by Gary Mintchell | Jun 21, 2018 | Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT
Antonio Neri, CEO and President of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), used the phrase “Data is the new currency, memory the new gold” in his keynote to the company’s annual US customer conference Discover in Las Vegas in June. Just one of the many places I’ve been lately.
If you haven’t planned for data in your machine and process control designs, you had best begin.The race for improved operations performance is on now.
We talk often of “edge” in the world of Internet of Things or Industrial Internet of Things. The edge has many definitions, but it can be defined as any place outside a data center. PLCs, for example, not only perform logic control, but they also aggregate data from perhaps thousands of sensors. SCADA devices and industrial computers also collect and channel data from a few to many sensors and data sources.
Business operations managers are hungry for this data to feed their information systems that in turn fuel their business decisions. Data in context is information. Information correctly presented to decision makers leads to better, faster decisions—and a competitive edge.
This search for competitive edge has moved me from an emphasis on control and automation (something we still need to do well) to Industrial Internet of Things. The IIot is taken by many as a similar strategy to Industrie 4.0 or Smart Manufacturing or whatever different countries call their strategies. This means I’m looking at a new generation of edge computing, enhance networking standards, human-centered design for mobile visualization of data, and even Augmented Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). These are not far-out technologies any longer. They are here and applications are growing.
Neri talked about the future as edge-centric, cloud-enabled, data-driven. He said the edge is where the action is, where the data is created. HPE is going to invest $4 billion in the intelligent edge over the next 4 years.
The company announced a new edge computing device with enterprise grade computing power (far beyond a PC) plus up to 48TB (yes that’s Tera not Giga) of memory. Oh, and it also comes in an environmentally hardened package. The CTO of Murphy Oil talked of using these on off-shore oil rigs.
Texmark Chemicals is a Houston, Texas based petrochemical refiner. I had several opportunities to talk with them about their IoT projects. They orchestrated an ecosystem of 12 suppliers initially to instrument critical pumps in their process in order to achieve predictive maintenance. This potentially saves the company millions of dollars by avoiding catastrophic failure. (Note: I previously wrote about the Texmark use case here–and expect more to come.)
Back to the announcement from HPE about the new edge product—a family of edge-to-cloud solutions enabled by HPE Edgeline Converged Edge Systems to help organizations simplify their hybrid IT environment. By running the same enterprise applications at the edge, in data centers and in the cloud, the solutions allow organizations to more efficiently capitalize on the vast amounts of data created in remote and distributed locations like factories, oil rigs or energy grids.
(Dr. Tom Bradicich wrote a blog post you can find here.)
HPE’s new edge-to-cloud solutions operate unmodified enterprise software from partners Citrix, GE Digital, Microsoft, PTC, SAP and SparkCognition, both on HPE Edgeline Converged Edge Systems – rugged, compact systems delivering immediate insight from data at the edge – and on data center and cloud platforms. This capability enables customers to harness the value of the data generated at the edge to increase operational efficiency, create new customer experiences and introduce new revenue streams. At the same time, edge-to-cloud solutions enabled by HPE Edgeline simplify the management of the hybrid IT environment, as the same application and management software can be used from edge to cloud.
“The edge is increasingly becoming a centerpiece of the digital enterprise where things and people generate and act on massive amounts of data,” said Dr. Tom Bradicich, Vice President and General Manager, IoT and Converged Edge Systems, HPE. “Our edge-to-cloud solutions help bring enterprise-class IT capabilities from the data center to the edge. This reduces software and IT administration costs, while accelerating insight and control across the organization and supply chain.”
HPE also announced the HPE Edgeline Extended Storage Adapter option kit, adding up to 48 terabytes of software-defined storage to HPE Edgeline Converged Edge Systems. This enhancement enables storage-intensive use cases like artificial intelligence (AI), video analytics or databases at the edge, while leveraging industry-standard storage management tools such as Microsoft Storage Spaces, HPE StoreVirtual VSA, and VMware vSAN.
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 26, 2018 | Asset Performance Management, Operations Management, Software
So last week I shared an update on Schneider Electric from the ARC Forum–mostly on cybersecurity. A helpful marketing person guided me to the press release with all the data that updated the software side of the week’s news–specifically asset performance management. For the most part the discussion did not center on product updates but on “increasing momentum surrounding customer adoption”. In other words, Schneider wanted to highlight an area of software not often brought to center stage and show that it is a growth area.
Kim Custeau (I misspelled her name in my last post, I believe–thank you autocorrect), Asset Performance Management Business Lead, shared how investments in the cloud, advanced machine learning, and augmented reality, coupled with new partnerships, have empowered customers.
“Defining and executing an asset performance strategy is a critical component to improving productivity while safeguarding business continuity,” she said. “We have been delivering proven, industry leading asset performance solutions for nearly 30 years, and continue to invest in a long-term strategy to drive innovation in this area. Our focus is to provide real value to our customers by empowering them to maximize return on capital investment and improve profitability. We are proud to see our customer results speak for themselves with significant savings.”
