Rockwell Automation Expands Capabilities for The Connected Enterprise

Summary
Rockwell Automation continues to evangelize its vision of "The Connected Enterprise." According to the company, The Connected Enterprise is not about technology itself, but about the value that companies can derive by adopting Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and related technology approaches. Current enabling technologies include information management and analytics, scalable computing, mobility and visualization, secure network infrastructure, multi-discipline control and information, and smart assets.

Clearly, IIoT-based industrial applications such as data analytics, cloud and virtualization, and mobility, are already available. However, Rockwell Automation believes that The Connected Enterprise brings contextualization and analysis to the data using technologies that make it meaningful by converting data into actionable information. Smart devices add even more things to analyze. This technology can also be applied to existing legacy systems to eliminate the need to "rip and replace" the older technology.

The Connected Enterprise is not just about connecting applications. It's about connecting people. It's connecting processes in more flexible ways so those processes can extend beyond the organization, connecting companies with both their suppliers and their customers. To advance the vision, Rockwell Automation has released a host of new and upgraded solutions, and dedicated its primary global event, Automation Fair, to this vision.

Automation Fair 2015
Rockwell Automation used its annual Automation Fair event, held this past November 18 and 19 in Chicago, IL, to further showcase its company-wide focus on The Connected Enterprise. It was the company's 24th annual Automation Fair, with an attendance of about 13,500 and over 150 exhibits from Rockwell Automation and its Partner Network. Attendees had free access to 90 technical education sessions, eight industry forums, and 19 hands-on labs to receive professional development credits. This is often the driving force that help the company's Automation's customers justify attending the event.

Before Automation Fair, the annual Rockwell Automation Process Solutions User Group (PSUG) meeting was held on November 16 and 17. PSUG offered over 30 hands-on labs and technical sessions, and case study presentations from over 25 customers. On Tuesday, November 17, global media and industry analysts attended Automation Perspectives to hear about the benefits that The Connected Enterprise can deliver to automation operations and machine builders. Panelists also shared their experiences in converging IT and OT systems and addressed key considerations for securing industrial control systems. The event included speakers from 3M, Andersen Corporation, General Mills, Maynilad Water Services Inc., Mullins Food Products and Shell, and alliance partners AT&T, Cisco, Endress+Hauser, FANUC, and Microsoft.

Mobility Collaboration with Microsoft
Rockwell Automation made numerous announcements related to The Connected Enterprise in recent months. For example, the company announced a mobility collaboration project with Microsoft designed for industrial environments, where wireless network connections are not always reliable. This is being driven by industrial workers that are increasingly turning to mobile devices to help improve productivity and collaboration, but need interfaces tailored to the specific device.

The toolkit emerging from this collaboration enables Rockwell Automation offerings with a consistent web-based user interface for a specific device; tablet, smartphone or desktop, and now includes a prototype app, dubbed Project Stanton (@Project_Stanton). The two companies demonstrated the product toolkit and the prototype of the new app at Automation Fair.

New Initiatives with FANUC
Rockwell Automation and FANUC began their initial collaboration four years ago in the CNC and Logix PAC environments. They have expanded their collaboration on several new initiatives regarding secure remote monitoring and safety aggregation, leveraging IIoT technologies. This further enhances the secure network infrastructure provided by Rockwell Automation and Cisco's partnership.

Products that are part of this collaboration include the FANUC Zero Downtime (ZDT) cloud-based application that leverages data analysis to help predict and prevent unexpected downtime from automation equipment, used in a connected infrastructure.

Updated PlantPAx DCS
As a key part of The Connected Enterprise portfolio, Rockwell Automation also released an updated version of its PlantPAx distributed control system (DCS). New system capabilities include enhancements to the design environment; adoption of new enabling technologies; and enhanced control capabilities.

This updated version of the PlantPAx system includes expanded estimation, design, and development guides. The updated documentation and design capabilities reportedly help increase automation productivity; decrease the time required to deploy the system; and reduce life-cycle costs. New pre-built control strategies were developed within the company's library of process objects.

The updated PlantPAx system leverages The Connected Enterprise with built-in mobility and network improvements, including embedded, Cisco technology for enhanced network performance and cybersecurity. Smaller control systems can be integrated into larger enterprise networks with a common, supported network infrastructure.

The latest PlantPAx system also now includes a mobile component that enables users to create displays and interact with process data across any HTML5-compliant mobile platform.

Other system enhancements include integrated PlantPAx model predictive control (MPC), alarm management, and batch management, all operating in a common environment. Control-based PlantPAx MPC provides the ability to more predictably manage external and complex process disturbances and help maximize process performance to reduce waste and variability.

