THE IoT


Reduce overheads and downtime with OT to IT convergence


By Matt Lundberg, technical lead, industrial IoT, Impulse Embedded


he convergence of IT technology into Operational Technology (OT) machinery opens the door to a world of transparency and risk mitigation not normally available in the industrial space, and reducing downtime, overheads and operation issues are just some of the benefits to making the transition into an Industrial IoT integrated OT installation.


T What defines OT?


The term OT, defines physical machinery located in industrial workspaces. Machines in the more modern OT space comprise things such as valves, pressure tanks, motors, PLCs, all with moving or degradable parts, which require some level of maintenance to prevent failures.


With physicality comes the requirement for safety. With moving parts in large machinery


34 MAY 2021 | ELECTRONICS TODAY


for instance failures can not only be costly in repairs and downtime but could also result in injury to machine operators and factory workers. Should a valve become defective, or a sensor monitoring that valve, the consequences can be disastrous. Longevity is also a big factor in Operational Technology installations. Factory owners look for reliability and stability, as frequent obsolescence or short lifespans of physical machinery can lead to costly upgrades, replacements, and issues with downtime caused by difficulties in component sourcing when critical systems fail. The longer a machine can operate at its optimum level, the lower the cost of ownership. Although hardware dominates the OT space, software is still very prevalent in more modern machinery, but comes with many limitations. Many machines, particularly


those from the last decade or two, still require some form of processing to allow them to operate. For instance, robots on the production line require a PLC, or control device, to tell it how to operate — turn, rotate, pick up, connect — all these commands require some computing power to process and deliver to the machine in a particular order. Traditionally, vendors create and distribute their own proprietary software and protocols, Siemens Profinet/Profibus being examples of this, which not only locks hardware owners to one vendor, but can also be very costly as further software is often needed just to program the PLC. There are ways to combat the limits of vendor- specific protocols, such as Moxa’s protocol conversion tools which convert vendor protocols into the more universal Modus protocol, but again, more expense is incurred


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