by Gary Mintchell | May 27, 2016 | Automation, News
The 2016 edition of Schneider Electric’s Foxboro/Triconex/Modicon user group meeting attracted a fair number of people. This is amazing given that advanced notice wasn’t very advanced.
It’s always great catching up with some of the industry’s thought leaders, as well as getting a glimpse of new and coming products. Among the themes that came across strongly included “security by design” and focus on customer’s assets not just control and automation.
The acquisition has turned out pretty much as I thought it would. Schneider Electric has brought financial stability and investment in research and development. Organization stability is getting there, but people are still moving around a little. The only surprise I had was Schneider’s view of software. I figured that since Schneider Electric had very little history with software that it might shop the division. In fact, the Aveva reverse acquisition (or whatever) seemed to prove the point. Yet, hallway conversations universally pointed to a different reality. Schneider senior management sees great possibility for its new software assets. Since one of its competitors just renamed its upcoming event by removing the word “software”, I find this a significant competitive move.
Different Project Ideas
In an interesting twist, the opening keynote was given by a customer—Sandy Vasser of ExxonMobil. Vasser had presented his vision at the ARC Forum in Orlando in February, so I had an idea what was coming—a challenge to Schneider Electric, and indeed all suppliers. The oil & gas industry faces many challenges and it is time to think differently about traditional automation practices and technologies. The key is lowering the cost of projects and time to first oil.
A new approach is required:
Reduce customization
- push customization to the software, use standard hardware
- eliminate the need for project specifications
- eliminate the need for the infrstructure to support customized solutions
Reduce complexity simplify designs
- reduce the component count and the number of divergent systems
- take full advantage of the capability of the installed systems
- reduce the number and simplify interfaces
Eliminate simplify or automate processes
Mitigate the effects of dependencies
Reduce the amount of automatically generate documentation
Take managed risks accept some compromises
Develop and enable trust with our suppliers and our contractors
Key enablers:
- Smart configurable I/O in standard field junction boxes
- Virtualization (runtime and engineering) completely separate hardware so can test software without hardware
- Customization pushed from hardware to software
- Autodetect/Autointerrogate/Autoconfigure/Autoenable/Autodocument I/O
New challenges for our key suppliers
- control systems age in place
- system architectures made simple
- systems consist of building blocks that can be easily upgraded to current technologies
- upgrades or repairs will not be intrusive, disruptive, or unnecessarily costly
- rip and replace will never be necessary
- control system selection for a facility will be for life; fully supported and sustained
We have heard Vasser’s challenge before. But this reinforcement shows how serious ExxonMobil is about moving project planning and implementation to a new level. Faster time to start up and greatly reduced cost. The challenge for suppliers such as Schneider Electric is to bring what the customer wants and still make money. If the customer drives the supplier to a point where profits are just not there, then innovation will cease. But a good challenge from a supplier can spur innovation. We’ll see.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 2, 2016 | Automation, News
I have not been away on purpose. This may be about the longest I’ve gone in 12+ years of blogging. Had a crisis of sorts in a business I’ve invested in, two road trips, a bout of allergy infection, and a report for a client due. Plus some construction going on around the house. Quite a week.
Here are some items I’ve been saving up. Meanwhile, I’m still thinking about ramifications of what I started last week with IIoT, Level 3, software, and the like.
Frank Lamb has started a conversation on PLC information and samples. Check out his site and add your comments.
I will be going to Hannover the end of the month. I’ll be busy, but if you will be there ping me. I’ll have a bunch of stuff from Siemens and Dell for sure. There should be much more information from so large a show.
Coming up the first week of May ( 2-5) is QAD Explore, the ERP supplier’s user conference, in Chicago at the Hilton. I’ll be on a panel on Tuesday discussing the relationship past, present, future of MES and ERP with a little IIoT thrown in. If you are a user or are kicking some ERP tires, check it out. Then look me up.
Schneider Electric Connect 2016 will be May 23-26 in New Orleans. I’m not speaking, but I’ll be there. Maybe we can arrange a meet up? This part of Schneider is Modicon/Foxboro/Triconex
Then I saw this blog from Rockwell Automation written by Thomas Donato, President, EMEA, Rockwell Automation, talking about how industrial business leaders are not asking about IIoT (or Industrie 4.0 or whatever). I’ve noticed that suppliers are rushing to claim IIoT as a strategy or that they play in that game. But it’s the same as every new thing that comes down the road—customers just want solutions to their problems. That is how suppliers should be positioning their products and services.
And from my friend Jim Pinto. I asked him annually for 10 years at Automation World to give me his annual Pinto Prognostications. In his blog now, he takes a look at the rest of the 21st Century. Here is his conclusion. Check out the entire post here.