Machine learning and prescriptive analytics:
- Duke Energy prevented an estimated $35 million cost from early warning detection of a steam turbine problem
- Ascend Performance Materials now responds faster to alerts saving an estimated $2 million through avoided plant shutdowns
Augmented Reality:
- BASF is implementing AR to improve asset performance, reliability, and utilization while increasing production efficiency and safety because technicians leverage an augmented digital representation of the asset.
Cloud and Hybrid Deployment:
- WaterForce partnered with Schneider Electric to develop and IIoT remote monitoring and control system in the cloud that allows farmers to operate irrigation pivots with greater agility, efficiency, and sustainability.
New Partnerships:
- MaxGrip and Schneider Electric announced a partnership to expand APM consulting and add Risk-based Maintenance capabilities. The APM Assessment is a first step for industrial companies to evaluate asset reliability and digital transformation strategy.
- Schneider Electric and Accenture completed development of a Digital Services Factory to rapidly build and scale new predictive maintenance, asset monitoring, and energy optimization offerings. As a result, a large food and beverage company saved over $1 million in maintenance costs
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 5, 2018 | Automation, Internet of Things, Operations Management
I am still stung by a comment and ensuing discussion made by a maintenance manager during a talk I gave a few years ago. The talk was an early IoT description of networks, data, information, and the like. The guy raised his hand and said, “The engineers in my plant tell me that this stuff doesn’t work. So just forget about it!”
Emerson Automation developed a strategy called Top Quartile Performance and a service plan called Operational Certainty in order to operationalize Industrial IoT to benefit customers. This report comes from Covestro, one of the world’s largest polymer companies, which has selected Emerson to provide Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to help achieve its goals of minimizing risk and improving uptime at nine high-utilization plants.
As part of the $14 million, five-year contract, Emerson will provide remote monitoring and predictive maintenance to help Covestro optimize these manufacturing facilities for improved production, safety and reliability.
The Emerson program is a tenet of Covestro’s comprehensive digitization program called Digital@Covestro that considers and implements new Industrial IoT strategies and operating procedures to deliver improved performance and meet defined financial targets. Covestro’s reliability program will leverage strategies, solutions and technologies in Emerson’s Operational Certainty program designed to help manufacturers achieve Top Quartile performance. Emerson data shows that Top Quartile companies spend half as much on maintenance compared to average performers and operate with an additional 15 days of available production each year.
Emerson will remotely monitor and maintain 40 of its DeltaV distributed control systems at Covestro plants in China, the United States and Germany. Remote teams at Emerson’s Innovation Center in Austin, Texas, will monitor and provide best practices-based maintenance strategies for local Emerson teams to implement at each Covestro plant. “By collaborating with Emerson to stay proactive about plant availability, we can drive toward always-on production and continue to satisfy customers in our high-demand market,” said Klaus Schaefer, chief technical officer, Covestro.
The Emerson-Covestro agreement reflects an emerging business model in industry, where manufacturers rely on a strategic supplier’s software solutions and deep automation expertise to monitor and execute maintenance, equipment health or energy management programs, allowing customers to focus their attention on critical operating functions that drive plant performance.
“Covestro and Emerson have a shared focus on driving Top Quartile operational performance,” said Jamie Froedge, president of Emerson’s Process Systems and Solutions business. “Connecting Covestro’s global product manufacturing expertise with our remote and local service capabilities allows the right expert to be available, real time, to ensure reliable operations.”
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 9, 2018 | Data Management, Software
I don’t really think about report tools that much, to be honest. Maybe because most people seem to default to Microsoft Excel to draw information from their operations information system.
Roy Kok has been VP of sales and marketing for Ocean Data Systems / Dream Report for some time now. He’s an industry veteran whom I’ve known for probably 20 years. We’ve had occasion to chat about his product several times over the past few months. So, I had to ask, just what do you do and what kind of market is there—really?
[Note: He’s a new sponsor of the site, trying us out for a while. I don’t actively go out and sell ads, but I certainly appreciate the companies that do—hint. I actually probed about the market before he decided to buy.]
I guess I never thought about a custom report writer in the same genre as dashboards and other visibility tools. I stand corrected.
Kok tells me, “I believe Dream Report to be the number one product of this type in the world. We are currently shipping in the thousands per year. As you can imagine, this is giving us great market penetration and visibility, but Dream Report is not a very expensive product, so our company is still relatively small at 18 employees. Dream Report is all that we do, so from that perspective, we are a significant scale for a single product company. I believe we hold 5% or so market share. 85% market share is held by business products being applied to industrial applications. These products include Crystal Reports, Microsoft SSRS and Excel. That would leave 10% for the plethora of other tools, vertical market solutions, and smaller competitors.”
