by Gary Mintchell | Feb 1, 2016 | Automation, Networking, News, Organizations
Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) becomes a critical component of companies’ Internet of Things technology strategy. In the past year, I’ve written about TSN and (mostly) AVnu Alliance, four times.
Engineering Software and Industrial Networking Trends
ODVA Enhances EtherNet/IP Industrial Networking Specifications
OPC Foundation Real-Time And Technology Partners
AVnu Alliance Launches Support for Industrial Ethernet Market
Today brings another AVnu Alliance and Time Sensitive Networking press release. Two new members have joined. And one isn’t really a “joiner” company.
Two New Time Sensitive Networking Members
“Rockwell Automation and Kollmorgen, both leaders in industrial automation, bring valuable expertise to AVnu Alliance activities incorporating new standards such as Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) into a common networking foundation.”
Rockwell Automation isn’t really a “joiner company”. It’s alliances are usually smaller with only a few competitors. This one is interesting.
“We continue to evolve our industrial control and information solutions to help customers drive real-time productivity and innovation as they strive towards building a Connected Enterprise.” said Joe Kann, vice president, Global Business Development, Rockwell Automation. “By participating in the AVnu Alliance, we plan to share our industry knowledge and work together with other members towards further enhancing standard IP-based Ethernet for manufacturing.”
Kollmorgen manufactures high performance motion control solutions.
“Kollmorgen’s business as a provider of innovative high-speed motion solutions is driven by ever-evolving customer needs for high-performance, multi-device fieldbus options,” said Steve Crass, VP North America Industrial Automation and Aerospace & Defense at Kollmorgen. “Joining AVnu Alliance is a logical next step for our business and AVnu provides us with a forum that will support open systems architectures for many years to come.”
According to the Association, “The addition of these companies exemplifies the importance of the continued evolution of standard Ethernet through TSN. The experience with control networking that these companies possess will complement the existing efforts within the AVnu Alliance to define a common foundation for the Industrial Internet. This next step for standard Ethernet will enable complete convergence of standard IT traffic and the control system and will enable IoT for the industrial, automation and manufacturing sectors.”
“Rockwell Automation and Kollmorgen have both shown leadership in their respective fields over the years. The AVnu Alliance looks forward to their contributions and forward-thinking philosophies when it comes to automation and how it can improve a variety of industrial processes,” said Gary Stuebing, AVnu Alliance President. “They both bring a range of products and technologies that will complement and bolster our efforts with TSN in the industrial space.”
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 5, 2015 | Automation, Networking, News, Organizations, Technology
ODVA, the organization that develops and promotes networking protocols such as DeviceNet and EtherNet/IP, recently held its 17th Meeting.
ODVA’s Board of Directors for its 18th term are:
- Rolf Birkhofer, managing director for process solutions at Endress+Hauser,
- Thomas Bürger, vice president of engineering automation systems at Bosch Rexroth,
- Michael Höing, executive vice-president of cross divisional functions at Weidmüller Interface,
- Fabrice Jadot, senior vice-president for innovation and technology and CTO for the industry business of Schneider Electric,
- Tony Shakib, vice president of business development for the Internet of Things Business Development at Cisco Systems,
- Masaru Takeuchi, general manager of controller business and automation systems for industrial automation business at Omron, and
- Jürgen Weinhofer, vice-president for common architecture and technology for Rockwell Automation.
Officers for the 18th term are:
- Katherine Voss, president & executive director.
- Joakim Wiberg, chief technology officer,
- Christopher Lynch, secretary, and
- Jürgen Weinhofer, treasurer.
ODVA’s Technical Review Board (TRB) are Mr. Rudy Belliardi of Schneider Electric, Mr. Paul Didier of Cisco Systems, Dr. Jörg Hähniche of Endress+Hauser, Dr. Ludwig Leurs of Bosch Rexroth, Mr. Shinji Murayama of Omron, Mr. Eric Scott of Molex, Mr. Dave VanGompel of Rockwell Automation, and Mr. Joakim Wiberg of HMS Industrial Networks. As ODVA’s chief technology officer, Joakim Wiberg will be the TRB chairperson.
Smart Factory
In a keynote speech given by Prof. Dr.-Ing Detlef Zühlke, executive chairman of SmartFactory, he announced that the 2016 SmartFactory Demonstrator will include a proof of concept implementation of ODVA’s machine data model. The proof of concept will be supported by ODVA principal member Bosch Rexroth, which is also an executive member of SmartFactory.
ODVA’s machine data model is a result of ODVA’s initiative for the Optimization of Machine Integration (OMI) which was first announced in 2011 in cooperation with Sercos International and the OPC Foundation.
The OMI initiative is focused on techniques to optimize the integration of manufacturing machinery with the industrial ecosystem. One of the key machine integration problems that OMI seeks to solve is the streamlining and standardization of heterogeneous communication interfaces, such as CIP and Sercos, in order to enable standard reporting methods and tools across machines and thus aid in the management of machines and the monitoring of their states.
