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The Connected EnterpriseThe best of TechED 2015: Trends, solutions and success stories

A Special Report from the the Editors of

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“As we move into the future, your information becomes somebody else’s business. Technology will continue to bring us closer together, and the convergence will fuel growth.” Frank Kulaszewicz delivers the keynote address at Rockwell Automation TechED.

When “Back to the Future” premiered on the big screen in 1985, Frank Kulaszewicz was

just starting his career in automation. Now, in his 30thyear in the industry, he addressed many of the more than 2,000 individuals representing 45 countries attending Rockwell Automation TechED 2015 in San Diego.

“Everyone in this room is involved with industrial automation,” said Kulaszewicz, who is senior vice president, architecture and software, at Rockwell Automation.

“We’ve seen solid-state control and the convergence of IT and OT for a more unified approach. We’ve seen things change.”

As much as the technologies have changed, the people have changed, too. “Domain expertise is becoming a challenge,” explained Kulaszewicz. “The younger folks entering the workforce are important because they understand new technologies, and they grew up with the Internet and social media. 

“These Millennials and Gen Zs work differently,” Kulaszewicz said. “This changing workforce is one of the aspects of smart manufacturing. As we move into the future, your information becomes somebody else’s business. Technology will continue to bring us closer together, and the convergence will fuel growth.”

The challenge isn’t the amount of data, said Kulaszewicz. The Connected Enterprise as the Rockwell Automation vision is about getting the right data from multiple sources and turning that data into information, turning information into knowledge and turning knowledge into wisdom.

“We design faster. We commission faster. And we operate machines with better information,” he explained.

“Just two years ago, we introduced The Connected Enterprise as the Rockwell Automation vision. It’s an enterprise that can be optimized and transformed to deliver value. We’re achieving that vision today with our customers. We deliver it

THE CONNECTED ENTERPRISE OF THE FUTUREA simplified and system-wide approach collects data for more intelligent operations.

By Mike Bacidore, editor in chief, Control Design

Trends

through our three core platforms—integrated architecture, intelligent motor control, and solutions and services.”

The Connected Enterprise is part of a changing world, said Kulaszewicz. “The future of manufacturing is quite bright,” he explained. “Smart automation solutions deliver faster time to market, improved asset utilization, lower total cost of ownership, and enterprise risk management through secure network infrastructures. Automation, such as Rockwell Software Studio 5000, will impact how enterprises design, operate and maintain. Security becomes an imperative. A secure automation environment includes infrastructure, authentication and policy management, tamper protection and content protection.”

SIMPLIFIED AND SYSTEM-WIDEThis enlightened and secure new world requires a very different way of looking at networks, explained Ryan Cahalane, director of software product management, control & visualization business, at Rockwell Automation. The ability to interface with information must be simplified, as users’ queries can take almost any form and originate from any interface, but they all require wisdom that leads to better-optimized operations. Similarly, that wisdom needs to be ubiquitous, whether it’s in a localized device, in the cloud or in any node on the network.

“One of the biggest challenges of big data is data movement and normalization. More intelligence and context at the source of the data means you don’t have to move or spend effort translating that data, and can perform smarter analytics in real time and within ‘edge’ devices,” said Cahalane, whose group also has broken down product silos to deliver system level value leveraging an integrated yet open platform to optimize investments.

As plants’ adoption of new system technologies is largely based on the retirement of non-working assets, how does Rockwell Automation advance implementation without waiting for system failures of existing networks to occur?

“This is an area that’s overlooked when it comes to IoT,” explained Cahalane. “The IoT opportunity is generally cast like a greenfield message, but the real opportunity is with mixed, and even brownfield, applications. With The Connected Enterprise, it gives us a chance to look at our portfolio as a system, and look at the user from a simplification standpoint. When you look at a plant, the last thing you want to do is touch a working system. If I have a new line going in, that’s easier.

“But The Connected Enterprise gives the opportunity to overlay intelligence in your existing assets,” Cahalane said. “I can revisit things that used to be hard, and acquire and share data. The real opportunity is in hybrid applications where I have new and I have existing. If I’m doing a new line or system, the device will come with rich and well integrated data, but there is also a great deal of data locked away in existing assets.

With system thinking, the change is that we look at which diagnostics we put into, say, that PowerFlex drive, and we are already thinking about how that data will be used across the platform. How can we streamline that configuration? How can we make our user experience consistent across products to reduce learning curves? How can we automatically compare performance or expose diagnostics in the HMI?

The approach is system-level thinking with simplification, explained Cahalane. “We are doing a much better job of sharing the concepts of information as part of our integrated controls infrastructure,” he said. “Each device, each software package—we’re thinking about it

from a system standpoint, rather than from a product standpoint. My next-generation HMI will serve up information and allow you to interact with data and other people.

“Historically, data management has been through a top-down, standards-driven, centralized data-management system or repository,” Cahalane said. “The Internet is diametrically opposed to that. The semantic Web is much more organic and new. The concepts are fundamentally driving what we’re doing with our platform development. A smarter asset comes pre-tagged. I want to ‘historize’ information and make it available as I create the control system.”

Mobility plays a role in the system’s information sharing, as mobile devices become nodes on the network. “Every device becomes a node in The Connected Enterprise,” said Cahalane. “With Studio

5000, you can now design the control layer and the visualization layer in one environment. You can build the interaction with your drives and with your Logix controller. You can drag and drop, and it builds the system for you. The integrated design environment is a huge deal. Components within our system work together even more fluidly, have a consistent user experience, and integrate more seamlessly into our customers’ environments. As we look at things from a system standpoint, we’re unlocking new value that might have been underappreciated or underutilized, and solving our customers needs in fresh and more modern ways.”

“Sometimes people have a hard time figuring out what it takes to get connected,” said Beth Parkinson, market development director, The Connected Enterprise, at Rockwell Automation.

Parkinson’s presentation on a day in the life of a production order in The Connected Enterprise was one of the Super Sessions at Rockwell Automation TechED in San Diego.

“There are use cases out there in the market of people being connected,” said Parkinson. “They’re doing this to improve their network security, or they are upgrading their automation from legacy information environments, or they are figuring out if they are needing more in terms of information visibility from Rockwell’s MES and information portfolio. But what does a connected enterprise really look like if you put all those pieces together? Some are very connected. Take the automotive industry—they have

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET CONNECTED?A visionary look at the concepts and technology used in The Connected Enterprise.

By Dave Perkon, technical editor, Control Design

“Approximately 14% of industry is completely connected, but 80% have some connectivity. Where are you, and what is your road map?” Beth Parkinson, market development director, The Connected Enterprise, at Rockwell Automation, explained how to get started at Rockwell Automation TechED.

been integrating information into the manufacturing facility for a long time. However, in some industries, it’s not an integration; it’s more of a handoff.”

Industrial business drivers include smart manufacturing and related government coalitions, industry consortiums and standards, and buzzwords such as the Internet of Things (IoT). “Where’s the adoption around the Internet of Things?” asked Parkinson. “There’s a lot of hype around it, but where are we in that adoption stage? Everyone likely is a little connected, but others are very connected.”

With the IoT, most machines have information enablement built into the machine, but where and to whom does that information flow? In many cases, what’s happened traditionally is the data has been localized to the users of that equipment and perhaps the people who are maintaining that equipment, explained Khris Kammer, manager, information software, Rockwell Automation.

“More and more, what we’re seeing is that, when we’re connecting these sensors, devices, people and machines together, we have an unprecedented opportunity to bring information to people who didn’t have it before for the purpose of them improving the process,” he said. “This is the central theme of the

enterprise manufacturing intelligence story—bringing the right information to the right people at the right time.”

That cannot happen without the information sources. “This information can come from machines, but it can also come from people who are working and interacting with the process,” explained Kammer. “We can do that with low-effort and no-effort user interfaces. It used to be a lot of typing in data. Being connected eliminates the user having to translate what’s going on with the process or machine. Instead, we are using the equipment to do that and letting the people consume it in a form that makes sense to them based on their roles.”

About one-third of industry is deploying Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) or will be soon, according to LNS Research. And according to an IndustryWeek Survey, “Approximately 14% of industry is completely connected, but 80% have some connectivity between their operations and enterprise systems. Where are you, and what is your road map?” asked Parkinson, who advised the audience to learn from the experiences of those who have started to make these connections and learn where the value comes from.

“The Connected Enterprise improves efficiency by transforming information into insight, increasing ROI, getting to

market faster and dramatically reducing waste,” said Parkinson, who offered an example of a cookie manufacturer with a rush order of 50,000 cookies with custom recipe and custom packaging.

Without connectivity, the manufacturer didn’t have enough time or capacity. It was slow work to reconfigure machines, change quality systems and update package graphics. With the more efficient Connected Enterprise, a real-time view of plant performance and global operations was available. OEE and the schedule were visible, and the new recipe was easy to change due to the integrated, automated processes. Location awareness of the process steps, authenticated security for changes, standard protocols, automatic system adjustments and tracking of all ingredients made for an efficient changeover.

“The Connected Enterprise improves collaboration among people, among teams and among departments, and even among the machines themselves,” proclaimed Parkinson. “They had a powerful ability to collaborate.” For example, without collaboration, a rush order may be halted due to an unexpected failed bearing. “In the past, nobody would have noticed this problem until it occurred. With smart sensor connectivity, the increased friction and heat were detected.”

The connected machine and smart sensors allowed three things to happen. It notified the operator via mobile tablet. The machine could also self-diagnose and schedule maintenance, possibly avoiding

the problem altogether. And the connected machine can also allow the OEM to analyze the data and compare it to other machines to determine what is happening with the machine.

Visibility is the ability to see deeper into operations and logistics, with new ways to link processes and facilities to suppliers and customers, explained Parkinson. An example of this can be found in a product recall scenario. How much do you need to recall? Being connected provides visibility of the lots and logistics due to tracking all phases of the process. The ability to notify other plants, suppliers and the customer of the recall is all possible with proper connectivity.

How can companies take the necessary steps to make The Connected Enterprise real?

“Assess your operations, secure and upgrade your network and legacy automation, leverage and analyze your data, and increase collaboration both internally and externally,” answered Parkinson. “Is there a challenge or risk that they have, or are they trying to identify opportunities where they can get more business? It can be done today, and there are companies actually doing it. It’s starting with the pieces of your operations, and adding those pieces together to become a Connected Enterprise.”

The biggest obstacle you may likely face in developing a Connected Enterprise isn’t technology. It’s internal resistance to change.

It’s human nature to be wary of change — because change requires effort, it’s uncomfortable, and the outcome is always uncertain. That’s why it’s vital to focus on corporate culture as you build a Connected Enterprise. Without the engagement of executives, engineers, and front-line workers alike, you’ll never achieve all the improved productivity, security, and real-time information benefits you could via a 21st century information technology/operations technology (IT/OT) infrastructure.

Here’s what we’ve learned over the last decade about how to manage change in a Connected Enterprise:

Identify the vision and objectives for the change. Answer one question over and over: “Why are we doing this?”

Communicate a plan for how the change will take place. No one wants to move forward without knowing what’s next; detail The Connected Enterprise Execution Model for all stakeholders.

Give people the tools they need. Training should be customized for specific roles and skills in the new work environment.

Address the potential naysayers. Be reasonable in accommodating and persuading those who are hesitant, but prepare ahead of time a course of action if these hesitations impede change.

Track progress and communicate successes. Everybody wants to be on a winning team.

These steps worked for Rockwell Automation as we worked to build our own Connected Enterprise, even as we responded to those perhaps slow to embrace change:

Stage 1 — Assess: This is where the reality of fundamental change impacts employees. Whyare we being assessed? What are they looking for? Why are they asking questions about mymachine and my processes? Be ready with specific answers.

Stage 2 — Secure and upgrade network and controls: Some executives may want to postpone change — while others will want to be the first to migrate to a new environment. Anticipate the biggest question: Who will lead the change and manage the new network — operations or IT staff?

Stage 3 — Define and organize working data capital: Employees go from wishing they had more data to feeling overwhelmed by all the new information at their fingertips. Establish processes to ease their data angst and to filter only necessary information.

Stage 4 — Analytics: In this stage, your IT/OT network delivers insights that surface problems and opportunities in real-

THE CONNECTED ENTERPRISE CULTURE CHANGEHere’s what we’ve learned over the last decade about how to manage change in a Connected Enterprise

By Beth Parkinson, market development director, Rockwell Automation

time. You need processes to react quickly to these issues — or else your employees will be more frustrated than if they did not know a problem exists. You also have to make sure that the right information gets to the right individuals (those with the authority to act). Keep everyone focused on the big picture to minimize rogue actions.

