by Gary Mintchell | Nov 27, 2015 | News, Productivity
I only visit Websites when I am doing research. I never browse Websites searching for new information. Most information flows to me through a carefully curated RSS feed into Feedly. Otherwise, notifications key me into new information that may be important guiding me to a Website for a deeper dive.
Steve Gillmor (The Gillmor Gang) has been a notifications advocate (after his brash “Microsoft is dead” and “RSS is dead” mantras got old). Early on he berated Twitter for dropping tracking and then for its inability to provide a strategy for sorting through the firehose of tweets to cull out only what’s important.
Last month, he and John Borthwick of Betaworks teamed for a Notifications Summit last month. Videos of the presentations can be found at TechCrunch or on iTunes (searching for Gillmor Gang), or here at Betaworks.
Take a dive into these technologies especially if you are a software developer. The information also educates users into what is possible and into perhaps new ways of finding the important signal amongst all the noise.
Borthwick’s introduction can be found on Medium. (Note: I’m also beginning to post on Medium. Seems to be an interesting new media idea.)
Borthwick wrote, “A few months ago Steve Gillmor and I discussed bringing together key people we knew who were building, designing and innovating around mobile notifications for a half day meeting. The meeting or summit — as we ended up calling it — took place on October 1st. We had about 50 people in attendance here at betaworks, it ran half the day. ”
Conference organizers take note. A very important and substantive gathering was held in a half-day. Note the quick-paced panels that were at once informal and punctual.
Anyway, back to Borthwick, the conference led with an important observation, “Right now we are witnessing another round of unbundling as the notification screen becomes the primary interface for mobile computing.”
Then he added, “Adam Bosworth kicked off the day with a discussion of how the notification stream represents complete re-construction of internet and HTTP from pull to push. This shift was predicted for a while but now it’s driving our primary mobile compute experience.”
There is a sense we can say that we’ve had notifications for years in automation and control. They are called “alarms.” Let us begin to think more creatively about the value of notifications in our work. It’s the future–and it’s here.
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 23, 2015 | Automation, Manufacturing IT, News, Operations Management
I spent more time and took far more notes at the Operational Intelligence stand on my tour of Rockwell Automation’s annual fete, Automation Fair, than any other–even Integrated Architecture which I reported last week.
One reason was a press release that I received regarding a “co-invention” between Rockwell Automation and Microsoft on a mobility solution. This will become a great enabler of the Connected Enterprise according to the release. Unfortunately, when I studied the release, I couldn’t figure out what “it” was. Probably too many companies and too many marketing managers trying to get their two cents in resulting in too many nice-sounding but vague words 😉
Thanks to Ryan Cahalane, director of software product management, and others, I came away with enough of an understanding to see how potentially valuable this project could be.
Mobility
Let’s start with mobile devices. Workers at all levels are bringing them to work whether IT is ready or not. When you own one, you want to use it. So, why not leverage commercial technologies developed by Microsoft (its Project Thali) with industrial application and robustness from Rockwell (Project Stanton).
Rockwell is making extensive use of HTML 5. But this toolkit in development includes a technology called JXcore from Nubisa. JXcore is a Node distribution. It is designed for developing applications for mobile and embedded devices using JavaScript and leveraging the Node ecosystem. Use the same codebase for server and mobile applications.
The toolkit enables Rockwell Automation offerings with a consistent web-based user interface for a specific device; tablet, smartphone or desktop and now includes a prototype app, dubbed Project Stanton (@Project_Stanton).
Operational Intelligence From Logix
The second technology I wish to discuss is the latest release of FactoryTalk VantagePoint 7.0. Rockwell Automation says, “For manufacturers, making swift use of big data just got easier. The addition of import and configure mobile-based work flows in the FactoryTalk VantagePoint enterprise manufacturing intelligence (EMI) v7.0 software enables the one-time configuration of a manufacturing intelligence solution.”
This software provides users a seamless way to access their Logix-based data by providing a simple, guided work flow to store and visualize information. Everything from installation, configuration and visualization has been enhanced and consolidated – so users can interact with their Logix-based control data from their device of choice: PC, tablet or smartphone. To promote intelligent decision-making, the new work flows enable authorized users to store and visualize specific data views and trends, and easily share these views with collaborators across the enterprise.
