Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
As manufacturers seek to find ways to leverage IIoT technology into practical applications that offer quick ROI’s and increases to their bottom lines, they look for opportunities to see demonstrations of how multiple suppliers can collaborate their IIoT offerings to not only communicate with each other in a plug & play fashion, but also enable enhanced production solutions in a seamless fashion. Manufacturers cannot risk losing production by installing hype. For IIoT to provide value to manufacturers, it must offer solutions that help to, for example, speed up the set up and changeover of production lines, enable production in ever smaller lot sizes, and maintain competitiveness of factories in high-wage countries. Even with standardized interfaces and the help of information technology, proof-points must be developed that demonstrate that IIoT can offer flexible, automated “plug & produce” production solutions that address manufacturers biggest challenges, such as ever shorter product life cycles, increasing product personalization, and growing cost pressures.
Manufacturers seek proof-points of how IIoT can solve some of their production challenges. For example, can IIoT help control physical parameters, such as the dimensions of the goods being produced, the height of the conveyor belts moving those goods, or the positioning of goods on those conveyor belts, by enabling solutions from different manufacturers to work together. Can IIoT help control electromechanical parameters, such as standards-based connections or the detection of production goods via RFID, by providing a basis for flexible, collaborative “plug & produce” solutions. Agreed upon IT and communication standards must allow sharing of pre-defined product and production flow data between suppliers. This is where technologies that leverage IIoT can help enable the necessary collaborative communications that tie together a plethora of solutions.
One method of creating an IIoT proof-point is to find a neutral third party organization that will partner with a multitude of suppliers and build a demonstration of these IIoT collaborating solutions to ensure reliable plug & produce capabilities. Peter Seeberg, Market Segment Manager, Factory Automation at Softing Industrial Automation, suggested that ARC look to Kaiserslautern, Germany-based SmartFactory, which offers a manufacturer-independent demonstration and research platform developed jointly with 16 out of a total of 40 diverse partners, including Softing, that collectively provide manufacturing, infrastructure, and integrated IT solutions that collaborate via IIoT technologies. In the latest SmartFactory demonstrator platform, a simulated production process consists of solutions from partners, such as Belden/Hirschmann , Bosch Rexroth, Cisco, E-Plan, Festo, Harting, IBM, Lapp Kabel, MiniTec, Phoenix Contact, Pilz, proALPHA, TE Connectivity, TÜV SÜD, Softing Industrial Automation, and Weidmüller, leveraging OPC UA, to provide the IIoT connectivity that ties all these partner’s offerings together and provides a collaborative plug & produce solution. Thanks to this collaboration, SmartFactory has developed what they claim is the world's first manufacturer-independent Industrie 4.0 plant.
To enable this SmartFactory demonstrator’s IIoT collaboration, operational and product data is collected from each solution via OPC UA, then enriched and stored in a data historian in a structured manner. Analytical results are then derived from this data in order to prevent production bottlenecks, waste, rectification and down times. The IBM Integration Bus, which receives the OPC UA information model based data being translated on the fly into an MQTT format, serves as a data hub for the IT systems, such as E-Plan and proALPHA, as well as for the IBM Predictive Maintenance and Quality solution. MQTT stands for MQ Telemetry Transport, a publish/subscribe, simple and lightweight messaging protocol, designed to minimize network bandwidth and device resource requirements.
OPC UA Allows for Flexible, Plug & Produce Production
The central .NET Client and the OPC UA information model of the SmartFactory demonstrator was developed using the Softing OPC UA .NET client development toolkit. After the individual solution’s status data has been transmitted to the information model, the .NET client initially detects the system topology. As soon as it is assigned the corresponding job by the ERP system, it initiates the production process and, by means of the information model, tracks the module and the processing step in which the respective product is located within the system. The information in the OPC UA information model, such as topology, production status, customer number and the priority of the product at hand are continuously updated and thus enable a “plug & produce” exchange between the modules as well as a flexible design of the system for production oriented toward a batch size of as little as one.
For IIoT, OPC UA is a data exchange standard for manufacturer and platform-independent industrial communication. It enables data exchange between products from different manufacturers and across operating systems. The OPC UA standard is based on specifications that were developed in close cooperation between manufacturers, users, research institutes and consortia, in order to enable information exchange in heterogeneous systems.
