Feature Exhibition Review The Connected Industrial Enterprise
During the recent Rockwell Automation Fair that took place in Houston, Texas, in November, chairman and CEO Keith Nosbusch outlined the future for global automation, industrial processes and the ‘Connected Enterprise’. Automation magazine editor Joe Bush reports
Below: Keith
Nosbusch, chairman and CEO of Rockwell Automation
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n his opening address at the 2013 Automation Fair, Nosbusch high- lighted that future global demo- graphic trends will increase the demands on manufacturing and put more stress on resources and infrastruc- ture. This in turn will force manufactur- ers to drive out any inefficiencies of processes in order to stay competitive. He further highlighted that the devel- opment of the ‘Connected Enterprise’ will offer a number of benefits to develop a more productive and sustain- able world - namely a safer, more acces- sible food supply through tracking and tracing across the entire supply chain; better energy management and produc- tion facilities through integrated control and information solutions that monitor energy, power quality and interact with the smart grid in real time to optimise energy costs; more affordable oil and gas production through advanced process control and high availability systems; and less waste in a wide range of pro- duction processes.
Nosbusch commented, “In the last few years there has been an increase in consensus that we are entering the era of the internet of things (IOT) - a world were billions of smart devices and machines are connected to the inter- net. Cisco (a Rockwell partner) has estimated that up to $14 trillion of potential value is at stake in the inter- net of everything - 27% of that value will be in manufacturing. This is by far the biggest opportunity across the entire IOT landscape. “We believe IOT will accelerate the Connected Enterprise, but to capture this value manufacturing must adopt technologies such as cloud, mobility, big data analytics and security, and while leading manufacturers have started deploying some of these tech- nologies, the Connected Enterprise promises to accelerate their adoption.”
The enablers
Nosbusch continued, “The cloud allows collection and analysis of data from remote and field-based assets. The cloud enables companies to move
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IT application off premises and host them at remote data centres. This will drive a huge increase in wide area net- work trafficking. Another Connected Enterprise building block is mobility - the adoption of standard IT-based net- working facilitates information shar- ing - anywhere, anytime. Mobility is not only about the device, it is about people being mobile and accessing applications on the go. Huge amounts of data is already being delivered and viewed on mobile devices in industry, but for that adoption rate to continue security must keep pace. High visibil- ity attacks on production processes and infrastructure have increased and we’ve seen our best customers move security from a non-priority to one of their most critical business concerns. Industrial security must be effectively addressed as we build out the Connected Enterprise.
“Big data and analytics is becoming increasingly important to support collab- oration, decision making, and better ways to support customers in the Connected Enterprise. In fact manufac- turing supports more big data than any other sector whilst also being very rich -
infrastructure is a key enabler for the Connected Enterprise, since nothing can be isolated anymore.” Nosbusch went on to highlight a Connected Enterprise example that illustrated the transformation of real time data to actionable information through plant wide visibility and ana- lytics, citing the way in which Toyota integrates its data for continuous improvement via the use of Rockwell Automation’s VantagePoint software. In the company’s Kentucky facility dashboards with real time information have drastically improved real time trouble shooting capabilities. Real time correction is now possible - min- imising re-work and scrap. It is consid- ered by the paintshop maintenance team as the best tool they have. Commenting further on the issue of big data, Nosbusch continued, “There are many assets in a typical plant - all with something to say - but are they being heard? Historically data has been trapped in these assets due to dis- parate automation technology, machines and equipment from many different machine builders, legacy and proprietary communication systems, and an inability for devices and con- trollers to add contacts to run data and turn it into useful information. The result is that the plant floor is difficult to
collect, aggregate or analyse. Above: Keith
Nosbusch discusses the Connected Enterprise at Automation Perspectives on the opening day of Automation Fair 2013
including important information such as energy efficiency and asset health. As control and information become more integrated, open IP interface networking, cloud and mobility enables more data to become available for analytics and real time problem solving. This data analytics is important, not just for a plant or multi- ple plants but for the entire supply chain - extending all the way out to the end consumer. A common secure network
Integrated control and information solutions from Rockwell Automation break down these barriers by bringing secure access to this data and provide actionable information about what is really happening in the plant, such as production throughput, process qual- ity, asset health and energy efficiency.” Nosbusch emphasised that the inter- net of things magnifies the power of this contextualised data by allowing it to be shared by a much broader set of users throughout the manufacturing supply chain, and when that is com- bined with application expertise it cre- ates real customer value.
Security
Another key element of the Connected Enterprise is security, as Nosbusch con- tinued, “Historically plant automation and business networks have been segre- gated and isolated, using different tech-
JANUARY 2014 Automation
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