Stage 5 — Optimize and Collaborate: It’s easy for front-line employees at customers and suppliers to resist efforts at collaboration; they don’t work for you. This stage requires a leader-

to-leader collaboration across companies to stop resistance in the trenches; supply-chain collaboration is never driven from the bottom up. Take charge.

People fear change, but like improved results. Launch your company’s cultural journey toward The Connected Enterprise by painting a picture of where you want to go — and how much it will help everyone.

INDUSTRIAL MOBILITY: THE NEW NORMALIndustrial information software now allows you to create, modify, personalize and access your own displays of business and process information in the office, at the machine, at home or on any mobile device.

By Theresa Houck, executive editor, The Journal

How many of you take your personal smartphone or tablet on the plant floor or to the business office, or

see coworkers with their mobile devices? Does your company use mobile devices for industrial purposes? It’s happening more and more, and because of that, today’s industrial information software is adapting too.

Industrial information software now allows you to create, modify, personalize and access your own displays of business and process information in the office, at the machine, at home or on any mobile device. The software’s dashboard on

your device doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s; it can contain the specific information you need. You can access historical and real-time data reports from anywhere, anytime.

It’s no surprise mobility is changing the way managers, engineers, operators, technicians and others are working in the business office, the production plant and the field. Three trends have been leading to this advancement:

1. Growth in consumer devices, which is driven primarily by device manufacturers focusing on the user

experience and moving away from single-use devices. “This isn’t stopping — it’s not a fad,” said Kyle Reissner, mobility platform leader at Rockwell Automation, during a recent webcast hosted by IndustryWeek. “And it’s driving a lot of small productivity gains. Although a lot of people have these in their pockets, there’s a lack of industrial software that’s tailored to these devices.”

2. Increased network access, which enables external network connectivity of the control system up to the business system so information reaches a broader set of people. Users are asking their automation suppliers about consuming that data, not just providing it. “That’s a huge market trend and shift from isolated protected control systems to being able to share tidbits of information or, in some cases, entire pipes of information to the external world that’s never been privy to that information before,” Reissner said. “At Rockwell Automation, we call that The Connected Enterprise.”

3. Continued productivity demandsfor automation system providers helps users better utilize assets, increase uptime and equipment efficiency, and generally do more with less.

IT’S ALL ABOUT CONTEXTA change in thinking also is contributing to the usefulness of mobile devices in the industrial setting. In the industrial software world, “What has been primarily a machine and product focus is becoming systems thinking,” said Ryan Cahalane, director of software product development, control and visualization business, Rockwell Automation, at the 2014 Automation Fair event in Anaheim, California.

“This has been common for some time in the process industries, and now it’s everywhere,” he explained. “People want to layer in con-text and collaborate across sites, whether it’s a multi-facility global food and beverage conglomerate, a pharmaceutical manufacturer

contracting out a plant, or an industrial machinery OEM that wants to see how its equipment is operating around the world.

“The ability to view, navigate and share information is being combined with portability and mobility to make it so operators, engineers and managers never have to leave their work,” Cahalane continued. “With smart phones, tablets and laptops, they can access their choice of content, subscribe to feeds and personalize their own dashboards with the exact machine, system and business information they need or want to do their job in the best possible way for them.”

The philosophy is being applied to conventional operations technology (OT) and IT, but also for management. “In mining, you have your factory on wheels. The owners can monitor it, and so can the equipment suppliers,” said Cahalane. “In automotive, suppliers of turnkey lines can see their equipment all over the world to determine and share best practices for operation and maintenance.”

MOBILITY AT TYSON FOODSA prime example of mobility making a difference is at a Tyson Foods plant near Ft. Worth, Texas. The corn dog facility makes 120 million lbs. annually, collecting data from throughout the plant, with 1,500 data points. They’re running a mobility pilot program using FactoryTalk VantagePoint EMI Mobile from Rockwell Automation.

“Our goals are to use data to improve transition from sanitation to production; produce end-of-day production reports more efficiently; enhance food safety traceability; and promote communication and flexibility,” explained Jon Riechert, senior corporate engineer for innovation at Tyson Foods, during the IndustryWeek webinar.

Riechert said the production plant has many different areas that must communicate with each other and see what’s happening, and mobility provides visibility using the plant’s wireless network.

“Production supervisors can manage production flow by seeing machine statuses and speeds, what’s running and what’s not, how long it hasn’t been running, and be able to adjust on the fly as production happens,” he explained. “It also improves the amount

of time we have for production — the amount of time we have to make products.”

Another big advantage supervisors have reported is they get to see what they want to look at when they want to look at it, compared to some other Tyson facilities that have dedicated human-machine interface (HMI) monitors on the plant floor that rotate dashboards. Sometimes the information the supervisor is looking for might not be showing on the monitor when the supervisor goes to look, so they might have to wait to see it.

“For our plant management, they can take a quick glance and get a quick overview, and it gives them the ability to know if a deeper dive into an issue is needed,” Riechert said. “For example, maybe every time they’ve looked on their mobile dashboard, line 1 has been down for the last hour. Now they know about it and, instead of having to rely on someone coming to tell them, they can go ask questions.”

Mobility also brings multiple ways to collaborate, he noted. “Instead of the dashboards on static monitors or on just a laptop or desktop, you’ve now got that information on a handheld device, so you can use it easier in small groups to collaborate. You can even take a screen shot of a dashboard and text or email it to someone else and ask questions.”

The mobile function also helps track product distribution for food safety traceability. “We have many different packaging configurations, so we want to know which fryer was attached to which packaging machine at any point during the day. It’s important to track product as it flows through the plant. We can monitor distribution settings. And it provides traceability from packaging back to earlier processes,” said Riechert.

PORTABILITY AND PERSONALIZATIONThe two keys to successful industrial mobility are user enablement and system extension. It’s called the “Value- and User-First

Philosophy.” User enablement lets you configure your dashboard, reports and other information on the fly and make it personalized. System extension means the industrial information software uses HTML5 and other technologies so users can tailor the device to their specific needs. 

Reissner explained the three primary ways to accomplish this:

1. Provide role-based and user tools for user enablement. This means you can configure on the fly, and the information is personalized to you. “We believe mobility really is a landscape in which users don’t want the generic login and the same report 50 other people want,” Reissner said. “They want a report that’s personalized to them, and then they want it personalized across a mobile device or laptop.”

2. Innovate in the collaboration space. This means looking at collaboration not from a machine telling you what’s happening, but other people telling you what’s happening — being able to provide a framework where, for example, an operator can talk with an engineer, or people are collaborating across sites. “For example, users aren’t just looking at notifications,” Reissner explained. “Instead, they see that this alarm happened, and here’s the trends graph that attached with it on their mobile device, and historically they see the top three reasons why the alarm happened so the issues can be addressed.”

3. Extend existing systems. This means, as described previously, using HTML5 and other technologies to be able to customize existing views to any mobile device in a secure and logical way, including existing reports on a PC that can be used on a mobile device.

“We make it easy with user-friendly names for parameters and data,” said Damon Purvis, product manager, Rockwell Automation, during the Automation Fair event. “They can see it, save it and make it public. They can create it on an iPad and see it on their iPhone — or on an Android device.”

For example, say you’re working at a plastic extruding company. “As a manager, your main concern is, is my line running?” Purvis explained. “If an extruder has gone down, you want to know if it’s back up, but it doesn’t help the technicians make the repair if you keep asking them. Now you can just go in and look.”

Purvis said users can select parameters, create a graph and save it in their own “playground.” They can edit it in Composer, combine content easily and do it quickly in a few seconds, instead of an hour.

The approach empowers operators to have the displays they want and need to do their jobs most effectively, to satisfy their curiosity and find ways to do their jobs better, to run the equipment a better way.

“When I’m happy with it, I can put it in my Favorites and go straight there without having to open the development environment,” he added. “Once I’m there, I’m back in the model so I can make further changes if I want.”

Cahalane expects this kind of access to help people leverage their experience, and their companies to leverage their most experienced

people, who might not be right there at the machine. “They might be at home or even retired and can still lend their knowledge and experience to people in the plant,” he said.

System designers can regulate access. “Even those people who are steeped in Excel, who love it and do it in their sleep, they see this and get into it,” Purvis noted. “It’s a new paradigm for visualization and reporting.” Similar capabilities work the same way in manufac-turing execution system (MES) environments where having mobile operators further eases the work and still enforces process workflow.

COLLABORATION MAKES A DIFFERENCEMobility is moving beyond replacing existing plant- or machine-based experiences on a mobile device to enable collaboration across sites. Today’s industrial information software can help you solve problems faster and more efficiently—and even prevent them.

New levels of mobility, portability and personalization can allow your team to easily try out different data, displays and configurations in a matter of seconds, without the need to call IT or a developer. Getting the information you need where, when and how you want it allows you to do your job better and to run equipment and operations in a better way.

“There has to be a level playing field when IT and OT come together to talk about projects and other things.” Glenn Goldney, training services global business manager Rockwell Automation, explained the need for IT and OT professionals to work together.

CONVERGE IT AND OT WHILE THERE’S STILL TIMEAre you ready for an additional $1 trillion in production?

By Dave Perkon, technical editor, Control Design

“The convergence of IT and OT is a lot about opportunity, and sticking with Scott Adams’ theme from a

previous session, luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity,” said Cliff Whitehead, technology business development manager for Rockwell Automation. “Luck isn’t just luck; it has much to do with opportunity,” continued Whitehead in his IT/OT convergence and training session presentation at Rockwell Automation TechED in San Diego.

“We have a lot of opportunity in information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) convergence,” said Whitehead. “One of the opportunities is the rising middle class, and it’s expected to generate $8 trillion in their new spending. This new middle class will add $1 trillion in production throughout industry.”

Due to the expected increased demand on industrial production and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), industry is starting to recognize the value of converging the plant floor with the higher level IT infrastructure. However, this

convergence is highlighting a skills gap between the control engineer and the IT processional.

“With IIoT, the evidence is in,” said Whitehead. “More devices, or things, are gaining the ability to communicate using the same network technology as the Internet by using Internet protocol supported by industrial protocols like EtherNet/IP. These connected things provide a better understanding of complex processes and adapt to changes quickly as smart machines.

“Better control of these smarter machines increases efficiency, enabling enterprise risk management and delivering faster time to market, lower cost of ownership and improved asset utilization,” he said. “With all of these connections, a secure architecture is increasingly important, along with all of the I/O network traffic added to the wire. We want to get to the industrial devices that drive productivity on the plant floor. If all the devices can communicate together, we can drive up productivity, increase efficiency and improve security.”

We want to get to the industrial devices that drive productivity on the plant floor. If all the devices can communicate together, we can drive up productivity, increase efficiency and improve security.  The IIoT value at stake for manufacturing is $3.9 trillion in areas like asset utilization, employee productivity, supply chain, logistics, customer experience and innovation.

“The important thing is value creation. It’s the intersection of people, processes and technology,” noted Whitehead. “The Connected Enterprise approach optimizes rapid value creation by connecting people, processes and technology. Whether it’s the manufacturing plant, remote processes, a supplier, distribution center or a customer, the enterprise is connected.”

For industry to realize improved quality, efficiency, productivity, safety and customer satisfaction, all at a reduced schedule, OT professionals and IT professionals must understand the significant complexities of the converged and Connected Enterprise.

“The people can collaborate with this connection, but how are we taking advantage of the knowledge we have and transferring it to others?” asked Whitehead. “Our challenge, not just from a Rockwell Automation perspective but for all of us, is how to make these things real. How do we really make mobility work in our operation?

“We are collecting plenty of data,” he continued. “There are data lakes and oceans out there. What are we doing with it, and are we getting any business value? How do we time-stamp and correlate the data? Much of the enabling technology comes from the IT world. With network convergence, we will get much more than just the on/off signal.”

To help ease this convergence and learn how to get there, Rockwell Automation, in collaboration with Strategic Alliance Partner, Cisco, worked to develop an IIoT training and certification curriculum, explained Glenn Goldney, training services global business manager, Rockwell Automation.

“As IoT is developed in an organization, a major aspect of a successful convergence is to understand that a skill gap is emerging and that there is a cultural component,” continued Goldney. LNS Research has pointed out that 47% of organizations do not have a good grasp or understanding of what IoT convergence means. “From the plant automation personnel, controls engineer and other OT professionals, through the network, MES, ERP and IT professionals, options are available to learn the skills needed to efficiently converge network architecture in a cost-effective way. This curriculum looks to provide best practices, industry standards and a roadmap for both the OT and IT professional.”

Part of this convergence is occurring because OT is starting to look at career certifications, said Goldney. “This is a big difference from what we currently have in the OT space, but it follows along with what the IT space has done for a long time,” he said. “They’re looking at the business intelligence and smart people to take advantage of these technologies with skilled personnel. How do you keep your workforce coming to work every day and achieving operational excellence?”