Form ARC’s perspective, the SmartFactory demonstrator is a good example of developing a collaborative third party solution that can provide manufacturers with a field-proven reliable model, which can be used as a proof-point that disparate solutions can be effectively tied together leveraging IIoT via OPC UA. This helps manufacturers to justify IIoT technology, minimizing their fear of losing production due to technical issues or investing in a solution that does not have a short ROI. The demonstrator also shows that IIoT can offer flexible, automated “plug & produce” production solutions that can address manufacturer’s biggest challenges today and into the future.
Manufacturers seek proof-points of how IIoT can solve some of their production challenges. For example, can IIoT help control physical parameters, such as the dimensions of the goods being produced, the height of the conveyor belts moving those goods, or the positioning of goods on those conveyor belts, by enabling solutions from different manufacturers to work together. Can IIoT help control electromechanical parameters, such as standards-based connections or the detection of production goods via RFID, by providing a basis for flexible, collaborative “plug & produce” solutions. Agreed upon IT and communication standards must allow sharing of pre-defined product and production flow data between suppliers. This is where technologies that leverage IIoT can help enable the necessary collaborative communications that tie together a plethora of solutions.
One method of creating an IIoT proof-point is to find a neutral third party organization that will partner with a multitude of suppliers and build a demonstration of these IIoT collaborating solutions to ensure reliable plug & produce capabilities. Peter Seeberg, Market Segment Manager, Factory Automation at Softing Industrial Automation, suggested that ARC look to Kaiserslautern, Germany-based SmartFactory, which offers a manufacturer-independent demonstration and research platform developed jointly with 16 out of a total of 40 diverse partners, including Softing, that collectively provide manufacturing, infrastructure, and integrated IT solutions that collaborate via IIoT technologies. In the latest SmartFactory demonstrator platform, a simulated production process consists of solutions from partners, such as Belden/Hirschmann , Bosch Rexroth, Cisco, E-Plan, Festo, Harting, IBM, Lapp Kabel, MiniTec, Phoenix Contact, Pilz, proALPHA, TE Connectivity, TÜV SÜD, Softing Industrial Automation, and Weidmüller, leveraging OPC UA, to provide the IIoT connectivity that ties all these partner’s offerings together and provides a collaborative plug & produce solution. Thanks to this collaboration, SmartFactory has developed what they claim is the world's first manufacturer-independent Industrie 4.0 plant.
To enable this SmartFactory demonstrator’s IIoT collaboration, operational and product data is collected from each solution via OPC UA, then enriched and stored in a data historian in a structured manner. Analytical results are then derived from this data in order to prevent production bottlenecks, waste, rectification and down times. The IBM Integration Bus, which receives the OPC UA information model based data being translated on the fly into an MQTT format, serves as a data hub for the IT systems, such as E-Plan and proALPHA, as well as for the IBM Predictive Maintenance and Quality solution. MQTT stands for MQ Telemetry Transport, a publish/subscribe, simple and lightweight messaging protocol, designed to minimize network bandwidth and device resource requirements.
OPC UA Allows for Flexible, Plug & Produce Production
The central .NET Client and the OPC UA information model of the SmartFactory demonstrator was developed using the Softing OPC UA .NET client development toolkit. After the individual solution’s status data has been transmitted to the information model, the .NET client initially detects the system topology. As soon as it is assigned the corresponding job by the ERP system, it initiates the production process and, by means of the information model, tracks the module and the processing step in which the respective product is located within the system. The information in the OPC UA information model, such as topology, production status, customer number and the priority of the product at hand are continuously updated and thus enable a “plug & produce” exchange between the modules as well as a flexible design of the system for production oriented toward a batch size of as little as one.
For IIoT, OPC UA is a data exchange standard for manufacturer and platform-independent industrial communication. It enables data exchange between products from different manufacturers and across operating systems. The OPC UA standard is based on specifications that were developed in close cooperation between manufacturers, users, research institutes and consortia, in order to enable information exchange in heterogeneous systems.
Form ARC’s perspective, the SmartFactory demonstrator is a good example of developing a collaborative third party solution that can provide manufacturers with a field-proven reliable model, which can be used as a proof-point that disparate solutions can be effectively tied together leveraging IIoT via OPC UA. This helps manufacturers to justify IIoT technology, minimizing their fear of losing production due to technical issues or investing in a solution that does not have a short ROI. The demonstrator also shows that IIoT can offer flexible, automated “plug & produce” production solutions that can address manufacturer’s biggest challenges today and into the future.