Automation Fair Focuses on the Connected Enterprise

Summary

At the 23rd annual Automation Fair event hosted by Rockwell Automation in Anaheim, CA in November 2014, the company focused on the theme of "The Connected Enterprise" from multiple perspectives. Once again this year, in addition to the main Automation Fair event, the company sponsored two "pre-events," the annual Rockwell Automation Process Solutions User Group (PSUG) meeting and the Automation Perspectives event for the media and analyst communities.

The Automation Fair portion of the event, November 20 and 21, drew about 10,000 attendees, with about 4,850 global customers and over 144 exhibitors from the Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork program. The company held nine industry forums for food & beverage, mining, safety, OEM, The Connected Enterprise, oil & gas, power & energy, safety, and water & wastewater. Attendees had free access to 99 technical education sessions, 18 hands-on labs, and 17 workshops, all offering professional development credits. This free training is often the driving force that benefits customers attending the event.

The PSUG meeting on November 17 and 18 drew over 725 attendees from 30 countries and 22 industries, with 20 educational sessions offered. The Automation Perspectives event on November 18 also drew a good crowd of media and industry analysts. Here, speakers addressed the role of information-enabled machines at the site level, best practices for employee training and utilization, and ways to manage uptime in facilities. They also discussed the role of remote asset management, and how MES brings it all together.

Rockwell Automation "Walks the Walk" of the Connected Enterprise

At the Automation Perspectives event, ARC Advisory Group learned how the company is deploying Connected Enterprise principles and technologies in its own extensive manufacturing operations and the impressive benefits achieved to date. We found this encouraging, since it further validates our own ongoing research into the potential benefits of the emerging Industrial Internet of Things (IoT), an enabler for the Connected Enterprise.

As a major manufacturing company, Rockwell Automation has 20 manufacturing plants worldwide, carries about 387,000 different SKUs, and ships about 200 SKUs in an average order. Its challenge was to create a five-year plan to entirely restructure its facility and supplier network. It approached this challenge by first developing a detailed playbook that creates a "one and only one way" action plan to provide consistency and structure, and then dedicating appropriate resources to implement this playbook globally across all its manufacturing facilities.

Part of the playbook was to create a manufacturing operations management (MOM) solution for its facilities that combined Rockwell Automation solutions with complimentary solutions from its partners.

Initially, this involved creating a cloud platform to provide a scalable computing environment. The internal MOM solution leverages a secure network infrastructure via standard Ethernet. It used its FactoryTalk ProductionCentre for MES and VantagePoint EMI for information visualization and mobile data plus its Logix controller family for integrated, multi-disciplined control and information (bridging the IT and OT worlds). The solution also involved adding new smart assets, so data could be collected and shared throughout the enterprise, leveraging the principals of IoT.

According to the company, the results of implementing Connected Enterprise concepts and technologies in its own manufacturing operations have been transformative:

• Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO)
• Inventory lowered from 120 to 82 days' supply
• Capex reduced by 30 percent per year in capital avoidance
• Faster time to market, with on-time shipments increased from about 85 to 96 percent and lead times reduced by 50 percent
• Meeting customers delivery request date increased from 82 to 98 percent
• Improved quality with 50 percent reduction in defective parts per million
• Estimated 4 to 5 percent increase in productivity

Partner and New Product Announcements

A number of partner- and product-related announcements made at the 2014 Automation Fair helped demonstrate the commitment from Rockwell Automation to enable connected enterprise concepts in customers' plants.

Rockwell Automation and AT&T Develop Cellular Solutions to Connect Smarter Machines

In one announcement, we learned that the company is collaborating with AT&T to improve remote asset utilization and connected machine management. The two companies plan to deliver cellular solutions that more securely collect, manage, and take action on data from industrial equipment located in plants and remote sites. By bringing together the AT&T Global SIM and M2X Data Service platform with Rockwell Automation cloud-enabled service offerings, customers can connect remote experts to automation assets and industrial machinery.

The companies are also working to develop reference architecture and validated designs for cellular IoT deployments within industrial sites.

Wireless LAN Design and Implementation Guide Developed with Cisco

Rockwell Automation and Cisco worked together to produce a white paper and design and implementation guide, "Deploying 802.11 Wireless LAN Technology within a Converged Plant-wide Ethernet Architecture." The detailed design guidance is intended to help control system engineers, IT network engineers, and system integrators implement IP-based wireless networks.

The guide provides information on 802.11 wireless LAN (WLAN) solutions within a converged plantwide Ethernet (CPwE) architecture. It includes design considerations for fixed position, nomadic, and mobile equipment use cases. It also explains how to configure, maintain, and troubleshoot WLANs for each use case and documents how the architectures were tested and validated by Cisco and Rockwell Automation.

Added Mobile Connectivity to FactoryTalk VantagePoint

The company released its VantagePoint EMI v6.0 software designed to enable many digital devices to access optimized performance metrics and data analytics. The VantagePoint v6.0 software includes VantagePoint mobile to create displays and interact with data across HTML5-compliant browsers and mobile platforms, such as iOS and Android. Users can connect to the VantagePoint system and view web-based KPI content, with devices from smartphones and tablets to PCs.