Power will be in the knowledge and the ability to integrate and exploit the new capabilities provided by technology and adapt to new environments and opportunities. The human adventure will continue as the remaining frontiers and limits of human thought are explored. But will people be happy?
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 2, 2015 | Automation, Interoperability, News, Process Control, Standards, Technology
Here is an industrial automation announcement from the recent SPS IPC Drives trade fair held annually in Nuremberg, Germany. This one discusses a new open integration, some say interoperability, program based upon open standards.
This blog has now complete eight years—through three names and domains: Gary Mintchell’s Radio Weblog, Gary Mintchell’s Feed Forward, and now The Manufacturing Connection. Through these eight years one consistent theme is advocating for what I believe to be the user’s point of view—open integration.
Users have consistently (although unfortunately not always vocally) expressed the view that, while they love developing a strong partnership with preferred suppliers, they also want to be able to connect products from other suppliers as well as protect themselves by leaving an “out” in case of a problem with the current supplier.
The other position contains two points of view. Suppliers say that if they can control all the integration of parts, then they can provide a stronger and more consistent experience. Customers worry that locking themselves into one supplier will enable it to raise prices and that it will also leave them vulnerable to changes in the supplier’s business.
With that as an introduction, this announcement came my way via Endress+Hauser. That company is a strong measurement and instrumentation player as well as a valued partner of Rockwell Automation’s process business. The announcement concerns the “Open Integration Partner Program.”
I’m a little at a loss to describe exactly what this is—other than a “program.” It’s not an organization. Rather its appearance is that of a memorandum of cooperation.
The program promotes the cooperation between providers of industrial automation systems and fieldbus communication. To date, eight companies have joined the program:
AUMA Riester, HIMA Paul Hildebrandt, Honeywell Process Solutions, Mitsubishi Electric, Pepperl+Fuchs, Rockwell Automation, R. STAHL and Schneider Electric.
“By working closely with our partners, we want to make sure that a relevant selection of products can be easily combined and integrated for common target markets,” outlines Michael Ziesemer, Chief Operating Officer of Endress+Hauser. This is done by using open communication standards such as HART, PROFIBUS, FOUNDATION Fieldbus, EtherNet/IP or PROFINET and open integration standards such as FDT, EDD or FDI. Ziesemer continues: “We are open for more cooperation partners. Every market stakeholder who, like us, consistently relies on open standards is invited to join the Open Integration program.”
Reference topologies are the key
Cooperation starts with what are known as reference topologies, which are worked out jointly by the Open Integration partners. Each reference topology is tailored to the customers’ applications and the field communication technologies used in these applications. “To fill the program with life in terms of content, we are going to target specific customers who might be interested in joining us,” added Ziesemer.
Depending on industrial segment and market, the focus will be on typical requirements such as availability, redundancy or explosion protection, followed by the selection of system components and field instruments of practical relevance. This exact combination will then be tested and documented before it is published as a joint recommendation, giving customers concrete and successfully validated suggestions for automating their plant.
Ziesemer adds: “With this joint validation as part of the Open Integration, we go well beyond the established conformity and interoperability tests that we have carried out for many years with all relevant process control systems.”
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 12, 2015 | Automation, Internet of Things, News, Operations Management, Technology
Technology strategy in Europe is becoming sharply divided between the Siemens-led German Industrie 4.0 cyber-physical systems approach and the Industrial Internet of Things.
Schneider Electric has announced its support of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) by joining the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) and earning an appointment to the organization’s steering committee. Other members of the organization include AT&T, Cisco, General Electric, IBM and Intel.
Schneider has also wrapped up this focus with a branded strategy dubbed “Life Is On.” That strategy “will transform how people and organizations consume energy, better automate industrial processes, and increase the quality of business decisions, while improving their lives.”
Here is the statement of philosophy from the Schneider press release, “The Life Is On brand strategy will help clearly show how the company is helping its customers around the world take advantage of this fundamental shift, leveraging Schneider Electric’s expertise in the operational technology (OT) that controls our society’s most important processes and connecting it to the information technology (IT) that we rely on to simplify our lives and make better decisions. This approach, which Schneider Electric refers to as building Operational Intelligence, relies on optimized automation and control, advanced remote management, predictive maintenance, enabling managed services, advanced analytics and generation of actionable information to drive informed decision-making in our homes, manufacturing facilities, data centers, buildings and cities.”
In addition, Schneider Electric has also announced it has entered into a collaboration with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology-Massachusetts Institute of Technology (HKUST-MIT) Research Alliance Consortium to advance IoT solutions and adoption.
One of the most interesting aspects of the announcement is the treatment of automation. After Schneider Electric acquired APC its message changed to promoting itself as a power company. Almost all mention of its factory automation products ceased. For years. (Remember Modicon?)