Rockwell Automation and Cisco have paired up to create the world’s first Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) designation to build competency in the organization and to improve workforce readiness as this convergence advances. “The job roles that are emerging are brand new,” noted Goldney. “We are looking at new job titles, new functions and new roles that are being created inside organizations to address convergence from both the IT side and OT side.”

IT professionals have always valued career certifications as a way to credential their expertise in the field, Goldney said. Workers in the OT space have always been valued by their organizations based on their hands-on knowledge, experience and ability to make sure that the plant is operational, functional and running as efficiently as possible.

“But we are seeing a shift,” Goldney said. “The reality is there has to be a level playing field when IT and OT come together to talk about projects and other things.”

Training and certification are the keys and will be used as benchmarks of professional capabilities. Rockwell Automation and Cisco now offer classes on Managing Industrial Networks with Cisco Networking Technologies, as well as Managing Industrial Networks for Manufacturing with Cisco Technologies. This training

is designed for IT and OT professionals moving to the convergence area. As things converge, both directions will be responsible for the implementation, administration and support of networked industrial infrastructure.

Making better business decisions with better information is what The Connected Enterprise is

all about. But the reality is far more complex than simply connecting disparate systems. Within a connected enterprise, manufacturing intelligence is the strategy for turning automation control system-level data into insightful information that’s visible and useful to people at any level of the organization.

Many of today’s manufacturing plants contain a myriad of disparate, information-generating systems to help accomplish operational tasks. While these systems are crucial to the operational areas they

serve, they are often data silos that isolate information from others in the company.

Each employee is focused on the metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) for his or her individual function. Machine operators monitor throughput and cycle time to keep machines running continuously. Meanwhile, the maintenance team monitors machine performance and tries to predict and help prevent downtime. Off the plant floor, managers focus on profitability and utilization.

Because it’s largely siloed and often manually inputted people across the plant can’t readily access the information they need to address issues such as quality

MANUFACTURING INTELLIGENCE STRATEGIES WITHIN YOUR CONNECTED ENTERPRISELeveraging manufacturing intelligence so that relevant information flows seamlessly in real time

By Keith McPherson, director, Market Development, Visualization and Information Software, Rockwell Automation

lapses, inventory losses, equipment availability and supply chain coordination. Furthermore, they don’t have access to information that leads to process-improving insights.

MANUFACTURING INTELLIGENCE FOR SMARTER MANUFACTURING

Effective manufacturing intelligence software applications seamlessly share related data from maintenance and quality systems in a single, coherent environment. Using industry standards and a unified production model (UPM), these applications can provide a cohesive view of seemingly disparate manufacturing data and give context for relationships among equipment, product, materials and people. The UPM can automatically issue alerts about exception conditions, missed targets and plan deviations.

For example, if a valve fails on a machine, the operator often knows this immediately because he can see and hear the failure. Once the operator fixes the problem, the system records the information and the process stops there. But by applying a manufacturing intelligence strategy, others have access to that data point. Maintenance, for example, could use that alert to drill down, finding out why the equipment failed and how to help prevent it from happening in the future.

Compared to custom code which is prone to human error and puts the control of manufacturing intelligence largely in the hands of one or two IT specialists off-the-shelf solutions based on open standards are easier to integrate into the existing network backbone. In addition, all elements of the off-the-shelf model are reusable, saving enormous development cycles and reducing the total cost of ownership to a fraction of what it would be otherwise.

FASTER, MORE INFORMED DECISION MAKINGManufacturing intelligence solutions aggregate information into the appropriate operational context and securely deliver it in relevant, role-based reports, dashboards and KPIs through a simple web browser. For example:• Equipment operators are able to study cycle times and scrap rate,

right at the machine.• Engineering and maintenance managers can view efficiency data

from areas of the operation to conduct root-cause analysis and equipment availability.

• Quality managers can easily check selected work cells and further drill down into events and details, enabling them to see how their quality levels, such as first pass yield and first pass quality, are tracking.

• Plant managers and operational vice presidents can view plant-wide data and metrics for individual areas, such as yield.

• And senior executives can continually evaluate real-time production information to monitor KPIs because of the software’s rich database views and data transformations, and correlate it with business intelligence tools. This helps them better understand events surrounding issues such as product quality or machine downtime and link them to financial performance.

Leveraging manufacturing intelligence so that relevant information flows seamlessly in real time throughout the organization is an essential element in each company’s Connected Enterprise journey.

This article was originally published on RockwellAutomation.com.

Rockwell Automation is seeing more and more end users pursue The Connected Enterprise in response

to the need for Smart Manufacturing and that directly impacts OEMs. As end users look to optimize their production and supply chain by bringing together islands of information, they need OEM partners to provide smart machines that:

Easily integrate into their facilityProvide access to production

informationEnable agile reaction to changing

markets and demands.OEMs need to understand these end-

user goals and react to them. Their machines must be smarter able to complement their customers’ Connected Enterprise efforts to access and capitalize on operational, business and transactional data for improved enterprise, plant and supply-chain performance. That requires building smart machines using technologies that allow better use of data

and enable end users to make intelligent decisions based on that data.

OEMs are also pressured to keep costs competitive. They face different challenges, depending on their locations around the world and their customer base. To remain competitive, OEMs will have to go outside their comfort zone and look at more innovative, strategic ways to reduce costs and time to market and stay ahead of their competitors.

WHO IS DRIVING THIS CHANGE?Ultimately, end users’ desire for Smart Manufacturing is driving this change. To effectively build smart machines and compete in a new world of manufacturing, OEMs need to:• Navigate unfamiliar regulations and

end-user requirements• Take advantage of enabling information-

sharing technologies• Anticipate and respond to customer

needs.Rockwell Automation underwent its

own Connected Enterprise journey and understands the end-user challenges,

WHY SHOULD OEMS CARE ABOUT THE CONNECTED ENTERPRISE?End users need smart machines with better use of data that enables them to make intelligent decisions

By Christopher Zei, Vice President, Global Industry Group Rockwell Automation

as well as the opportunities for OEMs serving them. Through its industry expertise, technology and partners, Rockwell Automation is helping OEMs design connected, compliant and competitive machines that help enable The Connected Enterprise for end users.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY CONNECTED?In a word, connected machinery means information. End users are increasingly realizing the benefits that more information, insights and data offer them—to improve production, perform proactive maintenance and better diagnose any issues. OEMs can respond by building smart machines that help connect the plant floor with the enterprise.

Rockwell Automation and its collaborators help OEMs create smart, EtherNet/IP™-connected machinery that more easily integrates with end-user facilities and supports their Connected Enterprises. The connected machinery shares production data with the end user’s automation and information systems. As a result, end users gain access to data about what’s happening in throughput, quality, asset health, energy efficiency, operational efficiency, etc.—in immediate updates and production trends.

This recently happened for machine builder OCS IntelliTrak Inc., a producer of overhead conveyor systems. The company built its systems using information-enabled PACs, motor controllers and I/O blocks synchronized via EtherNet/IP™-to provide real-time feedback to customers. Through the power of an EtherNet/IP™-network, OCS IntelliTrak can help end users integrate the conveyor into ERP/MRP or customized systems for better product management. In addition, with the use of historian software, operators can review production stops to evaluate if any employees need more training or stations need more time allotted, as well as if new zones or stations need to be added. 

OEMs can also set up automatic diagnostic alerts with connected

machinery. With the alerts, they know when a part needs to be replaced, and can order and ship the parts as needed. They gain better control of their parts inventory and don’t need to stock unused parts in warehouses around the world.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY COMPLIANT?As OEMs look to deliver more connected machinery to end users around the world, they encounter a variety of unfamiliar global standards and regulations across industries. Rockwell Automation provides information software and solutions, network and security expertise, and deep knowledge of industry-specific standards and regulations to help OEMs ensure that their Connected Enterprise machinery meets the appropriate standards.

An example of this is with Rockwell Automation customer Harmony Enterprises. The machine builder received an order for a new baler from a large, multinational beverage company, and worked with Rockwell Automation to design the new machine to meet international safety standards, including ISO 13849 and IEC 62061. By fulfilling the end user’s time-to-market request and meeting these standards, Harmony opened the door for additional orders from other global customers.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY COMPETITIVE?The Connected Enterprise isn’t just an opportunity for end users. It’s also a significant business opportunity for OEMs. Helping end users turn production data into working information capital helps OEMs become more valuable to end users and in the marketplace. Instead of reacting to end user needs, OEMs become more like partners by thinking about potential future needs and proactively meeting them.

OEMs can also gain a competitive edge through new sources of revenue. Delivering connected machinery allows OEMs to provide aftermarket support services, such as remote access. Remote access

can cut operational costs throughout the lifecycle of machinery. OEMs can respond to critical situations without actually being on-site at the end user facility,helping end users maintain uptime and OEMs deliver more value to customers.

M.G. Bryan, a heavy-equipment provider for the oil and gas industry, needed a way to remotely manage its fracturing vehicles, often in extreme, isolated environments. They implemented a new information system developed by Rockwell Automation, which leverages the Microsoft® Azure™cloud-computing platform

to securely and remotely access real-time vehicle performance data. Current customers are ordering additional retrofits to their current M.G. Bryan vehicles, and M.G. Bryan can now also offer this innovative aftermarket support service to potential customers.

THE RISE OF SERIALIZATION REGULATION: WHAT TO KNOW, WHAT TO DOWhat you need to know about serialization-based anti-counterfeiting regulations.

By Joe Whyte, Account Manager, Rockwell Automation

The rise of Internet pharmacies. Under-regulated wholesalers and repackagers. Advances in counterfeiting technology.

These are only a few of the opportunities that drug counterfeiters have seized upon in order to turn a profit at the expense of consumers’ health and manufacturers’ reputations.

As a result, a number of countries around the world are in the process of rolling out serialization-based anti-counterfeiting regulations. These include the European Union’s Falsified Medicines Directive, the United States’ Drug Supply Chain Security Act and China’s electronic drug supervision code requirement.

Here’s what you need to know.

THE BASICSSerialization uses a numeric or alphanumeric code known as a unique identification (UID) to realize full track-and-trace capabilities of a product throughout the supply chain, from its manufacturing origin through distribution channels and down to the point of sale. Production, transportation and point-of-sale event information is recorded and stored in a central database. This allows

a product to be authenticated as legitimate through something as simple as a quick barcode scan, and permits the complete product event history to be reviewed or audited should an issue arise.

While serialization regulations vary by country or region, some general requirements that pharmaceutical manufacturers are expected to comply with include:• The ability to generate, acquire and manage a UID for each

saleable item.• Linking package-level serial numbers in parent/child data

relationships (e.g., pallets to cases, cases to cartons or cartons to saleable items).

• Storage of UID information in a secure database that can be shared with trading partners.

• Validation that serialization data matches the physical product received.

• Confirmation that products have complete and accurate documentation.

THE IMPACT ON PRODUCTIONWhile governmental regulations lay out detailed requirements for what serialization systems must accomplish, they do not specify how pharmaceutical manufacturers should implement their serialization systems. This gives manufacturers some flexibility in their approach, but still leaves them facing a number of challenges.

On the operations side, pharmaceutical manufacturers have the task of trying to fully incorporate the serialization system into an existing control architecture that can include legacy equipment, multiple different device vendors, networks, protocols and proprietary platforms. A serialization solution must also be compatible with all package types and country-specific UID formatting requirements to ensure compliance and uninterrupted

product changeovers. It should also support seamless integration of serialization components, such as high-speed printers and vision-inspection cameras.

There are also a variety of software-related challenges regarding the generation, integration and management of serialization data. Industry generally follows the ANSI/ISA-95 standard, which provides a four-level model for interfacing from the plant floor to the enterprise. Serialization-relevant data must be widely distributed over control and information systems across all four of these levels.

Generated UID numbers must be unique to the product, and it is best if they are random number sets versus consecutive numbers to help eliminate the likelihood of predictable UIDs. The system must be able to handle a large volume of data management to meet UID printing and verification demands in high-speed environments. Data must also be secure yet seamlessly integrated across multiple levels, from packaging and palletizing machines on the plant floor to manufacturing execution systems (MES) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to a cloud-based event repository.

THE SOLUTIONSSome manufacturers may opt to develop their own customized serialization system in an effort to harmonize the system with their existing equipment and processes. But this black box approach can lead to support issues, parts shortages and knowledge-transfer problems in the long term. The time and effort needed to design, test and commission a custom system also can be costly and disruptive to operations.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers should instead consider basing their system on a modular and scalable off-the-shelf control and information platform that can be easily integrated into their existing lines. Specifically by tapping a software platform that also offers

MES and electronic batch recording (EBR) capabilities, a serialization system can help address global serialization requirements, including necessary data capabilities and high-speed device management of serialization components—all while minimizing production interruptions or validation burdens.

