by Gary Mintchell | Oct 3, 2014 | Automation, Data Management, Internet of Things, Operations Management, Technology
The fact that no one really knows what the Internet of Things is has not deterred companies from forming partnerships and joining consortia to talk about it. Here is news I’ve received from Intel. I keep watching the space and figure it will come together sometime.
Intel Corp. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. have announced a collaboration to develop next-generation factory automation (FA) systems with Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and a pilot program at Intel’s backend manufacturing facility in Malaysia.
The pilot demonstrates the benefits of IoT in a factory setting with a focus on delivering productivity enhancement through innovative functions, such as predictive failure, by combining Intel’s expertise developing solutions for IoT and Mitsubishi Electric’s “e-F@ctory” automation capabilities. Intel realized a savings of US$9 million over the course of the pilot.
IoT and Big Data in Action
As an initial collaboration, Intel and Mitsubishi Electric implemented the IoT and big data solution at Intel’s backend manufacturing facility in Malaysia. Using an Intel® Atom™ processor-based IoT gateway called the C Controller from Mitsubishi Electric’s iQ-Platform, Intel was able to securely gather and aggregate data for the analytics server.
Data was then processed using Revolution R Enterprise software from Revolution Analytics, an analytics software solution that uses the open source R statistics language, which was hosted on Cloudera Enterprise, the foundation of an enterprise data hub.
The solution has improved equipment component uptime, increased yield and productivity by minimizing misclassification of good units as bad, enabled predictive maintenance, and reduced component failures. Initial results include a savings of US$9 million through cost avoidance and improved decision making.
“The data mining and analytics pilots done in Malaysia have demonstrated great value and benefits for Intel manufacturing using Intel-based IoT products and technology,” said Robin Martin, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Assembly and Test Group. “Through this collaboration and pilot with Mitsubishi Electric, we will bring the know-how, assets and technology of both companies to develop next-generation factory automation systems with predictive analytic capabilities. This will allow other companies to reap the benefits of the Internet of Things for factory operations.”
“The collaboration between Mitsubishi Electric and Intel on this IoT project has enabled field data from semiconductor manufacturing lines to be collected and analyzed to improve operational performance, yet also contribute energy savings for a more sustainable society,” said Masayuki Yamamoto, group senior vice president, Factory Automation Systems, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. “We believe that other manufacturers can benefit from this joint Intel-Mitsubishi Electric solution, which combines big data analysis, optimized data capture and processing to deliver improved performance and optimized maintenance.”
The commercialization date for the product is 2015, and the companies will show a live demonstration of the solution in Intel’s booth at the IoT Japan 2014 tradeshow, which will be held October 15-17 at Tokyo Big Sight in Japan.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 25, 2014 | Automation, Internet of Things, Operations Management, Standards, Technology
Mike Bryant, executive director of PI North America-the Profibus/Profinet promotion organization, began day two of the 2014 Annual General Meeting pondering what’s next for Profinet. After 20 successful years, what will propel growth for the next five or more.
A quick poll of the 70+ attendees showed unanimous agreement that the Internet of Things holds great potential for growth. A company, that also happens to be a PI North America member, that is a leading proponent of the Industrial Internet of Things and in fact is the founder of the Industrial Internet Consortium, is GE. Aussie Schnore, principal engineer with GE Global Research, presented GE’s point of view. Here are some of his thoughts.
- Industrial Internet building on previous layers
- Standards are important because now we have a spec to design from rather than re-inventing something
- The GE Intelligent Platforms cycle is connected machines, connected data, connected insights, and connected people
- Important trends in the next five years include retirements, 50 billion machines connected to Internet, new employees expect information at their fingertips, and CIOs expect to drive more business insight
- Forces shaping the Industrial Internet include brilliant machines, big data, analytics
- Challenges facing adoption of the Industrial Internet include performance, cyber security, scale, and interoperability
- “Why it matters:” reduction in development time, lower support costs, increase in gross margin, leading to improved asset performance, enhanced customer experience, creation of new service and support models
This is exactly right on. Connectivity is now expected. Now how do we accomplish all the benefits.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 24, 2014 | Automation, Internet of Things, Operations Management, Technology
This week’s edition of the PI North Americs (formerly PTO) annual general meeting in Phoenix celebrates 20 years of Profibus/Profinet/Profisafe industrial networking in North America.
Chairman and Executive Director Mike Bryant began the session–the largest gathering so far–recounting the people and experiences that contributed to the growth of the organization and the technology over the past 20 years.
Where will the next area of growth lie for Profinet? Bryant and others are exploring the application of Profinet as part of the Internet of Things (or Industrial Internet of Things). As a technology built upon Ethernet, Profinet is an enabling technology for moving data from the “things” part of IoT to the Internet part.
My take on this is that they are on the right track. The IoT is essentially just moving data from the sensor/device level to a level where data becomes information displayed in such a way to enable analysis and decision making. Technologies such as Profinet will be an essential link in the train.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 24, 2014 | Automation, Internet of Things, Operations Management
National Instruments (NI) has been a pioneer in thinking about what is now known as the Industrial Internet of Things–along with what it calls “Big Analog Data”, Industrie 4.0, cyber-physical systems.
NI InsightCM Enterprise–a condition-monitoring solution that fits nicely within all the buzz words cited above–gained mention during NI Week the first of August. It is now formally announced as a new software solution that helps companies gain insight into the health of their capital equipment for machine maintenance and operations.
NI InsightCM Enterprise acquires and analyzes sensory information, generates alarms and allows maintenance specialists to remotely diagnose machine faults. Ready-to-run condition monitoring systems based on the CompactRIO hardware platform can acquire from a wide range of sensors for improved fault diagnoses. This hardware and software solution simplifies the configuration of and measurements from thousands of sensors, so users can remotely monitor device health, configure channels and upgrade firmware on deployed systems.
Companies in a variety of industries, including oil and gas, power generation, mining, rail and industrial manufacturing, that need to optimize machine performance, maximize uptime, reduce maintenance costs and increase safety will benefit most.
Key Benefits
- Cost-effective: Lowers the instrumentation cost for monitoring both critical and other plant equipment at a fleet-wide scale.
- Open: Offers open software architecture to access data and gain interoperability with third-party enterprise software packages, such as CMMSs, database historians and prognostics tools
- Easily scalable: Scales from one to hundreds of nodes per NI InsightCM Enterprise server and replicates one solution at multiple facilities
- Flexible: Incorporates CompactRIO to adapt to changing sensory needs while maintaining the user’s investment in the platform
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 12, 2014 | Internet of Things, Operations Management
In this TED Talk, MIT Media Lab Founder Nicholas Negroponte looks back of 30 years of his Talks and predicts 30 years out.
He is an interesting person and well worth a listen.
What really struck me was his description of the Internet of Things. He said the current version of thinking where we put a replica of the control panel of something, say microwave oven, on a smart phone and then place sensors on the device connected back to the display.
The Internet of Things should build from smart devices, he says. Put the intelligence and the power out in the field. Interesting thought.