The updated system also leverages the recently introduced batch application toolkit to help reduce the risk, time and cost of implementing batch control systems.

Next-Generation Integrated Architecture Portfolio
Rockwell Automation also released its expanded next-generation Integrated Architecture portfolio. This includes a newly released Allen-Bradley controller, graphic terminal, servo drive and distributed I/O system, as well as the latest release of the Rockwell Software Studio 5000 and FactoryTalk software offerings. A response to smart manufacturing, the expanded portfolio is designed to help users reduce complexity and meet future capacity and throughput needs as they design systems for The Connected Enterprise. New additions include new Studio 5000 software, a new ControlLogix 5580 controller, a new version of Allen-Bradley Kinetix 5700 servo drive, a new version of Allen-Bradley Distributed Compact I/O system, and a new Allen-Bradley PanelView 5500 graphic terminal.

The new Studio 5000 software brings more functionality together into one environment to help simplify and speed system development. In addition, the latest releases of FactoryTalk ViewPoint Mobile software and FactoryTalk VantagePoint Mobile software allow users to more easily engage with their production information on mobile devices.

The new Allen-Bradley ControlLogix 5580 controller provides up to 45 percent more application capacity and includes an embedded one-gigabit Ethernet port to support high-performance communications, I/O, and applications with up to 256 axes of motion. The new port and additional capacity helps cut the amount of control and communications hardware required to reduce system complexity, costs, and required panel space.

The new version of Allen-Bradley Kinetix 5700 servo drive is a single-platform alternative to using multiple servo drives for larger custom machines with higher axis-count and power requirements. This can help reduce cabinet-space requirements by up to 70 percent and wiring requirements by as much as 60 percent. Also, a new version of Allen-Bradley Bulletin 5069 Distributed Compact I/O system has two one-gigabit Ethernet ports that scans 10 times faster than previous versions to help provide greater productivity. The system can connect to as many as 31 modules without the need to expand

The new Allen-Bradley PanelView 5500 graphic terminal provides a more modern design and more enhanced integration with Logix controllers using the Studio 5000 View Designer application. This integration helps to improve programming efficiency, because engineers can enter configuration information once and use it for the entire automation design.

FactoryTalk VantagePoint Updates
The company also released updated FactoryTalk VantagePoint enterprise manufacturing intelligence (EMI) v7.0 software. This adds capabilities to import and configure mobile-based work flows, enabling one-time configuration of a manufacturing intelligence solution.

This latest version of FactoryTalk VantagePoint software enables users access their Logix-based data through a guided work flow to store and view information, which includes installation, configuration, and visualization. Users can interact with their Logix-based control data from their PC, tablet, or smartphone. The new workflows enable authorized users to store and visualize specific data views and trends, and share these views with collaborators across The Connected Enterprise.

This latest version of FactoryTalk VantagePoint software also will now silently install with Rockwell Automation's FactoryTalk Historian SE software. Upon completion, the user will be greeted with a VantagePoint mobile web page, including the new import and configure options.

With this latest version of FactoryTalk VantagePoint software, a user can browse through the FactoryTalk Directory server to an online controller from any PC or tablet, select the tags from which they aim to collect associated data; and configure scan rates and additional historian parameters. By simultaneously configuring tags, a user within the VantagePoint mobile work flow makes a few selections to begin collecting data and creating dashboards and trends across The Connected Enterprise.

Among other platform enhancements, the FactoryTalk VantagePoint v7.0 update also includes logarithmic trending, improved mobile navigation, and Windows 10 support. The software now also offers SQL Server Express with install, replacing complex licensing options.

Conclusion
Rockwell Automation's The Connected Enterprise vision starts with network convergence. This requires moving from proprietary standards to open standards; and from disparate IT and OT networks to converged, secure, and collaborative operations.

The company recognizes that the journey to The Connected Enterprise is not without turbulence. Implementation challenges include organizational alignment, competency and talent, technology adoption, data security and privacy, and interoperability standards. Some of these relate to transforming an organization's structure to be able to derive value from innovation. This often requires some skill sets that organizations do not yet have. IIoT-enabled collaboration can help make up for these gaps in competency and talent by making expertise elsewhere in the company available remotely.

For Automation Fair attendees, the company Automation provided a variety of solutions at all levels of a manufacturing enterprise in a multitude of vertical industries to demonstrate the need for The Connected Enterprise. 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 their workers. This cannot be achieved without making the necessary changes.

Cybersecurity remains another major challenge. Fortunately, its partnership with Cisco puts Rockwell Automation in a good position here.

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Keywords: Automation, Connected Enterprise, Mobility, IT, OT, IIoT, Convergence, ARC Advisory Group.