“The FactoryTalk VantagePoint experience now provides access to manufacturing information faster than ever,” said Angela Rapko, product manager, EMI Software Portfolio, Rockwell Automation. “For users, this more cohesive and intuitive experience is a significant step forward. The less time operators spend configuring systems, the more they can focus on how their plants are actually functioning. We have truly reduced the time to trend data with this release.”
Additionally, FactoryTalk VantagePoint software will now silently install with FactoryTalk Historian SE software from Rockwell Automation. Upon completion, the user will be greeted with a VantagePoint mobile Web page, including the new import and configure options.
From any PC or tablet, a user can browse through the FactoryTalk Directory server to an online controller; select the tags from which they aim to collect associated data; and configure scan rates and additional historian parameters. Once this process is complete, the selected tags are stored in the FactoryTalk Historian solution and automatically configured for the FactoryTalk VantagePoint software. By simultaneously configuring tags, a user within the VantagePoint mobile work flow makes a few simple selections in order to begin collecting data, and creating dashboards and trends.
Also new, FactoryTalk VantagePoint v7.0 software offers SQL Server Express with install. This removes complex licensing options from the install process.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 27, 2015 | Automation, Data Management, Internet of Things, News, Operations Management
The Internet of Things does not exist in a vacuum. Just putting devices on the Internet with Internet Protocol will achieve nothing. That only generates data. The data must reside somewhere that is organized and easily accessible.
We have come to identify that place as the “cloud”. The cloud is a server bank that may or may not be on the premises. Examples of cloud services include Amazon Web services and Microsoft Azure.
I wrote about Dell’s introduction of a gateway device to enable Internet of Things through connection to edge devices and passing data on to the cloud. To further this, at Dell World, Dell and Microsoft Corp. announced a new cloud solution and program that enable organizations of all sizes to use the Microsoft cloud platform to transform their business. A new, Microsoft Azure-consistent, integrated system for hybrid cloud and extended program offerings will help more customers benefit from Azure and Dell to drive greater agility and increased time to value, whether they choose on-premises or public cloud solutions.
“A core part of our mission to empower every organization on the planet requires us to build world-class platforms and forge deeper partnerships that help businesses of all sizes transform with digital technology,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “By expanding our longstanding partnership with Dell to offer a truly integrated hybrid cloud, we will make the cloud more accessible to organizations of all sizes with the choice and flexibility to best meet their needs.”
“Digital transformation is an imperative for business today, and we are making our customers’ journey easier and faster through adoption of hybrid cloud,” said Michael Dell, CEO, Dell. “Dell shares a vision with Microsoft that open architectures and simplified cloud management will benefit customers of all sizes, freeing them to focus on their businesses and not their technology.”
Azure-consistent integrated system for hybrid cloud
Customers are increasingly turning to hybrid cloud as a way to achieve the agility and cost-savings of the cloud while maintaining control of their assets. Extending their commitment to deliver simple yet powerful hybrid solutions, Microsoft and Dell announced Cloud Platform System Standard (CPS Standard), the newest addition to the Microsoft Cloud Platform System (CPS) family. CPS is the industry’s only integrated system with a true hybrid cloud experience, built on optimized Dell modular infrastructure with pre-configured Microsoft CPS software, including the proven Microsoft software stack and popular Azure services.
The hybrid cloud experience comes from the platform’s consistency with Azure, enabling agile deployment and operation of workloads and allowing customers to build multi-tiered, scalable applications. A fully integrated, preconfigured system, CPS Standard is purpose-built to remove many of the complexities and costs traditionally associated with hybrid cloud deployments, including the following:
Quick time to value and operational simplicity. CPS Standard arrives ready to be plugged in and can be up and running in as little as three hours, while operations, patching and updates are simplified with an automated framework.
Simplified business continuity. In case of a datacenter outage, CPS Standard features archival backup to Azure and failover to Azure that is easy-to-activate, reliable and cost-effective.
Increased flexibility. Its modular design allows customers to start smaller and incrementally scale from four to up to 16 servers based on business needs.
