by Gary Mintchell | Jan 2, 2015 | Automation, Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT, News, Operations Management, Organizations, Standards, Technology
Last month, the Obama administration announced another smart manufacturing initiative through a “Notice of Intent to Issue FOA.” That is a “Funding Opportunity Announcement.” This follows another initiative in which the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition was awarded funds to develop several test beds.
In government-speak:
DE-FOA-0001262: Notice of Intent to Issue FOA entitled “Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute on Smart Manufacturing: Advanced Sensors, Controls, Platforms, and Modeling for Manufacturing” (DE-FOA-0001263)
The purpose of this Notice of Intent is to provide potential applicants advance notice that the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO), on behalf of the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), intends to issue a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) entitled “Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute on Smart Manufacturing: Advanced Sensors, Controls, Platforms, and Modeling for Manufacturing” (DE-FOA-0001263).
This Notice is issued so that interested parties are aware of the EERE’s intention to issue this FOA in the near term. All of the information contained in this Notice is subject to change. EERE may issue a FOA as described herein, may issue a FOA that is significantly different than the FOA described herein, or DOE may not issue a FOA at all.
NO APPLICATIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED THROUGH THIS NOTICE. Please do not submit questions or respond to this Notice of Intent. Prospective applicants to the FOA should begin developing partnerships, formulating ideas, and gathering data in anticipation of the issuance of this FOA. It is anticipated that this FOA will be posted to EERE eXCHANGE early in the year 2015.
FOA Documents
This announcement was accompanied by a release from the White House tying funding to enhancing US manufacturing export capability. The announcement reads:
[On December 11, 2014], at a meeting of the President’s Export Council (PEC), President Obama announced nearly $400 million to help improve the competitiveness of American businesses and workers by spurring new manufacturing innovations and giving America workers additional opportunities to improve and expand their skill sets for middleclass jobs.
To help support new advancements in manufacturing, the President will announce more than $290 million in public-private investment for two new Manufacturing Innovation Hub Competitions. The announcement fulfills the President’s 2014 State of the Union pledge to launch four new institutes this year, for a total of eight institutes launched so far, and puts the Administration past the halfway mark on the President’s original goal of creating 15 manufacturing innovation institutes supported through executive action.
In addition, the President will announce $100 million to expand apprenticeships for American workers – a proven training strategy for workers to learn the skills that employers need for American businesses to grow and thrive in a competitive global environment. Apprenticeships are also a path to the middle class – 87 percent of apprentices are employed after completing their programs and the average starting wage for apprenticeship graduates is over $50,000.
During the meeting, President Obama will also highlight the continued need to reform and simplify our tax code and the importance of opening up new markets abroad for American-made goods and services through tough, fair new trade agreements.
The PEC, chaired by Jim McNerney, President and CEO of Boeing and vice-chaired by Ursula Burns, Chairman and CEO of the Xerox Corporation, is the principal national advisory committee for exporting. The Council advises the President on government policies and programs that affect U.S. trade performance; promotes export expansion; and provides a forum for discussing and resolving trade-related problems among the business, industrial, agricultural, labor, and government sectors.
Last year, the United States exported $2.3 trillion dollars of goods and services, an all-time high, and today, exports support more than 11 million American jobs across 300,000 businesses. Manufacturing, in particular, is the engine behind our exports and innovation – contributing the majority of the nation’s exports and nearly three-quarters of its private-sector R&D. And American manufacturing is more competitive than it has been in decades, growing nearly twice as fast as the economy overall and adding 764,000 jobs since February 2010.
At the same time, businesses looking to move production to the United States consistently cite the skills of America’s workers, the most productive workforce in the world, as the reason for rooting jobs and investment here. These announcements build on that competitive strength by investing in manufacturing innovation and upgrading the skills of American workers through the proven model of apprenticeships.
Manufacturing Institutes
Manufacturing institutes serve as a regional hub, bridging the gap between applied research and product development by bringing together companies, universities and other academic and training institutions, and Federal agencies to co-invest in key technology areas that encourage investment and production in the U.S. This type of “teaching factory” provides a unique opportunity for education and training of students and workers at all levels, while providing the shared assets to help small manufacturers and other companies access the cutting-edge capabilities and equipment to design, test, and pilot new products and manufacturing processes.
Department of Energy-led Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute
A third of the nation’s energy consumption goes into manufacturing. New smart manufacturing technologies – including advanced sensors and sophisticated process controls – can dramatically improve energy efficiency in manufacturing, saving manufacturers costs and conserving the nation’s energy.