Additionally, a serialization system that uses an Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS)-certified, cloud-based server can provide centralized UID generation, management and storage, as well as ensure interoperability with manufacturing and business systems. The cloud-based server is the central communications hub for supply chain partners and provides mobile connectivity, so product authentication can flow all the way down to the consumer level via tablets or smartphones.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONSGiven the global nature of most pharmaceutical supply chains and the varying nature of serialization programs from one country to another, global support can be crucial to ensuring real-time and

local-language assistance is available should an issue arise. Some manufacturers may also benefit from remote support services, which can help reduce the burdens placed on plant staff and be more cost- effective than transporting technicians from site to site. These services can include real-time, application-level support of serialization systems, remote-asset health monitoring and network design services.

It’s also important not to forget the silver lining of a comprehensive and holistic serialization system. Greater supply chain integrity offers more than compliance. It can also deliver reverse-logistics benefits, more accurate and efficient recalls and provide valuable data for improved forecasting and more customer-specific marketing programs.

So as you begin implementing serialization systems, don’t only focus on what the system must do. Start thinking about what the system can do.

The Studio 5000 environment combines engineering and design elements into one standard framework that enables optimized productivity and reduced commissioning time. With the Studio 5000 environment, you can respond more quickly to changing market and business needs, while reducing total costs of ownership, including maintenance and training.

The Connected Enterprise creates new opportunities for productivity and efficiency gains by reducing

costs, time to market and risk. Over the course of 26 versions, Studio 5000 Logix Designer from Rockwell Automation has been a stalwart enabler of control design. Version 27, which debuted at Rockwell Automation TechED in San Diego, adds new feature capabilities in an environment that combines engineering and design elements into one standard framework, enabling designers to build smart machines and systems based on real-world automation design workflows.

“Studio 5000 has four modules now, not just the one,” explained Andy Stump, manager, design software, control & visualization business, at Rockwell Automation. “It places focus on system design and configuration. Version 27 is a multi-discipline, multi-function release that is built around adding new modules into Studio 5000.  The result is enhanced automation design productivity for users.”

Personalization is everywhere, explained Mike Brimmer, product manager, Studio 5000. “By linking smart machines with enterprise systems, we can achieve a faster time to market and a lower total cost of ownership,” he said. “We need to leave behind the outdated set-it-and-forget-it mindset and be able to adapt in real time. The development process is short, but critical. It can be complex and overwhelming, and serial stages can be frustrating. But, Studio 5000 is here to help!”

STUDIO 5000 ARCHITECTArchitect, one of the new modules, provides a single place where users can set up and configure their system. “We build a system framework of three layers—control, supervisory and network—in Architect,” explained Tony Carrara, product manager. “We need a tool to help the team build this framework. Increasing automation productivity is the core of Studio 5000 Architect.”

3 SMART, NEW TOOLS FOR DESIGNING SMART MACHINESRockwell Software Studio 5000 adds Architect, View Designer and Application Code Manager modules, all integrated with Logix Designer.

By Mike Bacidore, editor in chief, Control Design

Solutions

“You don’t start a project the day you get the order,” Stump said. “Studio 5000 Architect can import that pre-engineering work you used for the bid.  It’s something you had to do anyway, so it makes sense to reuse it to get a jump on the design process.”

VIEW DESIGNERView Designer is another new module in support of PanelView 5000 graphic terminal, the company’s newest electronic operator interface. “View Designer has been built with a couple of themes in mind,” Stump said. “The first is usability, and the second is productivity.  View Designer makes it easier to create your HMI applications through tight integration with Logix.  With the knowledge of each other, we can do things that can’t be achieved separately.”

According to Mark Hobbs, product manager, Studio 5000 View Designer, the new PanelView series has new widescreen format options and features a small footprint and sleek design. View Designer works with Logix Designer. Scalable graphics are available in the toolbox and animations show the state of the machine.

“We’ve enhanced our integration with Logix to create an integrated architecture,” Hobbs said. “Alarms can now be configured in the controller. Why would you want to duplicate this configuration in your HMI panel? You simply connect to the controller.”

View Designer allows inherent knowledge of tags in data structures, explained Stump. “You don’t have to tell the HMI about the attributes,” he said. “The controller can just tell it for you. We’ve also made the panel an I/O connection in the controller, which provides deterministic communication. That makes the button on

the screen capable of some very high-speed interaction, less than 100 ms. It fundamentally changes the concept of what an HMI is and can do. And we’re still supporting open communications to Logix controllers, so we’re standing by our hallmark of being open and available, but we’re leveraging integration to bring new value to our users.”

STUDIO 5000The Studio 5000 environment combines engineering and design elements into one standard framework that enables optimized productivity and reduced commissioning time. With the Studio 5000 environment, you can respond more quickly to changing market and business needs, while reducing total costs of ownership, including maintenance and training. Learn more.

APPLICATION CODE MANAGERThe other new module is Application Code Manager. “Many of our customers have already built up great engineering productivity tools over time—for example, Visual Basic tools or powerful excel tools,” said Stump. “But those can be costly to maintain and have to be updated.   Application Code Manager solves this problem.  The Application Code Manager is an integrated bulk engineering and project creation tool with focus on helping users quickly develop new projects based on established libraries of code.

“Some people have built up library standards, and they don’t want to have to rewrite things,” he said. “They can take the existing code and mark it to create a library object. That native library decoration or marking in the code is new in Version 27. Application

Code Manager can now read those. If they’ve designated pumps or conveyors, for example, Application Code Manager will read that and know how to build a project. It’s very wizard-driven.”

Application Code Manager’s primary benefit is to turn reusable content into modular objects that can be stored in libraries, explained Lorenzo Majewski, product manager.

“These are embedded with configuration parameters,” he said. “For example, the motor control object can specify the name and description, but you also can designate the motor type—single, reversing, two-speed, hand-operated—and you can designate overload. An engineer can configure the object. It’s built and stored in a database, providing for centralized access. The user can export the feature to Excel, modify it and then import back to the database. When you initiate a bulk build, Application Code Manager will transform names, descriptions and tag values.”

After the build is complete, a user can add to it in Logix Designer, which is still the foundation of the Studio 5000 environment.

“As devices become smarter and create more information that’s used to control things, we need a solid foundation,” said Chris Como, product manager, Logix Designer. “Applications range in sizes, and there are varying degrees of complexity. With the new enhancements and new modules, design teams can share a common approach. You can design a motion control system one day and a safety system the next day and a batch system the following day, and they all have a common environment.

“We see modular code designs in hardware and software,” Como said. “Studio 5000 has subroutines, add-on instructions and programs containers so the modular method allows you to make changes more easily and understand what you’re modifying. We can represent a system by its logical flow. With good modular design, it makes it easier to build upon a foundation that sets you up for the future. When it comes time for commissioning, your team can be online with the same controller.”

“With FactoryTalk VantagePoint mobile, it isn’t necessary, as it has the ability to easily create mobile content using displays by selecting and configuring, not programming,” said Damon Purvis, FactoryTalk VantagePoint Mobile product manager, Rockwell Automation.

“Mobility is a philosophy about enabling users and improving productivity,” said Kyle Reissner,

Integrated Architecture mobility platform leader, Rockwell Automation. “Here at TechED, we’re focusing on how mobility is being incorporated across all of our products, and we’re giving our first public outline of how we look at the future of industrial mobility.” Reissner’s vision was part of his presentation, “Trends in Mobility—The World is Not Flat,” at Rockwell Automation TechED 2015 in San Diego.

New FactoryTalk VantagePoint Mobile, FactoryTalk ViewPoint Mobile and FactoryTalk Batch Mobile have been released, and the future release of FactoryTalk AssetCentre, with other products in the works, will continue that expansion. Mobile proliferation allows users to do things differently. “It’s delivering value, not just replicating screens into browsers,” Reissner said.  “It’s new value with different functions.

“We have had mobile access of user interfaces (UI’s) for a while,” noted

Reissner. “Originally the goal has been just to replicate the user interfaces and get it in the operators’ and engineers’ hands. But that was basically taking 20-year-old technologies and shoving them in the device. It worked and continues to work well for extending systems and providing access, but for mobile we have to do something different. We want mobile to hit 10% productivity gain for everyone in the facility—not just be viewed as a way of accessing systems for one or two people.”

Design and user experience are also very important. Consider how people interact with smartphones for seconds, tablets for minutes and PCs for hours. “The capabilities of truly being mobile require responsive design principles  enabling users to interact in a different way that’s conducive to the device,” said Reissner. “We’ve been developing, alongside our products, an internal mobile foundation toolkit (MFT), which includes libraries of components that use AngularJS, Bootstrap and HTML5. This toolkit provides an industrial level of performance and can be used to enable users to do

MOBILE EXPANDS INTO MORE PRODUCTS, PLUS A VISION OF THE FUTUREIndustry has gone mobile first

By Dave Perkon, technical editor, Control Design

things interactively across the different pieces of glass because HTML 5 alone isn’t enough.”

What happens when your process changes? Do you need to bring your integrator back or engage with IT? “With FactoryTalk VantagePoint mobile, it isn’t necessary, as it has the ability to easily create mobile content using displays by selecting and configuring, not programming,” said Damon Purvis, FactoryTalk VantagePoint Mobile product manager, Rockwell Automation. Mobilized, portable and personalized content quickly provides capabilities to display/create an ad-hoc trend, save favorites, add features and content, and contextualize visualization and visual indication. “These mobile-first features, along with the power of the FactoryTalk VantagePoint server, enable the user to be more productive,” Purvis said.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MOREOther product groups have also been hard at work adopting the internal mobile toolkit, and they showed a prototype that redefines FactoryTalk Batch by using the latest visualization for the product. “FactoryTalk Batch Mobile takes the existing experience of the Batch UI and adds diagnostics, localization, server administration and excellent scalability,” explained Ken Plache, senior engineering leader, FactoryTalk Batch, Rockwell Automation. He provided a quick glimpse of the batch diagnostics and prompts windows, showing how an operator can quickly interact with the software and respond to prompts on an iPhone and a desktop. FactoryTalk Batch Mobile will be included in the next revision of FactoryTalk Batch, v13, and is scheduled for release late 2015.

“FactoryTalk ViewPoint software, which adds web server functionality to FactoryTalk View, has been around for a while, but a new release of will move beyond the support of the desktop browser to support a range of mobile device operating systems, including iOS and Android,” said Sharon Billi, Global Product manager for

FactoryTalk ViewPoint. “By adopting the toolkit we’ve been talking about, we created ViewPoint Mobile,” she said. “It will allow users to begin defining a unique experience for the mobile HMI. And it’s quick to configure. Simply create screens, publish them using wizards and look at them using a browser on your mobile device.”

With a look into the future, Reissner commented, “Our goal is to deliver double-digit percentage productivity gains to every person in the plant. To do this we have to look beyond the typical view that mobile devices are simply clients. We’re experimenting with features and functions that harness the full power of that supercomputer we all have in our pockets. We’re turning the phone into a server and a client so we can run a wide array of modules within an advanced platform engine, to which the end user can add on-board workflows, adapt in the case of varying Wi-Fi or cell signals and deliver instant features with zero friction to the initial value that mobility can provide. We want to make it as easy as downloading an app and getting value right way. Then as our customers go down The Connected Enterprise journey more and more value opens up.”

TRENDS IN MOBILITY – THE WORLD IS NOT FLATSee your manufacturing information the way you want to see it, anywhere you are! Rockwell Automation is delivering mobile access to your operations and production data with ad hoc reporting capabilities right from your device. Be responsive and productive to help reduce costs and increase profitability.

“We call this our App Platform, and this part of our mobile initiative codenamed Project Stanton. This pays homage to one of the founders of Allen-Bradley, Dr. Stanton Allen, and it’s the fourth dimension of mobile. In this fourth dimension, we’re experimenting and having some initial success with peer-to-peer meshing between mobile devices and across the iOS and Android platforms. Within the App Platform, harnessing wireless connections or wired connections

to end devices is also possible. Because the engine is really its own server, plugging in a cable between your mobile device and, say, a variable-frequency drive could deliver some instant diagnostics or provide parameterization capability without the need of adding a server or connecting to a cloud service” said Reissner.

“If it was just a client, there would be a lot of friction in the way our users received initial value. You would need to connect the drive to the cloud, route it through the networks, talk with IT and install firewalls, add servers, etc., to realize a small 1% productivity gain,” he said. “With Project Stanton, eliminating that friction 100% for some functions is our goal. We want to get mobile in the hands of every worker with zero friction.”

