by Gary Mintchell | Nov 4, 2015 | Events, Safety
I’m wrapping up my coverage of the EHS Today Safety Leadership Conference held last week in Greenville, SC. I covered the Technology Track sponsored by Rockwell Automation.
Steve Ludwig, safety program manager at Rockwell Automation, presented on the impact of the evolving workforce on safety.
Workforce changes
“We are facing a shortage of skilled workforce, and it is a global issue,” began Ludwig. “The average age of skilled worker is 56, and this demographic is prone not to delay retirement. Add to this the fact that birth rates have declined for the last 35 years, so we do not have the usual situation of increasing population to fuel economic growth.
There are now more inexperienced workers who are more at risk. This is not just a situation for your plant, but also for the plants of all your suppliers. Businesses face supply chain interruption, reputational / brand risk. Businesses face not only an aging workforce that may be prone to injury, but also a younger, less experience workforce that tend to have more frequent acute injuries.
When Ludwig asked attendees, “How do we improve with a changing workforce?” most responded that they were proactively going out to schools to recruit and evangelize manufacturing. They were also assuming much responsibility for helping train young people.
Connected enterprise for safety
Jeff Winter of system integrator Grantek discussed connecting the enterprise for safety. He noted a problem that continues to exist is that dashboards rely on manual data collection and input.
There are three “Eras” of safety technology–initially just preventing access; then detecting access (something that increased both safety and productivity); today controlling access (integrated safety into machine, about as productive as you can get).
“EHS must get a chair at the table when data collection and analysis are being discussed in the plant or company,” he concluded. Winter continued with this advice, “Ask for data on actions such as emergency stops, intrusions, shut downs.”
Beyond lockout, tagout
Turning to electrical safety specifically, Jimi Michalscheck business development manager for safety looked at going beyond Lockout Tagout (LOTO). His point was how to balance safety with production. He posited a system of engineered safety control, which he called a new way of addressing LOTO.
“If you haven’t designed an alternative, then you must use LOTO (OSHA). To prevent unexpected restart of the equipment during service from causing harm to employees.”
Engineering safe alternatives. Think of your machine as simple components. For example, a case packer. Notorious for frequent need for getting into it, so also for citations. Using Alternative Protective Measure (APM), design the machine in components. Task specific, area specific, documented (know that the service area is protected for the reach of the worker). APM developed must provide the same or greater level of protection as LOTO in order to comply with CFR1910.147.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 27, 2015 | Automation, Data Management, Internet of Things, News, Operations Management
The Internet of Things does not exist in a vacuum. Just putting devices on the Internet with Internet Protocol will achieve nothing. That only generates data. The data must reside somewhere that is organized and easily accessible.
We have come to identify that place as the “cloud”. The cloud is a server bank that may or may not be on the premises. Examples of cloud services include Amazon Web services and Microsoft Azure.
I wrote about Dell’s introduction of a gateway device to enable Internet of Things through connection to edge devices and passing data on to the cloud. To further this, at Dell World, Dell and Microsoft Corp. announced a new cloud solution and program that enable organizations of all sizes to use the Microsoft cloud platform to transform their business. A new, Microsoft Azure-consistent, integrated system for hybrid cloud and extended program offerings will help more customers benefit from Azure and Dell to drive greater agility and increased time to value, whether they choose on-premises or public cloud solutions.
“A core part of our mission to empower every organization on the planet requires us to build world-class platforms and forge deeper partnerships that help businesses of all sizes transform with digital technology,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “By expanding our longstanding partnership with Dell to offer a truly integrated hybrid cloud, we will make the cloud more accessible to organizations of all sizes with the choice and flexibility to best meet their needs.”
“Digital transformation is an imperative for business today, and we are making our customers’ journey easier and faster through adoption of hybrid cloud,” said Michael Dell, CEO, Dell. “Dell shares a vision with Microsoft that open architectures and simplified cloud management will benefit customers of all sizes, freeing them to focus on their businesses and not their technology.”
