions of cloud-based companies—Plex and Fiix. Brian Shepherd (Senior Vice President, Software & Control, Rockwell Automation), James Novak (Chief Executive Officer, Fiix), and Bill Berutti (Chief Executive Officer, Plex) joined us for a discussion of the companies, products, and benefits of cloud. Yet another sign of a rapidly changing Rockwell Automation.
Using Data to Drive Productivity and Sustainability
Rockwell Automation has had sustainability goals and solutions for many years. This topic remains a key focus for the corporation. Tom O’Reilly (Vice President, Sustainability, Rockwell Automation) and Arvind Rao (Director, Product Management & Head of Industry Solutions, Rockwell Automation) met with us to discuss how “customers and investors are demanding that we do business in ways that are more productive and more sustainable.” Operational data and analytics can reduce waste, improve quality, and reduce energy, all while driving increased productivity and delivering results against sustainability initiatives.
Three Strategies for Creating an Agile and Flexible Workforce
Rachael Conrad (Vice President & General Manager, Customer Support & Maintenance, Rockwell Automation) and Sherman Joshua (Director, Workforce & Competency, Lifecycle Services, Rockwell Automation) revealed Rockwell’s on key strategies for creating an agile and flexible workforce post pandemic and how manufacturers can leverage their workforce as their greatest asset.
New Initiatives to Bolster Cybersecurity Offering for Customers
Rockwell Automation, Inc. announced new investments to enhance its information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) cybersecurity offering. These initiatives include strategic partnerships with Dragos, Inc. and CrowdStrike, as well as the establishment of a new Cybersecurity Operations Center in Israel.
Rockwell and Dragos, a global leader in cybersecurity for industrial control systems (ICS)/OT environments, have announced a partnership that combines Rockwell’s global industry, application, and ICS domain expertise with Dragos’s world-class technology, professional services, and threat intelligence services. The partnership will focus on incident response services and threat intelligence.
Rockwell and CrowdStrike, a leader in cloud-delivered endpoint and workload protection, have formed a partnership to deliver end-to-end cybersecurity and network service solutions to customers. The partnership will examine initiatives for CrowdStrike’s cloud-native, AI-powered Falcon platform with Rockwell’s global deployment, network architecture, support, OT, and managed services capabilities to deliver differentiated solutions that address customer cybersecurity pain points.
Rockwell Automation Expands Supply Chain Services with Acquisition of AVATA
Rockwell Automation, Inc. has acquired AVATA, a leading services provider for supply chain management, enterprise resource planning, and enterprise performance management solutions. AVATA has significant domain expertise in enterprise applications and is a leading consultant and systems integrator for Oracle cloud software applications.
By significantly improving end-to-end supply chain visibility and management, AVATA, together with Kalypso, Rockwell’s industrial digital transformation services business, will help further unlock the value of information technology/operational technology (IT/OT) convergence that Rockwell can deliver to customers. AVATA will be integrated into Kalypso, which is a part of Rockwell’s Lifecycle Services business.
AVATA supports Rockwell’s recent cloud-native investments, building on its open architecture to extend the digital thread and enable powerful integrations with other leading technologies, now including Plex and Oracle Cloud.
Rockwell Automation and Battery Pioneer Cadenza Innovation to Explore Driving Energy Storage and Advance Sustainability
Rockwell Automation has begun collaborating with Cadenza Innovation, the award-winning provider of safe, low cost, and energy-dense Lithium-ion-based storage solutions, to define a strategic relationship including a shared goal of building the industry’s highest performance battery cell production lines.
During 2022 the companies intend to collaborate to develop a customer cloud portal to manage deployed distributed energy resources, an end-to-end battery manufacturing execution system (MES), and equipment automation to support the expansion of Cadenza Innovation’s battery manufacturing in the US and abroad.