Why did this market become so dominated by business tools? “One simple word – History,” added Kok. “In the late 80s and early 90s, HMI/SCADA was still in its infancy and competition was tremendous. Vendor focus was on reliability and capability of HMI/SCADA. There was another invention at that same time – ODBC – in the business world. ODBC was the way third party products could interact with databases of all types. Also in the late 80s, Crystal Reports came on the market and in the early 90s, Microsoft delivered SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services). Excel was also available and leveraged ODBC. The result of all these developments was that HMI/SCADA vendors chose to enhance their products with ODBC and could thus leverage the variety of business tools on the market. That set the path for most of the industrial market. To be fair, some HMI/SCADA vendors dabbled in report generation, typically focused on connectivity too their own products.”
This becomes part of the IT / OT situation. Part of the continual divide between the organizations lies in the tools each use. Both thrive on information, but the type of information and its format is different between the two areas. Often business tools are much more expensive, since the cost can be spread over a much larger application framework. Kok posits that OT people have been hesitant to look at report applications from fear of cost and complexity. Therefore, the benefit of his product.
Adds Kok, “Our challenge is to re-educate the world that reports are easy to create and are actually your shortest path to continuous improvement. A report (or dashboard) can be fast and easy to create. It can then be scheduled for automatic generation and delivery. We argue that the step after installing a historian, should be the installation of a report and dashboard solution like Dream Report. Then, when KPIs go askew, you can use Dream Report analytics or other advanced tools to better understand the root cause. Dream Report can actually bridge the gap and help to justify advanced analytics like those from Seeq, Falkonry, TrendMiner, Tableau, Pentaho, and others.
And that, I think, is the next step forward—how to integrate advanced analytics into OT in a sensible and useful way. We keep talking about predictive maintenance. And have been for many years. Maybe that one really begins hitting. And we’ll watch for which application strikes next.
Ocean Data Systems has been growing organically since 2006. Major OEMs private labelling and reselling Dream Report include Schneider Electric, Wonderware, GE, Eurotherm, Indusoft.) Here is a short video.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 4, 2018 | Operations Management
Digital transformation professional services companies provide value to owner/operators and manufacturing companies. But their services are often expensive. I have done some work on platforms such as MIMOSA’s OIIE (which is still in development) that are designed to use standards and interoperability to help these customers reduce their expense and dependence on these firms.
It’s sort of a “good news, bad news” thing.
At any rate, the PR firm representing Cognizant contacted me toward the end of December with an opportunity to interview an executive. The purpose of this interview would be to update me on the company and talk a little about digital supply chain, workforce, and other manufacturing innovation topics.
Anxious to get something done before the end of the year (billable hours?), they even offered times between Christmas and New Years. Prasad Satyavolu, global head of innovation, manufacturing, and logistics practice, talked with me shortly before Christmas.
When I laid out the conversation on a mind map, the map was huge. So I thought about it off and on for the past couple of weeks. These thoughts reflect about half of the conversation. There is a lot to think about.
Cognizant was a very familiar name, but I couldn’t place it. “We are familiar with SCADA and plant floor,” Satyavolu told me. “We acquired Wonderware’s R&D operations. In fact, we still work with Schneider Electric. We also work with Rockwell Automation.”
Core Manufacturing services include:
• Transportation/Material Handling
• Process industry
• Energy/Oil & Gas
• Aerospace (some)
• Automation
• Utilities/Smart Grid/Smart Meters
When Cognizant evaluates a customer’s processes and lays out a plan, it includes everything from incoming supply to manufacturing to shipping to customer. The demand and supply chain.
One opportunity Satyavolu sees considers more instrumentation leading to additional sensing of movement of materials and workers in order to capture better decisions and enable efficiencies.
Then consider the confluence of changing workforce and technology. “Consider reality on shop floor. 5-10 years ago a maintenance engineer listened to a machine, diagnosed the problem, and fixed the machine.
The next generation doesn’t have that knowledge. Today the time to fix has gone from 15 minutes to 4 hours. How can we tackle knowledge gap? Further, is the next generation even interested in this sort of work?
Looking ahead, by 2025 we will be short 8 million people with manufacturing skills. How does this impact global mid-sized companies? How can we further leverage robotics to help solve this problem? Would robotics technology even make the work more attractive to a new generation of workers from the world of gaming and drones?
Huge opportunities exist with visibility outside the plant to planning and execution. It’s the Amazon effect—velocity so high that you almost have to produce on demand. Predictive maintenance systems enable managers to manage schedules and demands. This leverages infastructure such as cloud, digital technologies. These improve scheduling, reschedules lowering carrying costs; aids risk management / mitigation; global organizations bringing parts from around the world, global demand/supply increases uncertainty.
On shop floor, plant has fixed schedules / horizons. Scheduling systems and a lot of modeling bring stability and improve effectiveness. You can simulate production quickly, get status of inbound parts, changes in demand side, sync with labor requirements. With better scheduling, you get better visibility—you can save 12-13% of costs with sync. You can track supply chain, transportation, and change schedules in advance improving risk management.