CPS Standard is shipping now with Windows Azure Pack, System Center 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012 R2 and is ready to install Microsoft Azure Stack when it becomes available. Dell and Microsoft also offer CPS Premium for large enterprises and service providers requiring a higher-capacity hybrid cloud solution.
Dell joins Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program
To help customers leverage the cloud, Dell also announced that it has joined the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program and will sell Microsoft cloud solutions across Azure, the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) and Office 365. This will help customers accelerate their journey through end-to-end cloud, mobility, identity and productivity solutions that drive new innovation, improve employee productivity and increase security.
The combination of Azure services and Dell’s hardware, software and consulting services will assist customers through their entire hybrid cloud journey from inception to implementation. Consultants will be trained to help customers build tailored cloud solutions to address a range of core business needs including hybrid infrastructure deployments, elastic scale and bursting, backup and disaster recovery, Web and mobile development, and data and analytics.
As a Cloud Solution Provider, Dell will also provide end-to-end enterprise mobility and identity solutions, based on EMS and Azure Active Directory, to empower employees and protect corporate data and applications. EMS, combined with Windows 10 and Office 365, provides a comprehensive platform, productivity tools and management capabilities to help secure company data without compromising mobile productivity experiences.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 7, 2015 | Asset Performance Management, Internet of Things, Operations Management, Technology
UPDATED: Carpenter’s title changed after I wrote this. Also GE Intelligent Platforms is now called GE Digital.
GE now bills itself as the “digital industrial” company. It has realized the benefits of technologies such as the Watchdog Agent developed by the Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems for monitoring and prognostics and the Industrial Internet of Things within its own manufacturing processes—especially aircraft engines.
Evidently it now all starts with the “digital thread.” To understand what was meant by this term, I was chatted with Rich Carpenter, Chief of Strategy Technology Strategist for GE Intelligent Platforms Digital.
I asked if this was essentially just a marketing term. “The digital thread is a way to describe a concept,” he told me. “People have become good at “leaning” out the manufacturing process. Now we are leaning out the entire new product introduction cycle. They are optimizing to the end of the path from design to engineering. Closing that loop and carrying forward to manufacturing.”
Companies have accumulated big data infrastructures, so they are also leaning out interactions between digital silos by managing the data flows. This enables remote diagnostics.
Carpenter also mentioned a process I’m beginning to hear around the industry. First you connect things—people, sensors, machines. Then you collect and analyze the data you get from the process. Finally given all this, you can begin to optimize the process.
Official word
Here is a definition from GE, “While the Industrial Internet may be unchartered territory to some manufacturers, early adopters are starting to understand the benefits of the ‘Digital Thread – a web of data created the second they initiated their Industrial Internet journey. The digital thread is the result of several advanced manufacturing initiatives from the past decade, creating a seamless flow of data between systems that were previously isolated.
“This data is essentially the manufacturing health record, which includes data from everything to operator logs to weather patterns, and can be added to as needed. For example, you could compile the digital threads across multiple plants to get a full understanding of the efficiency and health of particular processes and product lines. This record provides data context and correlations between downtimes and outside factors, allowing operators to be proactive in their maintenance strategies.”
Health
I especially appreciate the term “manufacturing health record.” That’s a term Jay Lee at the IMS Center used often in the first phase of prognostics and the Watchdog Agent—a consortium that GE played an active part in.
Digital twin
We’ve heard of cyber-physical systems, and then Industry 4.0 which is a digital manufacturing model based upon it. Now we have a new term, “digital twin” which Carpenter says is a new way to describe a real world physical asset. Then, trying to optimize it, we’ll create a digital representation—a model based on statistics or physics. We run the model, then apply successes of the simulation in the real asset. Then feedback the information.
News release predictive analytics
GE held a conference in September that I could not attend. So, I talked with Rich Carpenter and some marketing people and obtained these press releases. These technologies and applications reveal where GE is heading as a Digital Industrial Company—and where it can take its customers, as well.
GE’s predictive analytics solution, SmartSignal, will be available as part of GE Digital’s Asset Performance Management (APM) solutions on the Predix platform, the purpose-built cloud platform for industry. SmartSignal powered by Predix will deliver anomaly detection with early warning capabilities that is SaaS-based and therefore at a lower cost and at a higher speed, making it accessible to a broader range of distributed equipment.