Project Stanton is an active project; you can follow it on twitter and stay updated as Rockwell Automation innovates. TechED is the first time they’ve talked about it externally. It’s going places where innovation is absolutely needed. “We can’t get this kind of stuff off the shelf, and we’re excited because of that,” Reissner added.

As the IoT expands, the future Rockwell Automation App Platform will integrate continued efforts by adding mobile UIs to the products and unique capabilities for leapfrog levels of efficiency and productivity.

“The goal is for users to like it so much that they connect their enterprises, put in our FactoryTalk suite and move further into their journey. Then the App Platform identifies products, and there is more value unlocked,” said Reissner. “One of the harder technical challenges our teams are facing is adapting for off-line functionality. This is paramount for our users,” he said. “In industry we can’t always assume a healthy wireless connection is there; some functions need to work and data has to be available in an off-line state.”

“If you’re in the middle of west Texas in an oil field, you want that data and trends. The only way to guarantee that is to cache data locally in the mobile device,” explained Reissner. “Grabbing cloud

data is good, but having an app to grab the data locally is better in many use cases. The phone is powerful enough to have a database and smart enough with the right app to know what to do with it.”

Reissner added that only 14% of operations technology (OT) and information technology (IT) networks are completely converged, and only a subset of them are wireless-enabled,. “We want to drive these powerful mobile devices to improve 1% productivity through concepts like peer-to-peer meshing, on-board information, etc.,” he said. “We want to make the supercomputer in your pocket into a modular server with opportunistic content. These apps will turn your smartphone from a dumb client into a smart node with instant functions. The hope is this pushes industry to see the benefit of FactoryTalk ViewPoint, FactoryTalk View Studio and FactoryTalk Batch, and use them to converge IT and OT.”

It’s not just about replicating screens; it’s that and more. It’s about getting users enabled across any device and enabling them differently. “In FactoryTalk ViewPoint, for example, we started down the path of just replicating screens as users requested,” said Reissner. “Then the mobile toolkit was added, which enabled easy instant navigation, such as alarm screens with no programming needed. In the future, once it’s integrated into the App Platform, it becomes accessible off-line; it becomes a heightened security app, and you can collaborate with fellow users.”

The realization is that you just can’t go and use consumer stuff off the shelf to meet the mobile goals of Rockwell Automation; you need to industrialize it. They are experimenting with an isolated plant-floor-specific collaboration platform, and it will reside in the OT layer. We don’t have full sight on what future industrial apps will be, but they will be developed, managed, revised, approved and used on the plant floor.

“Security is important because of the control and information convergence of The Connected Enterprise. The people, processes and data of the Internet of Everything require a scalable, robust, secure, future-ready infrastructure.” Gregory Wilcox, global business development manager, networks, Rockwell Automation, at Rockwell Automation TechED in San Diego.

HOW TO SECURE YOUR INDUSTRIAL NETWORKSIt’s not as hard as it might seem to prepare any plant to become The Connected Enterprise

By Paul Studebaker, editor in chief, Control

As IT and operational technology (OT) increasingly converge to support visibility, mobility, remote

access and more, industrial automation systems must be hardened to limit the consequences of security threats from both inside and outside the organization. Industrial networks—the data highways bringing information into, out of and often throughout the automation systems—are the key place to make your defense. Plants need to harden devices, secure ports, segment networks and put in place policies and firewalls to ensure those networks carry only authorized communications.

“Security is important because of the control and information convergence of The Connected Enterprise,” said Gregory Wilcox, global business development manager, networks, Rockwell Automation, in his presentation and demonstration with Rick Antholine, commercial project engineer, Rockwell Automation, at Rockwell Automation TechED in San Diego. “The people, processes and data of the Internet of Everything require a

scalable, robust, secure, future-ready infrastructure.”

Technology is readily available to provide a holistic, multi-layered defense in depth (DiD) for industrial networking. Wilcox explained how it’s done, where to get knowledge and training, and how to get started. Antholine walked the audience through eye-opening examples of a demo system of controllers and network hardware. It looks complex, but no more so than configuring a control system. The demo was done using RSLinx Classic, Rockwell Software Studio 5000, Stratix Device Manager, Stratix Command-Line Interface and Stratix Configurator, along with free applications Wireshark and Netflow, but the configurations can be done with a variety of packages. Wireshark is a free network protocol analyzer, and NetFlow (developed by Cisco) with a SolarWinds client allows you to look at every communication broken down by server, client or protocol.

An overview of ISA, NIST and Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/Idaho National Laboratory standards

shows that they all call for DiD and Industrial Demilitarized Zone (IDMZ) protections. DiD addresses both external attacks and the far more common internal threats. IDMZ is about protecting the edges of the network.

“By default, networks are open for good reasons,” says Wilcox. “We must secure them by architecture and configuration.”

The basic security layer is physical. Limit physical access to cells, areas, panels and cabling with security measures such as locks, keys, gates and biometrics. “Next, harden the computers with patch management, anti-x software and removal of unused apps, protocols and services. That leaves fewer things to patch and manage,” said Wilcox. “Close unnecessary logical ports and protect physical ports. And remember Stuxnet—you don’t want people using server USB ports to charge their smart phones.” Companies should also use keyed cables to control access to ports and add procedural network security by requiring log-in to enable ports, such as maintenance ports for monitoring, diagnostics and other activities.

In many plants, networks have grown organically over time. “The result is large, flat networks that are hard to defend,” said Wilcox.

Antholine’s demo showed how to segment a flat network into virtual LANs with limited functionality and access, and to provide overall access only for those who need it. The demo broke a large network down into separate VLANs for groups of programmable automation controllers (PACs), I/O and servers. In Logix Designer, “you can use the ‘trusted slot’ feature to enable communications by slot, and limit the allowed communications,” Antholine said. “Using access control lists and a zone-based policy firewall you can allow or prohibit communications by type—ping, Web traffic, SNMP, and CIP. If you don’t specifically permit it, it will be blocked.” Managers can allow or disallow specific users, sources, destinations and protocols.

“Deny most communications and permit a few by exception,” he said.

SECURING YOUR INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION CONTROL SYSTEMYou have assets to protect. Control Systems, networks and software can all help defend against security threats and risks. It’s time to manage potential security threats and build a more secure industrial control system that meets your needs.

With a little time and training, any control engineer can learn enough to become an effective network manager. Training available through Cisco can prepare for Cisco Certified Network Associate credentials in areas including security. But network security is also an IT issue. “Know where your responsibilities end and theirs begin and work together,” said Wilcox.

Above all, it’s important to get started. “Good enough security now is better than perfect security never,” said Wilcox, quoting Tim West at Data General. Though no two plants are the same, they should all follow the essential steps:• Have a good, cross-functional group develop your security policies

and procedures.• Raise awareness and educate the people inside your plant and,

where applicable, your customers and partners.• Take a holistic approach: software plus hardware plus procedures.• Reference ISA, NIST and DHS standards, reference models and

architectures.• Work with trusted partners who are knowledgeable in industrial

automation and security.

Rockwell Automation takes security very seriously, and an extensive array of vendor-neutral resources may be found in the Security section of the Rockwell Automation web site.

MACHINE SAFETY: YOUR ALTERNATIVE TO COMPLETE SHUTDOWNProtect employees, reduce costs, comply with regulations and improve productivity with the Machinery Safety Lifecycle.

By Mike Bacidore, editor in chief, Control Design

“Risk assessment can mean a lot of different things to different people. In the lifecycle process, if you don’t document it, then it didn’t happen. The customer’s going to feel the same way,” says David Rasmussen, TÜV-certified functional safety engineer, regional marketing lead safety, Rockwell Automation.

Machine builders and system integrators need expertise in current safety standards,

a proven track record in building or integrating safety systems and knowledge of productivity-enhancing safety technologies.

“Working for Rockwell Automation for 37 years, the one thing I’ve recognized about safety is that it’s ever-changing,” said David Rasmussen, TÜV-certified functional safety engineer, regional marketing lead safety, Rockwell Automation, presenting at Rockwell Automation TechED in San Diego. “We’re developing products that are technological advances in safety. Implementation might get simpler, but the advancements won’t stop.”

Companies implement machinery safety solutions and programs to protect employees from unsafe conditions and known hazards; to reduce costs such as medical and insurance expenses;

for regional or international regulatory compliance; to protect the brand from bad publicity and reduced sales; and to improve productivity and avoid complete machine shutdown or full system lockout/tagout.

“At an event like this where most attendees are developers, they’re used to developing standard applications,” explained Steven Ludwig, safety programs manager, Rockwell Automation. “As safety becomes a bigger part of what developers do, we want to show what type of skill sets are needed to successfully implement machine safety.”

Which OSHA standards apply to machine guarding of production equipment? CFR 1910.147, the lockout/tagout (LOTO) standard, applies when employees perform maintenance and service to production equipment. It requires that unexpected energization of equipment be prevented by removing all energy from a machine and locking the

energy sources in the off-state whenever employees must place any part of their bodies in a potentially hazardous location.

CFR 1910 Subpart O, machine guarding standards, applies when employees operate and work around equipment that is in the production state, and requires that employers provide safeguarding of hazards that could cause injury or illness to employees.

The exception to LOTO applies when employees perform “minor servicing” to equipment, and requires that employers provide effective “alternative measures” to safeguard employees.

“Alternative measures are ways to help keep you running while you still protect the workers,” said Ludwig. “We’re trying to lend some clarification around what they’re permitted to do as an alternative measure because you’re not allowed to decrease the protection of the worker.”

If machine access is required, the choices are LOTO or the alternative means—machine safety, such as integrated machine safety solutions.

“OSHA’s pretty clear on lockout/tagout standards,” said Rasmussen. “Machinery safety exists in one tiny paragraph within the lockout/tagout exception. OSHA’s given us an exception, but how do we implement it? With machinery safety, we have two choices—manual lockout/tagout or automatic alternative methods. Environmental, Health & Safety (EH&S) says to prove that it was designed properly and that it really works.”

The functional safety design process utilizes the Machinery Safety Lifecycle, which is a defined process that is followed to ensure that proper safety practices have been implemented. The steps include assessment; functional requirements; selection, design and verification; installation, verification and validation; and operation, maintenance and improvement.

“The first step is to do an assessment,” said Rasmussen. “Risk assessment can mean a lot of different things to different people. In

the lifecycle process, if you don’t document it, then it didn’t happen. The customer’s going to feel the same way.”

ASSESSMENT“Do the safety assessment early in the process,” said Ludwig. “Average performers often do it after the functional specification, or even after machine delivery. Top performers perform a risk assessment as part of the design process, so they’re designing safety into the machine, rather than adding it afterward.”

A risk assessment is done to properly identify and assess the real hazards involved in operating a particular machine. It determines equivalent levels of protection for safeguards when stating OSHA’s minor service exception, takes away guesswork when estimating risk and prescribing safety system performance, serves as documented proof of your due diligence and establishes the foundation for the design and implementation of an effective machine safety program.

“Identify the machine limits,” explained Rasmussen. “Identify the hazards. Estimate the risk. If I haven’t identified the risks or the hazards or the modes of operation, I probably haven’t done a very good job of breaking that down. Risk is based on severity, frequency or duration of exposure and avoidance probability.”

There are numerous ways of assessing risk involved with a hazard, one of which is the Hazard Rating Number system. With this technique, numerical values are assigned to descriptive phrases relating to the likelihood of occurrence of coming into contact with the hazard (LO), the frequency of exposure (FE), the degree of possible harm (DPH) and the number of persons at risk (NP). A hazard rating number is completed using the following calculation: LO x FE x DPH x NP = HRN.

“The HRN number relates to a risk level,” said Rasmussen. “A lot of these come from the EH&S folks. There’s a divide between developers and EH&S because they don’t understand procedures

such as lockout/tagout, for example. LOTO is extremely safe, but the problem is that somebody has to actually do it. Failure to control hazardous energy has been in the top 10 citations on the OSHA website for the past 10 years. There is a misperception among users; they’ll just put out an edict to the OEM or system integrator to set the bar very high, but it often increases the cost unnecessarily. This is often dictated by an EH&S professional.”

FUNCTIONAL SAFETY REQUIREMENTSFor each safety function, the characteristics and the required performance level shall be specified and documented in the safety requirements specification (ISO 13849-1 4.2.2). The safety function is a function of the machine whose failure can result in an immediate increase of risk. System components include input, logic and output.

“Most engineers who have to implement machine safety on equipment don’t feel entirely comfortable with it,” explained Rasmussen. “Rockwell Automation has the most complete offering of safety products available. In the past 14 months, we’ve tried to put together multiple types of tools to make it easier or more comfortable for them to put them together. We put together functional safety document sets available online at no charge. We have about 60 of them now. Most safety functions, when we’re talking about alternative measures, are high-use or high-demand functions.”

