FEATURE u Industry 4.0
A new era of industrial computing
Marc Garner, VP Secure Power Division, Schneider Electric UK and Ireland, explores how to mitigate application downtime in the era of smart manufacturing
T
oday, increased levels of automation, advanced robotics, AI and machine learning are driving unparalleled change
within industrial manufacturing environments. With growing levels of complexity, industrial applications demand secure, on-site computing systems that offer the user high levels of security, ultra-fast connectivity and, above all, resilience. Indeed, with growing digitisation, many operators are required to meet shorter lead times, faster deliveries and have tighter margins. Keeping downtime to a minimum is, therefore, a key concern for manufacturers. The era of smart manufacturing has begun to
drive a new wave of IT technologies into industrial spaces, where edge computing systems ensure privacy and data security, while guaranteeing uptime and addressing bandwidth requirements
16 January 2022 Irish Manufacturing
that have become crucial to operations. This is of particular relevance for Ireland, where the manufacturing sector contributes 12 per cent of total employment with €12.5 billion in wages and employment axes annually, almost three in 10 manufacturing jobs are in high-tech sectors, four times the EU average, according to the Ibec Manufacturing in Ireland Report 2021.
IDENTIFYING THE EDGE APPLICATION For Industry 4.0, edge computing bridges the gap between cloud and on-premises infrastructure. The traditional drawback of the cloud has been high levels of latency or low response times, caused by the distance between the infrastructure supporting it and the location of the application. Even with the proliferation of existing data centres in Ireland, IT at the industrial edge offers
users the best of both worlds, placing physical infrastructure and business-critical IT closer to the point of use, enabling businesses to combine the benefits of cloud computing with the ultra-fast response times required by on-site equipment. This is especially so for businesses such as agri- food, where Ireland is the largest net exporter of dairy ingredients, beef, lamb and spirits in Europe. With many processing and manufacturing plants often sited in rural locations, far from the clusters of urbanised data centres. Applications that benefit from edge computing
can, in general, be subdivided into three categories, each with their own specific designs and benefits. They include IT facilities; commercial and regional offices; and Industrial or harsh environments. The latter often comprises ruggedised micro data centres deployed in locations where
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