Azure-consistent integrated system for hybrid cloud
Customers are increasingly turning to hybrid cloud as a way to achieve the agility and cost-savings of the cloud while maintaining control of their assets. Extending their commitment to deliver simple yet powerful hybrid solutions, Microsoft and Dell announced Cloud Platform System Standard (CPS Standard), the newest addition to the Microsoft Cloud Platform System (CPS) family. CPS is the industry’s only integrated system with a true hybrid cloud experience, built on optimized Dell modular infrastructure with pre-configured Microsoft CPS software, including the proven Microsoft software stack and popular Azure services.
The hybrid cloud experience comes from the platform’s consistency with Azure, enabling agile deployment and operation of workloads and allowing customers to build multi-tiered, scalable applications. A fully integrated, preconfigured system, CPS Standard is purpose-built to remove many of the complexities and costs traditionally associated with hybrid cloud deployments, including the following:
Quick time to value and operational simplicity. CPS Standard arrives ready to be plugged in and can be up and running in as little as three hours, while operations, patching and updates are simplified with an automated framework.
Simplified business continuity. In case of a datacenter outage, CPS Standard features archival backup to Azure and failover to Azure that is easy-to-activate, reliable and cost-effective.
Increased flexibility. Its modular design allows customers to start smaller and incrementally scale from four to up to 16 servers based on business needs.
CPS Standard is shipping now with Windows Azure Pack, System Center 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012 R2 and is ready to install Microsoft Azure Stack when it becomes available. Dell and Microsoft also offer CPS Premium for large enterprises and service providers requiring a higher-capacity hybrid cloud solution.
Dell joins Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program
To help customers leverage the cloud, Dell also announced that it has joined the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program and will sell Microsoft cloud solutions across Azure, the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) and Office 365. This will help customers accelerate their journey through end-to-end cloud, mobility, identity and productivity solutions that drive new innovation, improve employee productivity and increase security.
The combination of Azure services and Dell’s hardware, software and consulting services will assist customers through their entire hybrid cloud journey from inception to implementation. Consultants will be trained to help customers build tailored cloud solutions to address a range of core business needs including hybrid infrastructure deployments, elastic scale and bursting, backup and disaster recovery, Web and mobile development, and data and analytics.
As a Cloud Solution Provider, Dell will also provide end-to-end enterprise mobility and identity solutions, based on EMS and Azure Active Directory, to empower employees and protect corporate data and applications. EMS, combined with Windows 10 and Office 365, provides a comprehensive platform, productivity tools and management capabilities to help secure company data without compromising mobile productivity experiences.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 26, 2015 | Internet of Things, News, Operations Management
When Michael Dell turned the focus to new products and initiatives during his Dell World keynote last week, the first product mentioned was an Internet of Things (IoT) device.
Dell provides servers (for cloud storage), software, and analytics engines that provide the end point for the IoT ecosystem. This device, Edge Gateway 5000 series, takes Dell’s offering to the other side of the ecosystem—closer to the edge device.
Companies in the automation software space have talked for years about having meetings with operation technology (OT) professionals and bringing in information technology (IT) professionals—often the first time the two groups have met.
Dell is spinning the same story. It is strong on the IT side, but it is not a stranger to OT. Well, it is also trying to be the catalyzing force to bring IT and OT to the same table.
Some highlights:
• Edge Gateway 5000 Series delivers purpose-built gateway with analytics capabilities, expansive input/output (I/O) options, and ability to operate in extreme environments
• Solution designed for rigors of building and factory automation sectors; signals Dell’s deep partnerships with operational and information technology organizations, including OSIsoft
• Dell Edge Gateway adds to industry’s broadest portfolio of IoT assets, spanning newly revamped Dell Statistica advanced analytics, hardware, digital services and security and manageability software
Dell announced the launch of the new Edge Gateway 5000 Series purpose-built for the building and factory automation sectors. Composed of an industrial-grade form factor, expanded input and output interfaces, and with wide operating temperature ranges, the product, combined with data analytics capabilities, promises to give companies an edge computing solution alternative to today’s costly, proprietary IoT offerings.