“Until now, advanced equipment monitoring and predictive anomaly detection capabilities have only been available to enterprises with significant resources, both in terms of machinery expertise and capital,” said Jeremiah Stone, General Manager, Industrial Data Intelligence Solutions for GE Digital. “Because of this, insight gained through predictive analytics has been limited to high value assets due to these cost and knowledge barriers.”
Companies see condition-based maintenance as a means to cut existing operations & maintenance costs. With SmartSignal powered by Predix, they will be able to capitalize on cloud and Big Data platforms to drive more efficient and productive operations.
“There is an unmet need in the industry for a cloud platform that supports the unique requirements of industrial data and operations,” said Harel Kodesh, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President & GM of Predix. “GE Predix is the first cloud platform to meet these demanding requirements. By leveraging GE’s deep domain expertise in information technology and operational technology, Predix provides a modern cloud architecture that is optimized for operational services like asset connectivity, managing and analyzing machine data, and industrial-grade security and regulatory compliance.”
Today, SmartSignal technology provides early warning detection for more than 15,000 critical assets in customer operations. According to May Millies, Manager of Power Generation Services, Salt River Project, “SmartSignal has us listening to the right data and using that data to impact our work operations.” Salt River Project provides reliable, reasonably priced electricity and water to more than two million people in Central Arizona. Integrating data to improve visibility into operations was a key to maintaining their standing with customers. “Now that we have realized the incredible performance of the software and how strong and robust it is, we are improving asset utilization across the enterprise.”
Brilliant manufacturing
In a second announcement, GE announced the next version of its Brilliant Manufacturing Suite. Field-tested and optimized within GE’s own factories, the suite maximizes manufacturing production performance through advanced real-time analytics to enable all manufacturers to realize GE’s Brilliant Factory vision.
“Today’s demands on manufacturers are driving an unprecedented rate of change, innovation and agility,” said Jennifer Bennett, General Manager for GE Digital’s Manufacturing Software initiatives. “Manufacturers are challenged to decide what to build, how to build it, where and when to build it, and how to efficiently maintain it. We believe that the key to optimizing the full product life cycle from design to service is through analytics of data that has been traditionally locked inside corporate silos.”
GE’s Brilliant Manufacturing Suite allows customers to begin to realize their own vision of a Brilliant Factory. Integrating and aggregating data from design to service and leveraging analytics to support optimal decision-making allows manufacturers to drive improvements in end-to-end production. Analyzing data in context and providing the right information at the right time allows for better decision support throughout the manufacturing process. Data-driven analytics encompassing machines, material, people and process will transform the factories of today into Brilliant Factories.
GE’s next generation Brilliant Manufacturing Suite includes:
- OEE Performance Analyzer – available for early access today, it transforms real-time machine data into actionable production efficiency metrics so that Plant Managers can reduce unplanned downtime, maximize yield and increase equipment utilization.
- Production Execution Supervisor – digitizes orders, process steps, instructions and documentation with information pulled directly from ERP and PLM systems. Factories are able to ship higher quality products and deliver new product introductions faster by getting the right information in the right hands to focus on the highest priority manufacturing tasks.
- Production Quality Analyzer – real-time identification of quality data boundaries that catch non-conforming events before they occur. Quality engineers can analyze this information to identify patterns and trends that enable factories to ship higher quality products faster.
- Product Genealogy Manager – builds a record of all personnel, equipment, raw materials, sub-assemblies and tools used to produce finished goods. Service personnel can respond to customer and regulatory inquiries with confidence, knowing who, what, when, where and how for an individual shipment.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 1, 2015 | Commentary, Software, Technology
I have heard from friends (non-editors) who attended the Wonderware software conference. I have edited their news items into what I hope is a coherent post. This news includes some significant information that I have not seen elsewhere, yet. I should get my friends to report more. Getting the point of view of users is valuable. I hope you agree.
This also shows what I was talking about Monday where an industry leader under attack can push the envelop a different direction in order to remain fresh and offer customers more.
1) “It’s getting really cloudy.”
They showed off a number of tools, some old, some new that are all based around a cloud platform or at a minimum communication with the cloud. They are continuing to push really really hard the Wonderware Online and Smart Glance products. Talking with Saadi Kermani, the main evangelist for them, they are in continual release mode and have a long list of planned features that will be rolling out over the coming months designed to keep them up with, or exceed, competitive offerings.