Following the acquisition of Invensys, especially the Foxboro and Triconex part, the company has routinely defined itself as a power and automation company.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 29, 2015 | Data Management, Manufacturing IT, Software
I’m still pondering the whole HMI/SCADA market and technologies. I’m still getting a few updates after the Inductive Automation conference I attended in California and the Wonderware conference in Dallas that I missed.
The two have traditionally been referred to in trade publications together.
Today, I think three or four things are blending. Things are getting interesting.
SCADA is “supervisory control and data acquisition.” The supervisory control part has blended into the higher ends of human-machine interface. Data Acquisition software technology is a key platform for what we are today calling the “Industrial Internet of Things.” I’ve heard one technologist predict that soon we’ll just say “Internet.”
Data acquisition itself is a system that involves a variety of inputs including sensors, signal analyzers, and networks. The software part brings it all under control and provides a format for passing data to the next level.
HMI also involves a system these days. Evolving from operator interface into sophisticated software that includes the “supervisory control” part of the system.
Some applications also blend in MES and Manufacturing Intelligence. These applications, often engineered solutions atop the software platforms, strive to make sense of the data moving from HMI/SCADA either using it for manufacturing control or as a feed to enterprise systems.
Wonderware has been an historical force in these areas. Its original competitor was Intellution which is now subsumed into GE’s Proficy suite. The other strong competitor is Rockwell Automation. All three sell on a traditional sales model of “seats” and/or “tags.”
Inductive Automation built from enterprise grade database technology and has a completely different sales model. It is driving the cost of HMI/SCADA, and in some ways MES, down.
Competitors can meet that competition by either pursuing a race to the bottom or through redefining a higher niche. The winner of the race to the bottom becomes the company built from the ground up for low individual sales price.
Wonderware announcements
All of that was just an analyst prologue to a couple of items that have popped up from Schneider Electric Software (Wonderware) over the past couple of days.
To my mind, Tim Sowell is addressing how some customers are taking these platforms to a new level. Writing in his blog last weekend, Sowell notes, “For the last couple of years we have seen the changing supervisory solutions emerging, that will require a rethink of the underlying systems, and how they implemented and the traditional HMI, Control architectures will not satisfy! Certainly in upstream Oil and Gas, Power, Mining, Water and Smart Cities we have seen a significant growth in the Integrated Operational Center (IOC) concept. Where multiple sites control comes back into one room, where planning and operations can collaborate in real-time.”
I have seen examples of this Integrated Operations Center featuring such roles as operations, planning, engineering, and maintenance. But this is more than technology—it requires organizing, training, and equipping humans.
Sowell, “When you start peeling back the ‘day in the life of operations’ the IOC is only the ‘quarterback’ in a flexible operational team of different roles, contributing different levels of operational. Combined with dynamic operational landscape, where the operational span of control of operational assets, is dynamically changing all the time. The question is what does the system look like, do the traditional approaches apply?”
Tying things together, Sowell writes, “Traditionally companies have used isolated (siloed) HMI, DCS workstation controls at the facilities, and then others at the regional operational centers and then others at the central IOC, and stitched them together. Now you add the dynamic nature of the business with changing assets, and now a mobile workforce we have addition operational stations that of the mobile (roaming worker). All must see the same state, with scope to their span of control, and accountability to control.”
The initial conclusion, “We need one system, but multiple operational points, and layouts, awareness so the OPERATIONAL TEAM can operate in unison, enabling effective operational work.”
Intelligence
Here is a little more detail about the latest revision of Wonderware Intelligence to which I referred last week and above.The newest version collects, calculates and contextualizes data and metrics from multiple sources across the manufacturing operation, puts it into a centralized storage and updates it all in near-real time. Because it is optimized for retrieval, the information can then be used to monitor KPIs via customizable dashboards, as well as for drill-down analysis and insights into operating and overall business performance.
“Wonderware Intelligence is an easy-to-use, non-disruptive solution that improves how our customers visualize and analyze industrial Big Data,” said Graeme Welton, director of Advansys (Pty) Ltd., a South African company that provides specialized industrial automation, manufacturing systems and business intelligence consulting and project implementation services. “It allows our customers to build their own interactive dashboards that can capture, visualize and analyze key performance indicators and other operating data. Not only is it more user-friendly, it has better query cycle times, it’s faster and it has simpler administration rights. It’s an innovative tool that continues to drive quality and value.”
Wonderware Intelligence visual analytics and dashboards allow everyone in the operation to see the same version of the truth drawn from a single data warehouse. The interactive and visual nature of the dashboards significantly increases the speed and confidence of the users’ decision making.