Making good decisions using data generated by sensors is the central objective of IoT. Yet the rich data generated by IoT devices presents its own set of challenges. Harbor Research estimates that by 2020 smart systems will create over 194 petabytes of data. The sheer volume and complexity of managing this new decentralized, localized data can quickly overload traditional environments and analysis tools. Edge analytics, carried out with the help of versatile gateways, will help with this data overload by determining what data needs to be acted on quickly and then filtered or stored.
The Dell Edge Gateway sits at the edge of the network (near the devices and sensors) with local analytics and other middleware to receive, aggregate, analyze and relay data, then minimizes expensive bandwidth by relaying only meaningful data to the cloud or datacenter. Thanks to new Dell Statistica data analytics also announced today, Dell is expanding capabilities out to the gateway. This means companies can now extend the benefits of cloud computing to their network edge and for faster and more secure business insights while saving on the costly transfer of data to and from the cloud.
“Organizations are struggling to make the best decisions regarding the data volume and complexity created by the vast numbers of sensors, embedded systems and connected devices now on the network,” said Andy Rhodes, executive director, Commercial IoT Solutions, Dell. “As more of the data is processed in real time at the edge of the network, the gateway becomes the spam filter for IoT.”
Dell’s end-to-end portfolio
The Edge Gateway 5000 is the newest addition to Dell’s end-to-end portfolio of IoT-enabling solutions and services, which provide customers with choice and flexibility to architect IoT ecosystems with analytics at the edge, the cloud or the data center. The gateway is available for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to build into their solutions or for building and factory automation customers to use as part of their IoT strategy which can span data center solutions, advanced analytics and digital services. Additionally, customers’ can take advantage of Dell’s global availability, trusted security options, and Dell Support and Deployment services including ProSupport which provides end-to-end hardware support throughout the entire product lifecycle, helping customers maximize their gateway environment and minimize time spent on maintenance.
For example, ELM Energy is already using Dell gateways to make a difference in securing a more sustainable energy future. ELM’s FieldSight Controller automates decision structures that toggle between the use of distributed energy sources such as solar, wind and backup generators and traditional utility grid sources. The systems also help customers make decisions about the most effective times to broker surplus energy back to the open market.
“Through the power of technology, ELM Energy and Dell are enabling real-time decision making that is optimizing and balancing power generation and maximizing the use of renewable energy,” said James Richmond, president, ELM Energy. “For example, if the renewable energy being generated exceeds demand, our technology is able to automatically decide if the excess should be fed back to the grid or stored for later use when the renewable sources are unavailable. The new Dell Edge Gateway 5000 Series is the perfect platform for our FieldSight Edge software to perform computing functions close to the source, at a fantastic value.”
Additional Dell Edge Gateway 5000 Series benefits include:
• Ability to be mounted on the wall and to operate in locations with extreme temperatures like boiler rooms and deserts
• Expansive I/O structure designed to bridge both legacy serial connections (RS-422/485, CAN bus) and modern wireless networks (Wi-Fi, 802.15.4 mesh) to the internet with expansion capability for future options [they tell me that they are investigating a range of other connectivity]
• Operating system flexibility with choices that include Ubuntu Snappy, Wind River Linux, Windows 10 IoT Enterprise
• Security foundation including TPM, secure boot and BIOS level lockdown of I/O ports
• Manageability with Dell Command|Monitor for Linux and Dell Cloud Client Manager
• Dell is working with innovative independent software vendors and system integrators like SAP, OSIsoft, Eigen Innovations and Lucid to add domain expertise
• Standard Dell lead times allowing customers to receive hardware quickly, a rarity in the OT industry today
• Consulting, strategy and integration from Dell Services to help information-intensive enterprises like healthcare and insurance customize IoT approaches for their industry
Dell and Intel are also launching the “Connect What Matters” contest for innovative IoT solutions built on Dell Edge Gateways. The contest is open to commercial companies and solutions can be developed for any vertical. Participants will compete for the Best IoT Design, and the deadline for submissions is March 31, 2016.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 22, 2015 | Internet of Things, News, Operations Management
I received an invitation to Dell World that seemed like a great opportunity to broaden my horizons and dig deeper into the technologies that will provide the platform for Industrial Internet of Things applications and benefits.