According to the company, this connectivity provides the framework for delivering more information-enabled machines or processes. Improved diagnostics built into the VantagePoint v6.0 software on the server side, as well as more application-centric data sources, enable system administrators and integrators to view and display the overall health of the system and specific applications. Mobile users can receive and apply the VantagePoint software updates without having to uninstall, re-install, and re-validate their current application.

PlantPAx System Enhancements

Rockwell Automation added new virtualization, batch management, and integrated motor control capabilities to its PlantPAx process automation system.

Virtualization helps reduce system integration time, lowers hardware costs and burdens, and extends the lifecycle of plant equipment.

Upgraded batch software is more tightly integrated with the PlantPAx system. With new version-control capabilities, the software automatically tracks recipe changes and genealogy, and provides approval traceability to manage recipe release to production. The batch and sequence manager is suited for both skid control and stand-alone process units, such as mixers, blenders and reactors.

Through connectivity with motor control devices, such as AC drives, motor starters and electronic overload relays, the PlantPAx system simplifies motor control configuration and delivers diagnostic information directly to the operator at the HMI level. System users can monitor process conditions connecting to the EtherNet/IP network. Integrating intelligent motor devices into the plantwide control architecture can help improve asset availability, operational efficiency, and energy management.

Studio 5000 Logix Designer v24 Software Enhancements

New additions to the company's Rockwell Software Studio 5000 Logix Designer v24 software include an application-centric view of code, enhanced work flows for re-use of content, and new collaborative tools that make it easier for multiple people to connect and work together. The Studio 5000 Logix Designer software is used to configure Allen-Bradley ControlLogix and CompactLogix controllers for discrete, process, batch, motion, safety, and drive control.

New library management workflows make it easier to store and re-use intellectual property. The new workflows enable users to reuse sections of code, which helps reduce design time and simplifies future operational changes. The software supports the Allen-Bradley Kinetix 5500 servo drive with integrated safety and allows the Allen-Bradley PowerFlex 527 AC drives to use the motion instruction sets for machine control. Finally, the Allen-Bradley Dynamix 1444 integrated condition-monitoring system leverages Rockwell Automation Integrated Architecture to assess current equipment health, predict issues, and help avoid damage to machinery.

FactoryTalk ProductionCentre R10 MES Software

Rockwell Automation updated its FactoryTalk ProductionCentre MES software to work with a new HTML5 zero-footprint thin-client user interfaces (UIs). This helps eliminate the need for virtual terminals, such as CITRIX or terminal servers. Users can run the application in a web browser, integrate it into an HMI terminal, and implement it across multiple networks without the need for local installation. The thin client UIs can be extended to mobile devices.

A new I/O server was also introduced to enhance clustering and load balancing. Several FactoryTalk ProductionCentre I/O servers can be assigned a single IP address, so more servers can be added as the data load grows without significantly impacting the application. Should an I/O server fail, a built-in failover capability will automatically switch data collection to another server in the cluster, helping to ensure high availability. The I/O server also provides store and forward services for controlled, real-time data exchange with remote or cloud-based databases.

Latest Version of FactoryTalk Batch Software

The company also highlighted its latest version (v12.0) of FactoryTalk Batch software, designed to manage the approval process for recipe release to production and automatic tracking of the genealogy of recipes. Administrators can use the software to assign specific people or roles to approve recipes before they advance to the production line. With new version control capabilities, FactoryTalk Batch v12.0 software can preserve and lock recipes from changes. Later, the recipe can be checked out as a work in progress and automatically assigned a new version.

The updated software system automatically stores each version, allowing users to review their genealogy. FactoryTalk Batch software v12.0 was also designed to provide additional protection from intellectual property theft. With security-authority binding, FactoryTalk Batch software helps protect recipes and area models. This extra layer of security helps ensure unauthorized users cannot access important information.

Kinetix 5500 Servo Drive with Integrated Safety

The company released its Allen-Bradley Kinetix 5500 servo drive with integrated safety, leveraging a single EtherNet/IP network, as well as a common design environment with Rockwell Software Studio 5000 Logix Designer software. With high-speed coordination to meet motion requirements, the drive uses the EtherNet/IP network to further streamline machine safety functions. The EtherNet/IP network allows safety signals to travel via the same wires and IP addresses used for control and motion. This helps eliminate the need for a hardwired safety system.

In addition to motion and control parameters, users now can configure the safety system within the Logix Designer software. They can unlatch the safe torque off function, program an unlimited number of set points, change safety zoning, and re-use code to maintain system validation.

Conclusion

At Automation Fair, Rockwell Automation provided a variety of solutions demonstrating the value of "The Connected Enterprise," through the timely and well-executed theme of the event.

All industries face issues, such as sustainability, preserving and extending the life of capital assets, increasing asset utilization, maximizing operational effectiveness, reducing fixed costs, minimizing variable costs, and empowering workers. Rockwell Automation clearly believes that the Connected Enterprise provides a path to address these somewhat daunting and often interactive challenges and is working hard to provide its customers with the appropriate enabling technologies; often in conjunction with its strategic partners.

One challenge for Rockwell Automation is to clearly address the issue of cyber security in the Connected Enterprise, a major concern for most industrial customers. ARC believes that the company's partnership with Cisco should help address these concerns.

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Keywords: Automation, Connected Enterprise, Wireless, Ethernet, EMI, IoT, MES.