SELECTION, DESIGN AND VERIFICATIONDesign considerations include the following questions:• What mitigation technique should I use?• What circuit structure should I use?• What safety products should I use?• What type of control system should I use?

• What type of special operations do I need?• Where are all of my safety devices?• What kinds of interactions are needed for auxiliary machines?• What kind of diagnostics do I need?• Should I use hardwiring or networked systems?

“We developed another tool—Safety Automation Builder—as a tool after the risk assessment was completed,” said Rasmussen. “In this software, you can build each of the safety functions, and it will build a bill of materials. When you’re done building the safety function, it will export that to SISTEMA, which will take all of the components, model them and create the overall performance level of the safety function.”

VERIFICATION AND VALIDATIONVerification and validation play important roles in the avoidance of faults throughout the safety system design and development process. ISO 13849-2 sets the requirements for verification and validation. The standard calls for a documented plan to confirm that all of the safety functional requirements have been met.

Verification is an analysis of the resulting safety control system. The performance level of the safety control system is calculated to confirm that the system meets the required performance level specified. The SISTEMA software is typically used to perform the calculations and assist with satisfying the requirements of ISO 13849-1.

INSTALLATION, VERIFICATION AND VALIDATIONValidation is a functional test of the safety control system to demonstrate that the system meets the specified requirements of the safety function. The safety control system is tested to confirm

that all of the safety-related outputs respond appropriately to their corresponding safety-related inputs. The functional test includes normal operating conditions in addition to potential fault injection of failure modes. A checklist is typically used to document the validation of the safety control system. ISO 13849-2 sets the requirements for verification and validation.

“A lot of people misinterpret what validation of a safety function is,” warned Rasmussen. “Unless I’ve tested it, how do I know if that circuit meets the design? Most people do not do it. Safety devices are designed to fail in a fail-safe manner. How many people have gone through failure injection in a safety system?”

OPERATION, MAINTENANCE AND IMPROVEMENTPeriodic testing should be done to verify proper system functionality. Machine modifications that affect safety require validation of the safety function. These include program changes, safety system use, hardware or software changes and machinery changes. Should the safety-related software be subsequently modified, it shall be revalidated on an appropriate scale.

4 AREAS TO OPTIMIZE IN AUTOMOTIVE PLANTSWorkforce, processes, equipment and safety are the four key areas on the plant floor to help generate continual improvements in productivity and uptime

By Todd Montpas, Automotive and Tire Market Development Manager, Rockwell Automation

In today’s rapid-paced world of automotive manufacturing, there’s no room for inefficiencies or unnecessary downtime. In an industry where vehicles are produced by the minute, shaving

mere seconds from a manufacturing process can help automakers produce one or two additional vehicles per day. Such improvements can make a real difference for automakers, particularly given the high production quotas and critical profits attached to each vehicle.

Unfortunately, demands within the industry make production optimization a challenge.

First, vehicle demand continues to surge. IHS Automotive estimates global auto sales will exceed 85 million vehicles in 2014, which would be the fifth straight year of record sales. This is driven by resurging major markets and emerging growth markets. According to a Credit Week report, “The Global Auto Industry Shifts Its Focus To Overseas

and Emerging Markets,” emerging markets accounted for just more than half of the global light-vehicle sales in 2010 — a first in the industry’s history.

At the same time, challenges abound on the plant floor. Most automotive plants now produce multiple vehicle makes and models, while vehicle refreshes occur much more frequently in response to customers’ continually evolving demands. As a result, plant managers face a dilemma. Production must be continuous so they can get more out of their plants than ever before. Yet changeovers are more frequent, and an unprecedented amount of complexity is being driven into the plant.

However, even amid these challenges, opportunities exist in four key areas on the plant floor to help generate continual improvements in both productivity and uptime.

1. WORKFORCEWorker preparedness should be a key part of any new plant or vehicle launch. It’s important to empower workers with the knowledge they’ll need about the machines, tools, procedures and processes they’re expected to use. Set baseline skills goals for new facility launches and conduct an assessment to see where skills stand for new vehicle launches, so a training program works toward a specific goal.

Also consider adopting new technologies that can deliver high-quality information to employees to help maximize productivity. Alarms and pages may alert workers to the fact that something is wrong, but they might not tell workers where to go or what needs to be addressed.

Modern information systems can deliver detailed diagnostic information to high-definition display boards or even to workers’ smartphones in role- and location-based context, enabling faster corrective action to be taken. In many cases, support technicians and service providers no longer need to be on-site 24/7 and can remotely monitor your plant’s systems and machines safely and securely.

2. PROCESSESOn the plant floor, flexible, demand-driven manufacturing models mean that production schedules vary not only by the day, but by the minute. On the business side, data must be gathered across dozens or even hundreds of systems and then interpreted, shared and reported across multiple levels. As a result, merging these disparate processes and data to establish a more cohesive and efficient operation can be difficult.

One solution is model predictive control (MPC) technology, which can compare current and predicted operational data against desired results to provide new control targets. This can help minimize

process variability and inefficiencies, as well as improve process consistency and part quality. A scalable and flexible manufacturing execution system (MES) also can integrate plant-floor production systems with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to optimize manufacturing across multiple facilities.

3. EQUIPMENTEquipment is among an automaker’s greatest capital investments, but equipment improvements don’t have to require major expenditures. Something as simple as component migration, for example, can help an automaker take advantage of features and functions at the right level of the architecture to deliver better performance.

Improving diagnostics also can minimize equipment downtime and reduce effects on production. Embedded advanced diagnostics technology can help workers more quickly detect problems and know exactly what to repair. This technology also can support predictive diagnostics, in which potential problems are spotted before they become downtime events and then corrected during planned maintenance downtime.

4. SAFETYSafety is inseparable from an automaker’s workforce, equipment and processes. Therefore, it should be viewed holistically, across all aspects of an operation, rather than as a separate, add-on element.

A holistic approach should address safety in three key areas: culture (behavioral), compliance (procedural) and capital (technical). Best-in-class manufacturers that holistically apply safety achieve not only lower injury rates than average performers, but also higher overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and less unscheduled downtime. This helps put to rest the idea that safety can only be a drag on productivity.

In the capital area, new technologies allow a machine to continue running at a designated safe speed even when the safety door is open, as opposed to stopping machines every time a problem arises on the line. Integrated safety controllers, which allow safety and control systems to work in tandem, also can improve machine diagnostics and help reduce downtime.

ON TRACK FOR SUCCESSAutomakers can expect challenges only to increase and evolve, while the need to minimize production costs and increase efficiencies

will continue. An ongoing commitment to continuous improvement in workers, processes and equipment, combined with a holistic approach to safety, will better prepare automakers for the future.

“Automated data collection means one line leader can now handle two lines. We were able to move half the line leaders elsewhere in the plant.” Dave Seckel, maintenance electrician, United Pet Group, to attendees of his Rockwell Automation TechEd session, “Visibility boosts efficiency by 15%, capacity by 3%.”

VISIBILITY BOOSTS EFFICIENCY, CAPACITYPet food plant sees how to improve operations with automated data collection

By Paul Studebaker, editor in chief, Control

The United Pet Group (UPG) plant in St. Louis manufactures about 1.5 million pounds per week of small

bird and pet animal feed, mostly bagged, but some molded in cakes and sticks.

“I’ve worked for the company for six years and have done a lot of equipment and process upgrades—anything to make the process better,” Dave Seckel, maintenance electrician, UPG, told attendees of his session at Rockwell AutomationTechED, in San Diego. For some time, “data collection has been a goal, but getting there is a bumpy road—a hard thing to sell. Now, with a little success here and there, things are starting to come around.”

FactoryTalk Metrics helps manufacturers get a grip on data. “Most start with OEE—availability, throughput and quality—compared to the theoretical ideal. And they look at events related to downtime, so they can identify where their problems are and how to improve,” said Wendy Armel, principal MES analyst, Stone Technologies.

UPG did it a little differently, by starting with labor efficiency. “Our main goal was to gain visibility,” said Seckel. “We have a long history of manually collected data—how long it takes to run a lot, what faults

occurred and the associated downtime. It’s not very accurate.”

NEW SHERIFF DEMANDS GOOD DATA

The pivotal event occurred when a new plant manager arrived and wanted to get away from manual data collection. “Manual data accuracy is typically about 60%,” said Armel. “Automated accuracy is usually 95%.” This is because clock times are 100% accurate, but HMI entries may have errors.

“We found FactoryTalk Metrics provided the horsepower we needed to improve our efficiencies and reduce costs,” said Seckel. “The software is intuitive and easy to use. Most of our plant is Rockwell Automation, so it’s easy to talk to it.”

UPG wanted help with the implementation and contacted Stone Technologies, which put them in touch with one of its successful clients so UPG could see how FactoryTalk Metrics works. Then UPG and Stone worked together on a pilot on UPG’s S3 Bagging Line, where blended batches of seeds are packaged.

“We like to use a pilot to learn things like the terminology and plant priorities on

Success Stories

a small scale, and develop a simple, repeatable solution with rapid payback,” said Armel. “First, we talk with everybody—management, engineering, operations, maintenance—to see what they need and expect.”

They start with a few basic reports, “the things they need to make decisions,” Armel said. “Not fancy, not a lot of colors. If it won’t improve the business, it’s useless.”

At UPG, the first report—labor hours—makes the project unique. The labor hours report links labor hours to each production order through HMI entries of available hours and crew size.

A line operations report adds the product SKU and “tells operations what their machine is doing,” Seckel said. “It’s near-real-time and highly accurate, not historical and approximate. Having visualization of what they’re doing in real time gives them incentive to do better.”

A last 10 line faults report shows current efficiency and what’s gone wrong, such as bagger faults or cycle stops.

SMALL START GIVES RAPID ROIThe initial implementation reduced overtime by 10% and increased labor efficiency 15% by reducing the number of line leaders in half. “Automated data collection means one line leader can now handle two lines,” Seckel said. “We were able to move half the line leaders elsewhere in the plant.”

Seckel recently added the application to a seed blender. “I configured the seed blender in less than a day and started collecting data,” he said. “Based on what they had told me for estimated cycle times, our first OEE measurements were on the order of 180%. It’s very interesting to compare what people think they run to what they actually run.

“In practice, automated OEE tends to be lower than manually collected OEE; it’s real easy to push the pencil,” said Seckel.

UPG’s implementations were not without challenges. One was cultural—”to change people’s mindsets, the tribal knowledge of how we’ve done things for years,” Seckel said. The other was integrating data from proprietary scale systems, which was overcome by working with the scale OEM.

On the plus side, UPG can now push reports to management. “It gets them used to seeing it, and they don’t have to come and get it,” Seckel said.

The mechanic can see how the machines are doing and estimate when he should schedule preventative maintenance. “We’ll automate that and tell him when the machine has done, say, 5,000 cycles and it’s due for maintenance,” Seckel added.

Above all, “we can see which operation or equipment is setting the pace of production and where to make improvements,” Seckel said.

FORMULA FOR SUCCESSArmel agreed that cultural acceptance is critical. “Without it, having your technology at 100% is worthless,” she said. “Give the people what they want and need, and talk to everybody; the one guy you don’t talk to will bring the house down.”

When developing the application, “find a common thread, use common terminology as much as you can, and create a simple, standard solution that’s easy to explain and to expand to multiple applications in the plant,” advised Armel. “Standard objects shorten the implementation time and transfer easily to other equipment and other areas.”

To gain buy-in and rapid ROI, “use a solution that has a low out-of-the-box cost and start saving money right away,” Armel said.

Start with a few key reports to learn more about the data. “Don’t turn in 60 reports,” Armel said. “Production overview gives OEE, and events let you see why you’re not reaching the desired levels. Custom reporting is easily accomplished, and you can measure anything, but focus on the information that will help you satisfy business needs.”

Then take advantage of having accurate data to improve operations. After all, “if you solve the wrong problem, you’ll have two problems to solve,” Armel said. “FactoryTalk Metrics lets you identify the right problems to solve.”

MONIN FLAVORS WESTERN HEMISPHERE WITH FACTORYTALK BATCHThe flavoring syrups manufacturer automates and manages more than 200 recipes, and achieves S88 and S95 compliance with help from Rockwell Software FactoryTalk

By Jim Montague, executive editor, Control

“PlantPAx software objects gave us many tools that we needed, gave us control modules for us process, and still saved us about 30-50% on the engineering and programming hours we would have been required to spend otherwise,” says Armando Di Francesco, technical manager at system integrator Altra Systems.

Sometimes success brings its own challenges, so when Monin’s plant in Clearwater, Florida, reached

capacity twice as fast as expected, the flavoring syrups producer knew it had to automate to keep up with demand.