When one of the Dell people asked me how it went, I told them that learning about Dell’s technologies helped fill in a gap in my coverage of the whole “connected manufacturing” space. As perhaps the only manufacturing focused writer attending, I certainly received attention
The ecosystem that many refer to as Internet of Things or IoT includes connected things, database + storage (cloud), analytics, and visualization. Dell does not play in the “things” space as defined by the end devices, but it has significant data center, software, and analytics plays. Two items announcemented at Dell World expanded the offering.
The first that Michael Dell, CEO of Dell, announced during his keynote was an IoT product called Edge Gateway 5000. This industrialized intelligent, connected device serves to gather inputs from the “things” of the system, perform some analytics, and serve them to the cloud. The second was announced jointly with Satya Nardella, Microsoft CEO. This is a cloud partnership where Dell will be supporting Microsoft Azure.
Some excerpts of the announcements are below, but first an observation. In the industry I cover, the CEO will usually appear for a few minutes at the keynote and talk a little about financials or the theme of the week. Then they have a motivational speaker who goes for 45 minutes. Sometimes there is a product speaker who will do 30 minuts of product introductions.
Dell held the stage for most of the 90+ minutes. He gave an outline of the new, private company, discussed the industry, interviewed several customers, yielded the floor for the CMO to talk about Dell company support for entrepreneurship, then sat for a 30 minute conversation with Nadella. He showed intelligence, grace and humor.
Here are excerpts from the product announcements.
Wednesday at Dell World, Dell and Microsoft Corp. announced a new cloud solution and program that enable organizations of all sizes to use the Microsoft cloud platform to transform their business. A new, Microsoft Azure-consistent, integrated system for hybrid cloud and extended program offerings will help more customers benefit from Azure and Dell to drive greater agility and increased time to value, whether they choose on-premises or public cloud solutions.
Dell today announced the launch of the new Edge Gateway 5000 Series purpose-built for the building and factory automation sectors. Composed of an industrial-grade form factor, expanded input and output interfaces, and with wide operating temperature ranges, the Edge Gateway 5000, combined with Dell’s data analytics capabilities, promises to give companies an edge computing solution alternative to today’s costly, proprietary IoT offerings.
The Dell Edge Gateway sits at the edge of the network (near the devices and sensors) with local analytics and other middleware to receive, aggregate, analyze and relay data, then minimizes expensive bandwidth by relaying only meaningful data to the cloud or datacenter. Thanks to new Dell Statistica data analytics also announced today, Dell is expanding capabilities out to the gateway. This means companies can now extend the benefits of cloud computing to their network edge and for faster and more secure business insights while saving on the costly transfer of data to and from the cloud.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 19, 2015 | News
Many years ago I read a book about the stock market. It poked fun at the news reports that would go—there is a wave of selling. Hmm, for every seller there is a buyer. Someone bought all the shares being sold.
I bring that up just as a note about economics (and maybe life in general). Some things are good and bad simultaneously.
Take the strength of the dollar. American nationalists think that a strong dollar means a strong nation, or that we “won” some contest. However, for manufacturers and other suppliers looking to sell overseas a strong dollar makes our products more expensive and therefore less competitive.
The latest PwC US Manufacturing Barometer just came my way. It states, “Sentiment regarding the direction of the global economy took a sharp turn downward among U.S. industrial manufacturers, according to the Q3 2015 Manufacturing Barometer, released by PwC US today. Global concerns also served to moderate optimism regarding the domestic outlook, while slowing plans to hire more workers. At the same time, capital and operational spending forecasts among U.S. companies remained healthy.”