Rockwell Automation and Cadenza Innovation intend to create a full digital thread that feeds information from business systems to the factory floor and subsequently out to the field-deployed energy storage systems to ‘close the loop’ by feeding data from the field back into Cadenza Innovation’s connected operations. This, in turn, will ensure peak performance of customer systems.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 1, 2021 | Cloud, Data Management, Operations Management
I remember talking with a friend about ten years ago about the explosion of database technology beyond SQL. The feeling within industrial circles evidently was that historian and SQL were the only tools needed. Many were also skeptical of cloud architectures, as well. Today’s news concerns a couple of announcements from a company called Datadobi who specializes in helping you manage your unstructured databases even across multiple clouds. May the force be with you!
Datadobi Software Enhancements Power Agile Multi-Cloud Expansion, Flexible Data Reorganization, Lower Costs
Datadobi announced enhancements to its vendor-neutral unstructured data mobility engine with the introduction of DobiMigrate’s API. Version 5.13 will allow organizations to programmatically configure unstructured data migrations using the API.
This latest update complements Datadobi’s enterprise GUI and enables automation of file and object migrations and reorganization or clean up projects.
Using the DobiMigrate API, customers and partners can now extend existing automated storage provisioning workflows with the necessary data migration steps. Organizations can first use the storage system APIs to provision a new group of on-premises or cloud storage and then use the DobiMigrate API to set up the NAS or object migration. Following the cutover to the new storage, the administrator can then again use storage systems APIs to deprovision the original storage.
The DobiMigrate process is fully auditable and comes with patent pending chain of custody technology that provides a detailed report on what files were migrated, their content, and timestamps. DobiMigrate has also been reviewed and received attestation for Service Organizations Control (SOC) 2 Type 1 compliance by KPMG. The attestation follows a review of Datadobi’s operations, support, and engineering processes demonstrating Datadobi’s focus on high standards for integrity, security, and confidentiality of customer data.
“Due to the scale and complexity of unstructured data in today’s heterogeneous storage environments, enterprises can no longer rely on outdated tools and manual practices to execute data management projects. Organizations must trust specialist tools powered by automation to gain an understanding of their environments and move data accordingly,” said Carl D’Halluin, CTO, Datadobi. “Datadobi’s API allows for a seamless data management experience built with the speed and integrity needed to conduct business today.”
“Every day we see organizations challenged by an overwhelming volume of unstructured data. As data proliferation continues, successful enterprises will look to data management solutions like DobiMigrate’s API to tailor data projects, enhance mobility capabilities, and find value in their data,” said Bill O’Brien, Director of Data Center Storage and Data Protection at AHEAD. “We look forward to continuing to provide top-of-the-line data management to our enterprise clients using Datadobi’s solutions.”
Datadobi Validates Google Cloud Storage as an Endpoint for Data Management
Datadobi announced it has validated Google Cloud Storage as an endpoint for data replication in addition to data migration. As a result, users of the DobiProtect software suite can now replicate data held on any S3-compatible object storage to Google Cloud Storage or vice versa. The news comes shortly after the company announced support for Azure Blob storage in the DobiProtect software suite.
Datadobi’s validation of Google Cloud Storage enables organizations to build a true multi-cloud strategy with their data available at multiple Hyperscalers. Customers can host their data both on any S3 object storage service and on Google Cloud Storage, and use DobiProtect to set up permanent data replication between these two clouds.
Nearly 92% of enterprises now have a multi-cloud strategy. This way, data is held in two different sets of data centers, deployed on two completely different cloud storage software and hardware stacks, operated by different companies, different people, and different service procedures. DobiProtect now allows users to boost data protection by entrusting their data to two cloud storage stacks.
Datadobi can enable the initial migration and then set up the subsequent replication stream. This is a one-time copy which ends in the cutover step, during which the data authority is moved from the source to the destination storage service or system. During this cutover, the Datadobi software provides a chain of custody containing an auditable proof of which data was moved during the data migration and confirming the integrity of the data.