The Department of Energy will lead a competition for a new public-private manufacturing innovation institute focused on smart manufacturing, including advanced sensors, control, platforms, and models for manufacturing. By combining manufacturing, digital, and energy efficiency expertise, technologies developed by the institute will give American manufacturers unprecedented, real-time control of energy use across factories and companies to increase productivity and save on energy costs.
For energy intensive industries – like chemical production, solar cell manufacturing, and steelmaking – these technologies can shave 10-20% off the cost of production. The new institute will receive a federal investment of $70 million that will be matched by at least $70 million in private investments and represents a critical step in the Administration’s effort to double U.S. energy efficiency by 2030.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 1, 2014 | Automation, News, Safety
I’ve worked with the safety system team at Rockwell Automation for many years. We’ve done a couple of podcast interviews that were among my most downloaded. This one on Safety Maturity Index and this one on Safety Automation Builder. Below are details of a new machine safety program.
To help manufacturers identify best-in-class safety system integrators – with current safety standards expertise, a proven track record in building safety systems, and knowledge of productivity-enhancing safety technologies – Rockwell Automation has created the Machinery Safety System Integrator program.
“A recent Aberdeen report found best-in-class organizations are 81 percent more likely than low performing organizations to leverage outside services to design and install compliant machinery safety solutions,” said Mark Eitzman, manager of safety market development, Rockwell Automation. “The challenge comes in finding and vetting the most capable provider for the job. Rockwell Automation created the Machinery Safety System Integrator program to ease that process and connect manufacturers to machinery safety system integrators they can trust.”
Program candidates must meet stringent requirements and complete a rigorous, months-long assessment and education process. Only existing Rockwell Automation Solution Partners or Recognized System Integrators can qualify for the program. Candidates must have three to five years of demonstrated machinery safety experience. Rockwell Automation recognizes third-party certification from industry-accepted organizations, such as TÜV or exida.
Upon meeting these initial requirements, Rockwell Automation machinery safety experts conduct a candidate assessment to determine if additional training or experience is required. The candidate’s safety engineers must then complete training modules on topics, such as global safety standards, safety risk assessment practices, and different types of safeguarding applications. Lastly, the candidate must submit a machinery safety project to ensure it demonstrates methods consistent with global standards.
The collaborative nature between Rockwell Automation and its Machinery Safety System Integrators allows for seamless assessment, design, mitigation and validation of machinery safety systems. And as members of the Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork program, these companies also commit to an active and extensive relationship with Rockwell Automation to provide the most productive and cost-effective automation solutions to their customers.
Twenty companies have joined the Machinery Safety System Integrator program in the following countries:
- Belgium: DC Engineering (Langemark-Poelkapelle), Egemin Automation (Zwijndrecht)
- Columbia: TREETEK SAS (Cali)
- Denmark: 3Tech Automation (Fredericia)
- England: AND Automation (Ilkeston), Bilfinger Industrial Automation Services (Chesterfield, Derbyshire), Newfield Automation (Congleton), Westbury Control Systems (Leicester)
- Germany: Gundlack Automation GmbH (Verden)
- Mexico: Advanced Machine Control SAPI de CV (AMCO) (Cuautitlán, Izcalli), IDTec Automatización (Guadalupe, Nuevo León), Target Robotics (San Luis Potosi)
- Netherlands: Egemin Automation (Gorinchem)
- Scotland: H&G Systems (Broxburn)
- Spain: Sistrol (Madrid)
- United States: Automation Solutions of America (Beloit, Wisconsin), Barry-Wehmiller Design Group (St. Louis, Missouri), E-Technologies Group (West Chester, Ohio), Polytron (Duluth, Georgia), TBD Solutions (Ogden, Utah)
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 20, 2014 | Automation, Education, Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT, News, Operations Management, Organizations, Process Control, Safety, Security, Software, Technology
It is time to start thinking about the annual ARC Industry Forum. I’ve attended every one beginning in 1998. It is a major industry gathering. It is largely about ARC’s clients, but the only industry people I don’t see in Orlando are competing analysts. A good place to see and be seen as they say.
ARC Advisory Group has announced the keynote presenters for its 19th Annual Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida, February 9-12, 2015. These include: Peter Holicki, Corp. Vice President, Manufacturing & Engineering and Environment, Health & Safety at Dow Chemical; Gregory Touhill, Deputy Asst. Secretary, Cyber Security Operations & Programs at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; and Stephan Biller, Chief Manufacturing Scientist at General Electric.
