COVER STORY
Accelerating the transition to Industry 4.0 with Industrial Ethernet connectivity
By Fiona Treacy, Strategic Marketing Manager, Analog Devices T
he fourth industrial revolution is changing the way we create products thanks to the digitisation of our manufacturing
and process facilities. We have seen the benefi ts of automation over many decades, systems now fueled with enhanced data, machine learning and artifi cial intelligence. Today, autonomous systems are becoming more interconnected and are communicating, analysing and interpreting data to enable auxiliary intelligent decisions and actions in other areas of the factory. Smart-factory initiatives are creating new business value by increasing output, asset utilisation and overall productivity. They are leveraging new data streams to enable fl exibility and refi ne quality, all while reducing energy consumption and residual waste. Increasingly, edge-to-cloud connected intelligent systems are enabling manufacturing environments to become more effi cient by adapting in support of mass customisation. The benefi ts of Industry 4.0 are
predicated on leveraging increased data for better decision making. Timely access to the data and its delivery throughout the automation system hinges on the connectivity network. Networking technology must evolve to handle the increased data volume, as must the manufacturers’ processes and methodologies. An intelligent, interconnected automation environment requires digitally-connected systems, machines, robots, etc., creating and sharing information. The means by which these machines communicate and the factory communications network they use is at the heart of the enterprise and the enabler for our Industry 4.0 ambition.
The need for seamless connectivity
from every sensor and actuator across the factory fl oor, even those in remote locations, is not possible with existing infrastructure. If the future is data and its combination at enterprise level to provide actionable insights, the challenge
8 October 2020 | Automation
Figure 1: Cloud infrastructure
Figure 2: The merging of two worlds - information technology (IT) and operating technology (OT)
becomes fi nding a way to enable these unprecedented volumes of data to fl ow without crippling the communication network designed to transmit it. This raises the question of how to architect, build and deploy an industrial communications network that will meet the needs of today’s automation environments and tomorrow’s virtual-factory fl oors.
Why Industrial Ethernet? With connectivity being central to the Industry 4.0 vision, three things must become a reality to deliver a truly connected enterprise. Firstly, the higher level information technology (IT) or enterprise infrastructure must converge with the plant fl oor control network. Secondly, the various networks or manufacturing cells currently on factory fl oors must all coexist and interoperate. Thirdly, we need seamless, secure connectivity across our process environments, from the edge of the process to the enterprise cloud. To address these challenges, we need to adopt a foundational networking technology that can support the goal of interoperability, expandability and reach. Ethernet emerges as the ideal
solution, being a well-understood technology with extensive deployments. Off ering high bandwidth and enabling fast commissioning, it is also deployed extensively in the IT infrastructure of all manufacturing environments. However, standard Ethernet is not a viable solution for industrial control infrastructure given the need for real-time operation. Operational technology (OT) control networks need to ensure that the message being communicated is delivered to where it is needed, on time. This ensures the correct operation of the task or process at hand. The TCP/IP protocol for routing traffi c does not inherently guarantee this level of deterministic performance. In the same way that standard Ethernet enables fi le sharing or access to network devices such as printers, Industrial Ethernet allows controllers to access data and send instruction commands from PLCs to sensors, actuators and robots dispersed across the factory fl oor. The key diff erence is the impact of delayed or undelivered messages. In non-real-time applications, if the webpage is slow to update, the impact is minimal, while in a manufacturing environment, the impact can be high, from wasted materials to
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