Monin makes more than 200 mostly sugar-based, bottled syrups that enhance the taste of dishes created in about 45,000 restaurants in 22 countries from the U.S. to Argentina. The company planned to achieve maximum production capacity in 20 years; instead, the Clearwater facility hit this mark in 10 years—between 1996 and about 2006. Monin’s process engineers and managers knew this meant they had to take drastic action, update from their traditionally manual batching procedures, and automate their numerous recipes and procedures—hopefully in compliance with the widely accepted ISA S88 standard ISA S95 model.

Consequently, the Clearwater plant began its batch upgrade in 2011 and worked with system integrator Altra Systems in Orlando, Fla., to help carry out

the project. In general, Monin’s update integrated plant-floor and enterprise information and implemented FactoryTalk Batch, PhaseManager, PlantPAx Library of Process Objects and other software and devices from Rockwell Automation to improve Monin’s recipe formation and management, and then integrate them seamlessly with its Navision enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

“Previously, Monin mixed flavors and gave orders on paper, but now it had to develop a new batch system to satisfy its new demand levels,” said Armando Di Francesco, technical manager at Altra Systems. “The Clearwater plant has three main batching tanks, but it only has one batching line, and so it was critical for it to be replaced properly with a whole new system. Also, the new batching system had to be integrated with Monin’s existing Navision ERP system from Microsoft, where it stores all its recipes. To make the best possible products, Monin does continuous, daily quality checks, but they wanted to reduce their time and programming costs.”

Of the three tanks, one is used as a shared-resource, small-ingredient tank. This tank moves ingredients through a 400-liter-per-hour (LPH) pasteurizer and sends them to three main finished-goods holding tanks. The production system includes multiple valve clusters, variable-frequency drives (VFDs), mass flowmeters and other components, which all communicate via EtherNet/IP communication protocol. The system also includes Mettler Toledo’s EtherNet/IP-enabled scales.   

Di Francesco presented “Monin Increases Production and Achieves S95 Standard on Path to The Connected Enterprise” on the first day of Rockwell Automation TechED at the Manchester Hyatt Hotel in San Diego.

To begin their batch upgrade, Di Francesco says Monin and Altra recruited a project team and made sure it include everyone at the Clearwater plant, especially from the factory-floor and the IT department. This team defined upgrade specifics, so everyone was clear on what it would include and how the update would combine many formerly separate process control and IT responsibilities.

“The future for Monin is completely integrated manufacturing, and so IT and process control must be joined together,” explains Di Francesco. “This why we picked the Rockwell Automation solutions for following the S88 standard and S95 model, and being able to do it right out of the box.”

Consequently, Monin and Altra implemented FactoryTalk Batch with multiple thin clients throughout the Clearwater plant, and it successfully communicated with the Navision ERP system. This solution also included Rockwell Software FactoryTalk View SE, FactoryTalk eProcedure and PhaseManager software, as well as the PlantPAx Library of Process Objects, ControlLogix PLCs and virtualized servers.

“The PlantPAx software objects gave us many tools that we needed. It gave us control modules for our process and still saved

us 30-50% on the engineering and programming hours we would have been required to spend otherwise,” added Di Francesco. “PhaseManager is what we used to integrate the ControlLogix PLCs with FactoryTalk. It simplified our phase programming and also reduced the time needed to develop phase-templates for common tasks, such as agitating, mixing and adding ingredients.

“These six or seven templates are stored in the FactoryTalk Batch server, where they can be filled with data from our 200 recipes. If we need to change recipes or add new ones, it’s very easy now, and we even have eSignatures for different operations to check who did what and comply with electronic batch record (EBR) requirements. FactoryTalk Batch and Navision also allow the plant manager to schedule all his batches for the coming week and keep two days of production recipes ready to go. Once the operators complete a batch, then all of its documentation can be easily uploaded.”     

Di Francesco reported the Clearwater plant’s upgrade took only 48 hours to replace its batch system, and it was running at full speed just one week later, even though its recipes in Navision were unchanged. Because the plant no longer uses paper recipes and orders, he added that it’s also reduced operator error to close to zero.  

“We’ve also reduced time to market, increased batch consistency, and reduced time and paperwork to execute testing,” added Di Francesco. “In the future, Monin plans to work on migrating to FactoryTalk Batch v12, integrate a major Navision upgrade, and move to virtualize even more computing on a cloud-based data center.”

“Labels have a special meaning in pharmaceutical manufacturing. If you don’t have a good label, you can potentially lose your whole business.” Choon Teo, corporate vice president and deputy general manager at Zhejiang Medicine Co. (ZMC), parent company of Changhai Biological Co. in Shaoxing, China.

Labels on medications are critical for patients and pharmaceutical man-ufacturers. Labels, barcodes, VR

codes and other identifiers on raw materi-als, end products, equipment and instru-ments are becoming even more important as track-and-trace and validation require-ments ramp up. Many manufacturers are seeking help organizing their labels and labeling technologies to help ensure accu-rate, high-quality production.

“Labels have a special meaning in pharmaceutical manufacturing. If you don’t have a good label, you can potentially lose your whole business,” said Choon Teo, corporate vice president and deputy general manager at Zhejiang Medicine Co. (ZMC), parent company of Changhai Biological Co. in Shaoxing, China, south of Shanghai.

“Label requirements from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Union regulators require pharmaceuticals to be identified with distinctive codes for each shipment, including product name, material, lot number, strength, batch number, weight and other information answering the

primary ‘what, who, time and batch code’ questions about how it was made,” Teo said. “A label isn’t just its physical paper, but is really the ability to carry its required information forward.”

Teo presented “What’s in a Label? PharmaSuite Application in a Finished Dosage Form (FDF) Project” on the second day of Rockwell Automation TechED 2015 in San Diego, Calif.

Zhejiang Medicine Company was established in 2011, but it occupies one of the oldest and largest pharmaceutical plants in China, covering more than 8,500 acres, where more than 1,500 employees manufacture anti-infective, anti-viral and anti-fungal additives and ingredients for animal feed, as well as vitamins and anti-diabetic medicines for humans. Teo says it’s the largest worldwide manufacturer of Vitamin E. The company operates two large power-injection facilities, an active-feed production line, oral-solid tablet, soft-gel and chewable applications, and other processes.

Besides maintaining labeling for raw materials and products, Zhejiang Medicine also uses numerous labels for container

ZHEJIANG MEDICINE COMPANY OPTIMIZES PRODUCT TRACKING WITH NEXT-GENERATION LABELINGIP address-enabled labeling system, online app, data gathering and reporting are all part of The Connected Enterprise for this Chinese company.

By Jim Montague, executive editor, Control

and equipment identification and status, weighing, material status, instrument calibration and other equipment and production assets.

“These labels are more transient because we add and remove them every time we clean, sterilize, dispense, switch components, or get them ready for use,” Teo said. “Our status quo was using handwritten labels attached to equipment or batch records, which was simple and didn’t require any capital expenditures or IT involvement.”

But, Teo said, the usual paper labels are easily damaged. They can be hard to remove once stuck on and yet risk falling off, especially when wet. They also increase the risk of mixing and rendering the wrong materials and products.

“We need to know who does what at all manufacturing stages, including sterile filtration, aseptic spray drying, sterile powder transfer, inspection and labeling, primary/secondary packaging and warehousing.” Teo said.

“Our next step is to integrate 2D labeling with our manufacturing execution system (MES) and warehouse management system (WMS) solutions; go to having no handwritten or physical labels; have our MES and WMS automatically print labels for raw materials and quality-control samples; and have unique identifiers that allow us to digitize all our former labels with engraved barcodes on our equipment, which can the be scanned with mobile devices.”

PHARMASUITERockwell Automation PharmaSuite brings an innovative approach to MES, with role-based optimization of each stage of the recipe

life cycle that drives time to results for every user. Open-content architecture paired with an intelligent upgrade engine, provides customers with a powerful system designed for growth in both batch and discrete processing. Learn more.

As a result, Zhejiang Medicine and its staff have been working with the China-based division of Rockwell Automation to develop an Internet protocol (IP) address-enabled labeling system and a mobile app, which can help scan products and equipment, and bring back essential data. This solution works with the plant’s existing Rockwell Software PharmaSuite, and will be expanded to the company’s FactoryTalk Batch software in the future. Teo reported that the Zhejiang Medicine plant’s new MES-aided labeling and identification solution is scheduled to include its powder-injection, active-feed, oral-solid tablet, soft-gel and chewable lines by the end of 2015.

“We chose to work with Rockwell Automation on this project because its MES technology is more advanced and because our local vendors are not as familiar with the FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11 regulations” as Rockwell Automation says Teo. “Rockwell Automation also gives us a better support team in China.”

“FactoryTalk, PlantPAx and our upgraded process controls and plant give us faster time-to-market; improve asset utilization because we can use the same tanks to make more different products; reduce our total cost of ownership; and reduce our enterprise risk management.” Darrell Hanson, systems engineer, Syngenta.

You may not know what you’ve got until it’s gone, but you may also not realize how bad you

had it until something better arrives—especially if you’ve been struggling with legacy process controls. Fortunately, the PlantPAx process control system and FactoryTalk Batch software from Rockwell Automation are helping upgrade, simplify and optimize production at two major chemical applications.  

For example, Syngenta Crop Protection’sagricultural chemicals plant in Omaha, Neb., expanded operations and upgraded over many years from mechanical to automated process controls, including interfaces running on a Unix emulator, Microsoft Windows and later NT via industrial Ethernet and central-level switches. Syngenta’s systems engineer, Darrell Hanson, reported these incremental improvements in PLCs and HMIs made life better for the plant’s operators, but their recipes remained in the same hard-coded versions and hardware they’d used since 1994, which made production inflexible and unable to

handle changes or new products without new construction.

“Orders were written by the QA lab at the start of each day, delivered to operations, accumulated through the year, put in a box and archived,” said Hanson. “This system was easy to understand as long as we ran the same product and didn’t make a lot of changes.

“However, it was cumbersome and any significant changes, such as adding an ingredient, changing a source, cooling in a different step or agitating longer, had to be hard-coded into ladder logic, which meant the process engineers had to ask the PLC programmers for help and new facilities had to be built,’ he said. “Additionally, historical data was limited, and could only be used for trending graphs, and the legacy hardware and HMI software was facing renewal.”

Hanson said the company was expanding their business and applications, so they really needed a more dynamic automation system and more flexible recipe management that could maximize existing resources, minimize the need to

CHEMICAL PLANTS STREAMLINE DISTRIBUTED CONTROLSTwo major chemical manufacturers use the PlantPAx system to simplify their process control, optimize operations and virtualize computer tasks.

By Jim Montague, executive editor, Control

construct new facilities, and allow changes to be initiated by the process engineers so they could quickly meet customer demands.

“We also needed tighter controls to handle increased quality and environmental standards, improved analysis via historical data and reporting, and reduced field wiring costs for new installations,” he said. “This is why we went with Rockwell Automation for our system conversion.”

Hanson presented “Boosting Process Control and Recipe Management with Batch Solution” at Rockwell Automation TechED 2015 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel in San Diego, Calif. Created from the merger of Novartis and AstraZeneca’s agribusinesses in 2000, Syngenta produces fungicides, herbicides and insecticides, as well as protective coatings for seeds. The Omaha plant is located on 42 acres with 26 buildings, six active formulation facilities and five tanks farms, including four outdoors and one indoors.

Hanson added that Syngenta’s migration to Rockwell Automation began with its packaging lines in 2008, its liquid continuous unit in 2010 and some of the tank farms in 2012-14. Future conversions will include the plant’s continuous granular unit, more tank farms and water treatment plant.

To upgrade its Omaha plant to more dynamic controls and flexible recipes, Syngenta worked withsystem integrator Interstates Control Systems Inc. in Sioux Center, Iowa, and implemented primary and secondary domain controllers and servers from Rockwell Automation, including:• FactoryTalk ProductionCentre on a SQL server running Java for

shop-floor interfaces• FactoryTalk Metrics for OEE reporting,• Factory Talk AssetCentre for equipment,• FactoryTalk Batch• FactoryTalk View Site Edition• FactoryTalk Historian• Factory Talk VantagePoint reporting software running on a

VantagePoint SQL server

All of these servers reside on ESXi virtualization servers running VMware software. Syngenta also adopted a thin-client computing strategy and Allen-Bradley PanelView graphic terminals for all production sites and stations.

“Our new PLCs are programmed modularly, so recipes can control groups of equipment following the ISA S88 standard,” explained Hanson. “New recipes are set up by formulation engineers instead of PLC programmers. Orders are entered into campaign manager software by QA lab personnel for each batch to be produced, and operators start and control all batch functions using FactoryTalk Batch.