These keynote presenters and a large number of other distinguished engineering, IT, and operations executives will share concepts, approaches, and success stories that address the forum theme: Industry in Transition: The Information Driven Enterprise for the Connected World. The event will address top-of-mind concerns about the impact of new business models and disruptive, IT-based technologies on energy companies, manufacturers, and other industrial organizations.
In -depth workshops include cyber security, developing the future workforce, sustainable reliability, and the Industrial Internet of Things.
Individual forum sessions
- Reducing the cost and duration of capital projects
- Creating and sustaining a proactive maintenance culture
- Gaining value from predictive analytics
- Approaches for integrated control and electrification
- Enterprise recipe management
- Asset performance management (APM)
- Building a secure-by-design Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)
- Future directions for process automation systems
- Latest trends in operator training simulators
- Information continuum for plant design and operations
- Complex event processing
- Network best practices for connected assets
- Best practices for selecting technology and partners for greenfield and brownfield projects
- Workforce improvement through targeted training
- Enterprise manufacturing intelligence (EMI)
- Remote monitoring and diagnostics
- Machines as a service enabler
- Leveraging smart field systems
Forum attendees will learn about field-proven processes and techniques that are helping improve quality, performance, and agility at leading manufacturers and other industrial organizations around the world. As always, there will also be ample opportunities for attendees to network and socialize with their peers over the course of the four-day event.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 9, 2014 | Automation, Education, Process Control
One of the more popular and discussed sessions at Emerson Global Users Exchange 2014 focused on working with and transferring process control knowledge to young people born in the 80s–The Millennials. The presenters were fellow “old guy” with new ideas and Emerson’s Chief Blogger Jim Cahill and a certified Millennial Danaca Jordan who is a staff engineer for Eastman Chemical. Oh, I should mention she has a BS in Chemical Engineering.
The point of the session was to present ways of communicating with (the preposition is chosen purposely) these younger engineers entering the industrial workforce. Unfortunately (but good for discussion) a couple of aging Boomers in the audience challenged the Millennials as being too shallow and deficient in critical thinking skills. Did I mention she had a BS in Chem E?
When we were young, the learning model was tell/listen. The bosses and teachers knew everything, and we were to come to the fount of wisdom and partake. I think it’s only partly because of young and technical, but also what we’ve learned about learning that there is a better way. Therefore the first point they made was that learning is a collaborative effort. “It can’t be boomer shoving things out of his brain.” The three parties to the learning environment all contribute something. The company provides tools and time; experts knowledge and direction; trainees topics and feedback. Millennials view managers as coaches and mentors rather than content experts. They view learning as a shared responsibility.
As for format of training, the (and most of us, I think) want short, accessible, searchable content. YouTube how-to videos of 5-15 minutes. By the way, they commonly skip the first 30 seconds of introduction and bio which is non value add. For example, Danaca was in the plant without the other point experts when there was a problem with a Coriolis meter. She went to YouTube, found a MicroMotion how-to video, and solved the problem. In the old days, an engineer would have fumbled around for hours trying to figure it out.
They pointed to a few resources for starters including the MicroMotion YouTube channel, OSIsoft learning channel, MIT Open Courseware.
Interaction is third principal. Use documentation that allows comments. Incorporate forums and wikis.
If you are involved with transferring knowledge to young engineers–and I hope you are–then take these lessons to heart and practice.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 30, 2014 | Operations Management, Software
MYNAH Technologies, a leader in life cycle dynamic simulation, for operator training and certification and ProSys, a leader in Dynamic Alarm Management have announced a strategic partnership to bring operator training and certification services to the process industries.
This partnership will provide a unique offering of MYNAH’s Mimic Simulation Software and dynamic model engineering services with ProSys operations optimization and training services. This partnership will provide the process industries with unique offerings for certifying operators and improving operations effectiveness.
“With ProSys’ knowledge of process engineering and controls and MYNAH’s simulation platform and process modeling, we are now teamed to deliver operator training solutions that address today’s problems in the process industries”, said Dustin Beebe, President and CEO of ProSys. “Simulations allow us the opportunity to train operators for the operational situations they need most – critical modes of operation like startup, shutdown and process upsets. With this we can train a new generation of operators without having to re-experience all of the incidents of the past 30 years.”
In addition to using the Mimic Simulation Software for training purposes, ProSys plans to utilize Mimic Simulation Software for testing of alarm management within plants. ProSys will be able to utilize Mimic to better predict and eliminate errors in alarm management systems.