“Also the new version of Smart Glance is really nice and very modern look and feel.” The best part about something like smart glance is that it’s a relatively simple product to get up and running for your org. And pretty cost effective to boot. “My personal analysis is that what will make Wonderware Online super valuable is an ecosystem of partners building sophisticated apps in cloud platforms like Azure and others.”
Some other big cloud stuff. They previewed Wonderware Development Studio online. Now you can log on with a web browser, stand up an environment picking and choosing which machines you want, what software is installed on each, how the redundancy is configured, etc. Hit go and in some amount of time..maybe an hour or so… the machines are ready for you to login via remote desktop running on Azure. This seems like a really awesome setup for integrators that don’t want to maintain a bunch of different environments and versions. Supposedly there was no cost to have then configured. “My only concern is the pricing and how easy it might be to run up a $1K bill before you know it. I did ask about the idea of buying the IP and underlying system that did the automation so you can run it on premise. If I remember right the person I was talking to said it might be possible but wasn’t on the current roadmap.”
2) Hello IOT
A guy from Microsoft had a nice presentation on Monday afternoon talking about Azure and how Azure fits into the IOT space. It was a bit high level but I think we need all the education we can get right now.
During the intro sessions on Tuesday John Krajewski discussed a little more about IOT and specifically talked about their new MQTT OI Server. OI Server is the new name they have given to IO drivers. They are doing some different things with packaging and scalability but that’s incidental to the IOT discussion. Back to IOT, they have written a server that can talk MQTT natively so you can seamlessly push and pull data to/from System Platform with other devices talking MQTT just like you would a PLC.
Alvaro Martiniez the product manager admitted it was early Alpha stage for the product but I hope it opened some people’s eyes to possibilities. “I can’t wait to get my hands on it.”
An integrator presentation to a standing room only crowd discussed multiple aspects of IOT. It was really broken into three parts. The first was an overview of 5 of the major protocols one might come across when getting into the IOT space. Next was a technical deep dive on one of the protocols, MQTT. [Gary’s note: At the Inductive conference, I attended a session by one of the developers of MQTT. This is an important protocol, riding atop TCP/IP stack, that can standardize IoT messaging.] Next were 4 or 5 demos showing the use of MQTT inside or integrated with System Platform and the Historian. “My personal favorite was showing how you could build a simple set of code that read MQTT data and sent it directly to the Historian… which in theory means you could have 100% cloud infrastructure for piping device data straight over to the Wonderware Online historian.”
3) Next Gen
They have been working on revamping the System Platform look, feel, and function for the last few years. The 2014 releases have made some pretty big shifts in the functionality space but nothing major expected until the next release. Tim Sowell’s comments about a unified operations center are dead on with the vision.
The biggest change you are going to see.. and they talked about this very publicly so I don’t think I’m giving anything away, is that InTouch is no longer the shell for visualization. It is now essentially a compiled stand-alone app that is build from many panes that you create and configure from within the System Platform Graphics platform. The visualization engine will use the context of the graphics and objects to make navigation easier. “But the bigger concept is that this is now an operations center, not a simple HMI.”
Longer term there should be a play for higher end integrators and pure software plays to develop Apps that plugin to the operations center and provide additional value and context.
Lots and lots of discussion of context. When these apps are run inside the operations center they will automatically know what’s being displayed on the screens and can automatically adjust. A simple example is that you pull up a graphic with a tank farm. Maybe you have a video feed app with live cameras on the tanks and it automatically swaps to the correct camera view. Or you have another pane with customers orders from the ERP so you know what tanker trucks you should be expecting in the next few hours. “While this has technically been possible before I think the key is that they are going to be adding a lot of functionality to make these otherwise standalone functions a first class citizen within the Operations view.”
They are also making big changes in the development environment trying to make the engineering experience more user friendly. To me this is a clear play to make System Platform look a lot less intimidating and make the 15 minute demo a lot easier and more obvious. For high end engineers and integrators this new layout and development method will probably be a turnoff but I think it will help Wonderware tell the System Platform story easier and get newer, less sophisticated, customers on board.