“All data is recorded using FactoryTalk Historian, and batch reports and KPIs are viewed with FactoryTalk VantagePoint,” he said. “We’re adding 10 new products every year, and our old hard-coded PLCs just couldn’t cut it, so we had to get to a more flexible recipe management and control system. Admittedly, there’s some paper we can’t get away from, and so we still use physical batch tickets, but all our data is recorded on FactoryTalk Historian, and FactoryTalk Batch gives us more flexibility in combining formulations, such as combining lighter and heavier or more and less dense materials. Our HMIs can still see deviations and errors, but now we can automatically adjust for greater accuracy, and view batch reports with better trends, X-Y plots and all sorts of charts.

Overall, FactoryTalk software and the PlantPAx distributed control system, along with other supporting solutions, gave the company faster time-to-market and improved asset utilization because they could use the same tanks to make more and different products, reduced their total cost of ownership, and reduced their enterprise risk management, he said.

FACTORYTALK BATCHFactoryTalk Batch provides efficient, consistent predictable batch processing and supports the reuse of code, recipes, phases and logic. FactoryTalk Batch combines the ISA S88 standard with proven technology that provides the flexibility you need to supply your

product to market faster. With FactoryTalk Batch, you can improve quality and increase production in many industries such as chemical, pharmaceutical, food, beverage, heavy industry, and pulp and paper. Learn more.

JOST COMBINES, VIRTUALIZES PROCESS CONTROL  Going a virtual step further in the St. Louis area, the controls engineering department at Jost Chemical Co. in Overland, Mo., recently worked with system integrator McEnery Automation (http:// http://mceneryautomation.com) in Fenton, Mo., to combine and upgrade Jost’s distributed process controls, and migrate to the PlantPAx process automation system built on virtual, redundant servers. However, its consistent design and configuration—and virtualized data processing—also saved $20,000 in upfront engineering costs, enabled real-time data and analytics gathered across multiple buildings, aided troubleshooting, reduced downtime by 5%, and eased operator training. 

“The controls engineering department was asked to deliver more usable production information to process engineers and production managers on the business network, and to standardize operator interface graphics throughout the plant’s 15 production lines to facilitate easier operator transitions between production areas,” said Rick Tissier, chemical engineering leader at Jost. “We determined that we really needed to restructure our entire plant control system architecture because our existing system limitations included multiple control platforms, isolated process areas, insufficient historian capacity, custom and inconsistent PLC and HMI code, and an overloaded process network with a flat architecture.

“We also needed to restructure our controls because, in the past five years, we’ve grown from being a $20 million company to being a $60 million company,” he said “We want to be $100 million in the next few years, and our old controls couldn’t handle this growth.”

Tissier and Steve McNamer, project manager at McEnery, presented “Jost Chemical Deploys Virtualized PlantPAx” at Rockwell Automation TechED 2015 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel in San Diego, Calif.

Jost was founded in 1985, and its 220 employees manufacture 7 million kilograms per year of high-purity, inorganic salts for pharmaceutical, nutritional, food and specialty markets. Its more than 250 products include ammonium, calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, potassium, sodium and zinc.

McEnery Automation and its 20 control system engineers help manufacturers gain a competitive advantage through the strategic use of automation by understanding each client’s processes and equipment, identifying challenges and problems, applying its automation experience, and offering solutions that control, monitor, analyze, and integrate process systems. McEnergy is certified by theControl System Integrators Association (CSIA) and is a recognized Rockwell Automation system integrator.

Tissier explained that Jost’s objective was to build a plant-wide control system that could be implemented in phases over a year or more, and when complete:• Make existing licenses compatible• Give its historian access to data from all existing process areas

early in the project• Be flexible enough to allow integration of future process areas• Enable consistency in programming and operator graphics

throughout the facility• Generate cost savings via efficient implementation tools• Increase plant reliability • “We like migrating devices and capabilities we’ve purchased

previously,” said Tissier. “We’re starting two more production lines this year, and so we’ve got to have consistent programming and graphics. That’s why we wanted to create models and templates

for FactoryTalk VantagePoint and FactoryTalk ViewPoint. They also allow us to create most of our reports in-house for maximum knowledge retention, minimize capital expenditures, and use McEnery’s software expertise, which we’re very thankful for.” Tissier added that the Rockwell Automation Library of Process

Objects—such as device configurations from templates, predefined alarms, VFD faceplates and sequencer AOI—was the determining factor in Jost’s decision to standardize on Rockwell Automation.

“Also, the existing FactoryTalk Historian was underutilized because of limited access to process data due to processing capacity and network limitations,” he said. “Excel’s add-in trend tool loaded on the process engineers’ computers was the only means of data access, so no reports were configured, and available process data wasn’t being used.”

McNamer reported that Jost basically had one process, un-segmented control system for all its applications and devices, and much of its production traffic was colliding and interfering internally. The plant’s process controls consist of three Allen-Bradley ControlLogix PACs and two Allen-Bradley CompactLogix PACs, eight SLC/MicroLogix PLCs, 29 Allen-Bradley VFDs, 16 I/O chassis, three PanelView graphic terminals, six standalone FactoryTalk View Site Edition station servers, and one server running FactoryTalk Directory Services and FactoryTalk Historian.        

Before virtualization, Jost had five physical servers. To virtualize its computing, the company dispensed with three of the original servers, dedicated one to FactoryTalk Historian with access to data from all process areas, and used the last physical server to establish eight virtual servers running Hyper-V software for control and supervisory tasks. FactoryTalk VantagePoint provides process data to managers on Jost’s business network. Also, seven existing switches were configured for virtual local area networks (VLANs), 10 network switches were added for increased network segmentation, and a SonicWALL firewall was used as a gateway to Jost’s business network. 

“Using the library reduces implementation time for new and converted processes and provides consistent operator interfaces,” said McNamer. “It also enables Jost to convert existing process areas

one at a time by converting existing ControlLogix programming and FactoryTalk View SE standalone applications to the PlantPAx format, and then integrating them into distributed FactoryTalk View and ViewPoint.”

“We also wanted to do most of the upgrade in-house, so Jost could maximize knowledge retention and minimize costs,” added McNamer. “The migration path needed to allow software licenses to be reused and/or reapplied, as well as achieve version compatibility required throughout the project.”

As a result, Tissier reported that the library has reduced Jost’s programming costs by 25% for an estimated savings of $10,000 over three process areas. Using Hyper-V reduced its required Windows Server licenses for an estimated savings of well over $10,000 for server hardware and software. 

“Our historian tag count has increased to 750 tags,” said Tissier. “Our engineers are using FactoryTalk VantagePoint to suggest process improvements and additional automation, and the PlantPAx system has simplified the implementation of these suggestions. In addition, our increased automation has resulted in higher productivity by reducing batch time and operator errors, but our operators are requiring less training on graphics.

“Our maximized precipitation rate reduced product rework by 5% and minimized time in centrifuge by 10% through improving cycle times, while monitoring electrical power consumption data resulted in increases in scheduled production without exceeding peak power limits, which reduced our power costs,” added Tissier.

“Additionally, we increased automation of sequencing to reduce batch times up to 10%, while milling improvements resulted in more consistent product size and increased on-stream time by 6%. Also, optimization of our drying process has shortened drying times by 10% andimproved consistency of product moisture. Analysis of process data allowed identification of operating conditions, which had been causing quality issues for one product code. Corrections resulted in a 10% reduction in rework.”

“Scotts gained a common interface and easy to understand, real-time view into product weight, throughput and quality metrics,” said Dustin Wilson, technical lead, Phantom Technical Services, at Rockwell Automation TechED. Along with reduced scrap and faster changeovers, production rates are expected to increase about 10%.

HOW FACTORYTALK SOFTWARE PROVIDED THE VISION SCOTTS COMPANY NEEDED TO GROWRockwell Automation gave the company’s batch management system a common interface and an easy-to-understand, real-time view into product weight, throughput and quality metrics.

By Paul Studebaker, editor in chief, Control

The batch management system on The Scotts Miracle-Go Company’s lawn products bagging

and palletizing lines in Marysville, Ohio, couldn’t be modified or updated without calling in a system integrator. It couldn’t be expanded, it was becoming unreliable, and it ran on obsolete Windows XP.

The facility had standardized on Allen-Bradley equipment, and it made sense to look at Rockwell Automation software for a replacement. “By leveraging the FactoryTalk software suite for fast and accurate product reporting, Scotts gained a common interface and easy-to-understand, real-time view into product weight, throughput and quality metrics,” Dustin Wilson, technical lead,Phantom Technical Services, Columbus, Ohio, told attendees of his session at Rockwell Automation TechED 2015 in San Diego. “They can also now easily retrieve years of historical records for regulatory compliance.”

The monitored equipment on each line includes a checkweigher, a palletizer and a shared trunkline that conveys pallets to wrapping and labeling. Data is used

to establish process rates and weighing accuracy, measure OEE and track production lots.

They also upgraded the server hardware to handle virtualization, make the operating system compliant, and more secure and reliable data storage. The open-source solution allows internal modifications, improved recipe management, visibility into production metrics and fault tracking. The upgrade required special attention to the network and server structure to allow virtualization, application load balancing and reports available on multiple enterprise networks, as well as integration with the Mettler Toledo checkweigher. It relies on a combination of software including FactoryTalk VantagePoint, Metrics and Transaction Manager.

A plant model was created in FactoryTalk VantagePoint to allow easy user navigation, with a single user portal to see all production-related data including live Xcelsius graphics, ReportExport Metrics data, custom SSRS reports, and in the future, historian trends.

“To build the screens, we used an HTML

web container with VantagePoint composite reports, Excelcius live graphics and SRSS reports,” said Wilson. “We wanted the operator interface to have a traditional look and feel, so we used an HTML page.”

Users can navigate from production to, for example, lab results in the same view.

The application combines FactoryTalk VantagePoint and Xcelsius graphics data in the same HTML view. “Data that’s seldom changed, like batch type, is updated slowly—every 15 seconds,” said Wilson. “That allows us to refresh the fast data, like bagging rates, every second.”

The displays at the checkweigher have live graphics that give operators real-time data to make production-related decisions. “At a glance, operators can tell if production is within tolerance,” Wilson said. “Color bars let them see at a distance how things are running. Close up, trend charts show them what they might need to adjust.”

Different tabs break down the production run by shift. “They can see how well the shift ran, and the percentage outside the ideal spec weight. They can drill down to see individual bags, look at trends over the entire run, or compare it to historical data,” Wilson said. “We made sure to include the actual cycle time and the ideal cycle time, which is held in the recipe manager and downloaded so they can see it, and we can calculate OEE.”

More than 200 user-defined events are categorized by work cell, and there are six or seven states per work cell, as well as six overall line states. Configured SSRS reports allow data to be displayed, calculated, and refreshed, and ReportExpert built-in reports provide data “right out of the box,” Wilson said. ”Default parameter sets are a quick way to group data, and custom parameter sets allow the user to drill into data as needed.”

Dashboards give an overview of production, tiled in groups that make them easy to read. Individual tiles show OEE; OEE components (uptime, throughput, quality); production and fault summaries; good vs. scrap parts; and machine states.

“The dashboards are good for production and shift turnover meetings because they report how the line ran for the past 24

hours—your performance vs. goal,” said Matt Ackerman, controls engineer, The Scotts Company.

Bar graphs track production rates by the hour. “Say your target is 5,280 bags per shift,” he said. “If you’re at 80% or better, it’s green. At 60-80%, its yellow, and anything below that is red. The bar graphs let you see at a glance where problems occurred. You can dive down into scrap, OEE, availability, quality—all of that is available very easily.”

Ackerman summarized the benefits of the project for Scotts:• All portions of the system are open source and editable as

needed, when needed.• Live data allows on-the-fly adjustments: “Operators can see how

well they’re doing, and adjust the scales or baggers to stay on spec. We have fewer rejects, and fewer overfills, which adds up to significant savings.”

• New recipe functions reduce change-over time: “The recipes reduce changeover time. They used to be on a central computer, pushed line-by-line. Now it only takes about three pushes and it’s ready.”

• Metrics provide real-time production information: “The bar graph on the checkweigher scrolls and updates in real time so operations can see trends and make corrections. They can see from far away how well they’re doing, with continuous updates of bags-per-minute rate and OEE.”

• Future expansion gives the ability to add FactoryTalk Historian for an all-in-one portal.“You can see where to add new capabilities or modify existing

equipment,” Acherman said. “Together, the improvements have raised our expectations from 14 to 16-17 bags per minute—that’s around 10%. Today, we’re on 10 checkweigh lines, and we’ll be applying it to nine packaging lines. Meanwhile, we’re able to really start hammering on where to make improvements.”

SAVE THE DATE! Automation Fair® 2015 is headed to Chicago

Join us November 18-19 for Automation Fair®, and for the Process Solutions Users Group, November 16-17