To investigate and develop standards in this area, ODVA established a Special Interest Group (SIG) for Machinery Information with participants from ODVA principal members Bosch Rexroth, Rockwell Automation, and Schneider Electric along with invited experts from OPC Foundation and Sercos International. The SIG has now completed its first phase of work to define a standard approach to machine data models which will then be mapped to the structures in CIP, OPC-UA, and Sercos. The 2016 SmartFactory production cell sponsored by Bosch Rexroth will illustrate the benefits of this approach.
“The concepts and standards being developed as a result of ODVA’s initiative for the Optimization of Machine Integration are well aligned with the goals of the SmartFactory,” said Prof. Dr.-Ing Detlef Zühlke, executive chairman of the Technology-Initiative SmartFactory KL e.V. “The concepts for ODVA’s machine data model will be a welcome addition to the SmartFactory demonstrator in 2016.”
“Certain types of data are typical to machine-to-supervisory communication. This data can be placed into logical groupings such as base machine context, conditioning monitoring, energy, safety, machine diagnostics, machine states, production recipes and product information,” stated Dr. Ludwig Leurs, co-chair of ODVA’s SIG for Machinery Information and engineering manager of Ethernet convergence for Bosch Rexroth. “The SmartFactory demonstrator will allow the SIG participants to prove out the concepts in ODVA’s machine data model before completing final specification for the model and its mapping to the protocol standards.”
“The concept of ODVA’s machine data model is groundbreaking because it applies the concept of “Things” as conceived in the Industrial Internet of Things to the machine itself,” said Katherine Voss, ODVA president and executive director. “The alignment of SmartFactory with the Industrie 4.0 initiative, and thus the Industrial Internet of Things, makes the 2016 SmartFactory demonstrator an ideal venue to illustrate the benefits of ODVA’s concept of the machine.”
ODVA’s machine data model will be integrated into the Bosch Rexroth production cell for 2016 SmartFactory demonstrator that will premiere at Hannover Fair 2016 on April 25, 2016.
The Technology Initiative SmartFactory KL e.V. was founded in 2005 as a non-profit association to establish a network of industrial and research partners which initiate and implement together research and development projects ranging from base technologies to the development of marketable products.
Today SmartFactory is a manufacturer-independent demonstration and research platform and unique in Europe.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 11, 2015 | Automation, Networking, Operations Management, Software
GE set up a conference call for a conversation with Matt Wells, general manager of automation software at GE Intelligent Platforms.
The impetus for the call was to flesh out the press release about the development of the Global Discovery Server (GDS) for OPC UA and the first implementation of it into GE’s Cimplicity HMI/SCADA software.
Wells said that GE is really embracing OPC UA as a core technology. Controllers have it embedded within, and in fact, GE actually evaluated it for inter-controller communication. That latter did not work out, but OPC UA remains core to GE’s connectivity program.
But, Wells continued, OPC UA is not always the easiest to implement. So GE worked with the OPC Foundation to define global discovery server to simplify management of systems.
The first advance concerns namespace. If GDS resides on the network, it will first register clients and servers then GDS provide list of namespace. And not only this, it can say who can talk to whom and it can also restrict who talks.
Secondly, GDS acts as certificate store. It is not a traffic manager, bu it checks for a certificate for all OPC devices and it then handles handshaking among them.
GDS is available as independent software that can be installed in an application. GE did Cimplicity first, partly to show it can be done and how useful it is.
GDS Agent, not part of spec, can act as proxy for existing UA that is not GDS enabled.
Using GDS in an OPC network enhancing usability and ease of implementation. This should increase the adoption of OPC UA.
When my contact set up this conversation, she also mentioned we could discuss something called, “automated operator decision support”. This intrigued me. Turns out this is an alternative phrase for automated or digitized workflow.
I’ve only talked with a few companies that have incorporated workflow. I talked with GE several years ago for the first time. This should be an important advance for manufacturing productivity.
Here are some notes about the workflow conversation.
Overall in HMI/SCADA
1-prevent mistakes so minimize abnormal situations
2-can’t always encode everything, so give advance notification, predictive analytics
3-cant predict everything, so enable operators to quickly ID issue and solve, give corrective action procedures
4-“phone a friend”, utilize mobile techs to call SMEs; We found highest adoption enabling support staff, contact experts, decrease downtime
Digitize SOP policy, workflow; work to encode workflows, as it executes SOP solicit feedback from operator, can coordinate acts of operators and people around them. Make every operator the best operator—baked in—originally sold as risk management mitigation tool. It is popular in pharma and water, especially areas where compliance is crucial.
First step, look at compliances and improving process – process
Take written manual–>encode–>provide checklist–>maybe write directly into system for records–>then after compliance, start looking at optimizing.
It is designed to layer over existing infrastructure (HMI/SCADA, WMS, etc.).
Have seen performance improvements of up to 30%.
by Gary Mintchell | May 4, 2015 | Automation, Data Management, Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT, Networking, News, Operations Management, Technology
For being so quiet for so long, the OPC Foundation is certainly hitting the news often lately. There was news about a couple of open-source initiatives. Then the Foundation itself opened up a little with an “open-shared” program.
Then it was announced as the communication platform of Industry 4.0 in Germany.