Details:
During the third quarter of 2015, optimism regarding the direction of the global economy dropped to 23 percent from 38 percent in the previous quarter and 30 percent in the third quarter of 2014. In addition, pessimism rose to an equal level with optimism (23 percent), reflecting an uncertain outlook for international commerce. Further, 40 percent of respondents indicated they believed the world economy was declining, showing greater concern than in the previous quarter (25% in Q2).
Conversely, optimism regarding the U.S. economic outlook remained positive but dropped to 60 percent in the third quarter of 2015 from 69 percent in the second quarter. Despite the renewed sense of caution regarding the global stage, company revenue forecasts for the next 12 months rose to a moderately high 5.3 percent in the third quarter, compared to a forecast of 4.9 percent in the second quarter.
“U.S. industrial manufacturers became increasingly cautious on the outlook for the global environment as they assessed the impact of the slowdown in China and the strengthening dollar,” said Bobby Bono, PwC’s U.S. industrial manufacturing leader. “Despite the downward turn in overseas sentiment, overall domestic growth prospects remained healthy and manufacturers continue to focus on further strengthening core products and services. They are keeping their cash at home and directing investment toward enhancing their value propositions in an effort to remain competitive and drive future revenues.”
As a result of the decline in global sentiment, U.S. industrial manufacturers scaled back hiring plans in the third quarter, with only 37 percent planning to add employees to their workforce over the next 12 months, down 15 points from the 52 percent level indicated in both the second-quarter and year ago comparable period. The total net workforce growth projection in the third quarter was minus 0.2 percent, indicating further cutbacks in hiring among industrial manufacturing firms.
Among the minority of panelists planning to hire within the next 12 months, the most sought-after employees will be blue collar/skilled labor (23 percent) and professionals/technicians (25 percent). Limited white collar support, middle management and sales/marketing hiring is planned. “The drop in hiring plans may indicate an expectation for slower growth in the near future,” Bono added. “Management teams will likely intensify avenues to improve productivity across their organizations, while continuing to search for professionals with strong technical skills.”
Despite the tempered global outlook, 37 percent of U.S. industrial manufacturers surveyed plan major new investments of capital during the next 12 months, up slightly from the second quarter and same period last year. In addition, the mean investment as a percentage of total sales was a moderately high 5.6 percent, well above 3.3 percent in the second quarter and on par with 5.7 percent in last year’s third quarter. Operational spending plans remained healthy as well with 82 percent indicating plans to increase operational spending, up from 75 percent in the second quarter and 69 percent last year. Leading increased expenditures were new product or service introductions (48 percent), research and development (37 percent), business acquisitions (23 percent) and information technology (22 percent).
“In the face of global uncertainty and the impact of a strengthening U.S. currency, management teams continue to focus investment on developing new products and driving innovation in an effort to sustain and build market share,” Bono added. “Companies are doubling down on what they do best and aggressively building their competitive moats. At the same time, they are continuing to pull back from overseas expansion, with only five percent indicating plans to open facilities abroad.”
Looking at perceived barriers to entry, monetary exchange rate became the leading headwind to growth over the next 12 months, as indicated by 38 percent of respondents. A year ago, it was only 14 percent (24 points lower). Typical barriers to growth—lack of demand (32 percent) and legislative/regulatory pressures (25 percent)—were lower as monetary exchange rate took center stage.
PwC also surveyed respondents on investment in information technology, and found that 80 percent of manufacturers report having a multiyear plan (3-5 years) that addresses business capabilities and processes as well as IT systems. Industrial manufacturing companies’ IT investments are made primarily to reduce costs (84 percent) and support growth (72 percent). Overall, 90 percent are planning to invest in IT technologies over the next 12-18 months, with upgrading infrastructure the leader at 82 percent.
About the Manufacturing Barometer
PwC’s Manufacturing Barometer is a quarterly survey based on interviews with 60 senior executives of large, multinational U.S. industrial manufacturing companies about their current business performance, the state of the economy and their expectations for growth over the next 12 months. This survey summarizes the results for Q3 2015 and was conducted from June 24, 2015 to September 28, 2015.