Now a couple European automation rivals—Beckhoff Automation (Germany) and B&R Automation (Austria)—have made OPC news.
Taken in sum, these announcements plus the earlier ones reveal the importance of OPC to industrial communication. It became a standard for moving important data from control systems to human-machine interface systems and then on to SCADA and MES systems.
With the introduction of UA built on modern software technologies including built-in security and embeddable format, the technology everyone used but also everyone dissed finds itself on the cutting edge of modern connected industrial Internet strategies.
OPC and Beckhoff
News coming from last month’s Hannover Messe included this joint announcement from OPC and Beckhoff.
OPC UA is about scalable communication with integrated security by design up to MES / ERP systems and into the cloud, EtherCAT is about hard real-time capability in machines and factory control systems. Both technologies complement each other perfectly.
Industrie 4.0 and Internet of Things (IoT) architectures require consistent communication across all levels while using Internet technologies: both in as well as outside of the factory, for example to cloud-based services. That exactly is what the OPC Foundation and the EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG) want to account for by defining a common definition of open interfaces between their respective technologies.
At the Hanover Fair Thomas J. Burke, President and Executive Director of the OPC Foundation and Martin Rostan, Executive Director of the ETG signed a Memorandum of Understanding in which both organizations agree to closely co-operate developing these interfaces.
OPC and B&R
Not to be outdone, B&R Automation issued a press release announcing it will be supporting the OPC Foundation’s new real-time technology working groups, whose goal is to add real-time capability to the OPCUA communication standard. This will involve two key additions to the OPCUA standard. The first is a publisher-subscriber model; the other is utilization of the IEEE 802.1 standard for time-sensitive networking (TSN).
B&R will be contributing its real-time expertise to the working groups. “The updates to the OPC UA standard will benefit from our years of experience in developing real-time solutions,” says Stefan Schönegger, marketing manager at B&R.
OPC UA uses a publish/subscribe network model. B&R is the main proponent of PowerLink. PowerLink uses publish/subscribe technology, too. So, B&R wants to show compatibility.
“This is a fundamental requirement for the M2M communication you find in integrated systems such as packaging lines,” explains Schönegger.
In order to fulfill real-time requirements, the OPC UA standard will make use of the IEEE 802.1 TSN standard. “At the moment, TSN is still a working title for a group of new IEEE standards designed to provide native real-time capability for the IEEE 802 Ethernet standard,” says Schönegger. This would allow for a seamless transition to substantially faster Ethernet standards such as POWERLINK for field-level communication and demanding motion control tasks.
Beyond the automation industry, TSN is currently also being evaluated by the automotive and telecommunications industries. “The first cars based on TSN are expected to hit the market in the very near future,” reports Schönegger. This would help secure the widespread availability of this technology. In addition to B&R, the new OPC working groups will be also supported by other leaders in the field of automation, as was announced by KUKA on April 13, 2015.
OPC UA already plays a central role in the IT-related areas of modern production systems. “The addition of TSN and the publisher-subscriber model will greatly expand the range of potential OPC UA applications,” says Schönegger.
Takeaway
What all this means is that OPC can now become even faster and more usable than before. The little protocol that everyone uses and everyone complains about is getting cred as it becomes more modern. These technological advances should make it more valuable. And that will be significant in this new connected enterprise era.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 24, 2015 | Automation, Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT, Networking, News, Operations Management, Organizations, Standards, Technology
News about further adoption of OPC (www.opcfoundation.org) continued to flow from the recent Hannover Fair (Messe) in Germany. Things had gone dark for a period of time from the Foundation. This has changed over the past couple of weeks as the communication technology picks up momentum.
The Platform Industrie 4.0 (I4.0) announced at Hannover Messe 2015 a reference architecture model for Industrie 4.0 (RAMI 4.0). RAMI 4.0 is a unified architecture model where use-cases, standards etc. for I4.0 are necessary. In RAMI 4.0 I4.0 components are defined in their structure and functioning. Thus it enables cross-company networking and integration across value-added networks. Where meaningful, RAMI 4.0 builds on existing and relevant standards.
The Platform Industrie 4.0 trade organizations BITKOM (IT), VDMA (Mechanical Engineering) and ZVEI (Electronics) together collected and analyzed necessary or relevant standards for RAMI 4.0 in technically oriented working groups. In the category “Communication Layer“ the OPC UA (IEC 62541) standard was thoroughly examined and deemed adequate for RAMI 4.0 as the one and only confirmed.
“Companies like ThyssenKrupp are implementing Industrie 4.0 today. The availability of established communication protocols is mission critical for such a timely implementation, OPC-UA is here the best example,” said Dr Achatz head of technology at ThyssenKrupp AG.
“We are proud the Platform Industrie 4.0 thoroughly analyzed OPC UA in the category “Communication Layer” and confirmed its relevance as the only standard for the reference architecture model for Industrie 4.0,” said Thomas J. Burke, President and Executive Director of the OPC Foundation. “This shows that the OPC Foundation is on the right track with our approach of secure, safe, manufacturer- and platform independent communication for heterogeneous systems by means of OPC UA to become a global data exchange standard for Industrie 4.0 and the Internet of Things.”
