The smart home cometh
by Sean Davies

19 March 2007

A house that reacts to your every need without you having to lift a finger is certainly not a new concept, but with the relentless march of civilisation it is coming closer to a reality. My first introduction to the topic came almost a quarter of a century ago with my first visit to Disney’s EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) theme park.

The Futureworld area of the park spotlighted Walt’s vision for the future with such outlandish ideas such as voice activated devices and smart lighting. Things have moved on from there, but nowhere near as rapidly as automation vendors were predicting a decade ago. The reasons why are readily apparent. The prohibitive cost, although this is reducing, fears about the security of networked systems and the availability of products for sale from retail outlets.

The topic of home automation was the central theme of a house building conference that I have recently visited in Orlando, the home of EPCOT.

One of the highlights of the show was a presentation on the automated homes of today as well as what we can expect in the future. The modern home, US style, already includes automation that allows the owner to operate indoor and outdoor lights, his entry door locks and the thermostats for his furnace and air conditioner as easily as he changes channels on his plasma TV.

According to "The Home of the Future" study presented at the show - polls of architects, designers and building industry manufacturers conducted by the National Association of Home Builders' economics group - new homes in the near future, as early as 2015, will offer buyers a blend of technological advancements and flexible living space.

One chap I spoke to at the show was willing to spend $50,000 to equip his renovated split-level with home automation technology. "I like all the electronics stuff so I did some research and found this technology is much more affordable than a few years ago," he told me. Less than two years ago, the same system would have cost him nearly $200,000.

With his home automation this proud chap, at the touch of a button, can turn on his landscape lights or dial up the thermostat on his heating system. At night, before he goes to bed, he can programme his security system, which features four video cameras, and lock all the deadbolts on his entry doors. And if he wants to check a system while at work, he can log on to the Internet and view settings from his computer.

In its most recent study, the Consumer Electronics Association found that at the turn of the decade about 7.5 million American homes were equipped with a degree of computer networking that automates security, entertainment, and lighting and mechanical systems. That's up from 2 million homes in 1995, according to the trade group.

In addition to media rooms the trend for kitchens is heating up, too. "For about $2,000, the homeowner now can control all the under-the-counter lights, recessed lighting and display lighting at one switch," he says. Before the installation, eight different switches were needed to control kitchen lighting.

One thing is beyond doubt, home automation is on the rise but whether it reaches beyond the techno geeks and early adopters will depend on a continued price reduction and allaying security fears.

Boom times for automation vendors
By Sean Davies

3 January 2007

The coming year, indeed years, look to be rosy for control and automation vendors according to new research by top market analysts ARC. Manufacturing companies continue to increase investments in capital expenditures for automation equipment as they clearly recognise the role of automation in the fierce global market.  As a result, the worldwide market for total process automation will grow robustly, with ARC expecting an annual growth rate of 6.4% over the next five years.  The market was nearly $58 billion in 2005 and is forecasted to reach nearly $79 billion in 2010. 

The process automation market experienced strong growth during the past two years, and this trend appears to be continuing.  Users and suppliers alike began to rethink the role of automation and its contribution to the profitability and success of manufacturing.  Modern process automation plays a key role in enabling integration of real-time visibility, agility, and speed into the performance management system so that the enterprise remains on course in improving business performance.

The global market for automation is still in a growth phase that is expected to last through the next several years.  China, India, and the rest of Asia are firing on all cylinders, booking large infrastructural and grassroots projects.   The Middle East also continues its capital investment boom, with opportunities not just limited to the oil, gas and refining industries.  Japan, North America and Western Europe, the most developed economies when it comes to automation and manufacturing, are experiencing less growth, but are driven significantly by the need to modernize a rapidly aging automation infrastructure.

 Manufacturers continue to look at ways that provide greater efficiency, cost reductions, and improved productivity in the global competitive arena.  To satisfy this underlying demand, suppliers continue to make investments for greater market penetration and product development. 

There are a number of issues suppliers face in this market where users demand increasing operational efficiency and rely on automation products for real-time operation intelligence to measure key performance indicators. 

Discrete automation suppliers are also striving to increase their solution’s capabilities and reach more hybrid and process markets.  Many discrete automation suppliers are offering process solutions and increasing their presence in process industries.  Suppliers are augmenting their deliverables and enhancing functionality to meet the expanding needs of users.

In addition to the quantitative assessment of the total process market, this report provides a summary of analysis for a variety of process automation products, market strategies, and market dynamics.

Power upgrades spur automation growth
by Sean Davies

The European Union’s (EU) commitment to reduce carbon emissions across EU member states is likely to support increased investment in more environmentally friendly power generation systems. Accordingly, the implementation of the Emissions trading scheme in 2005, which has provided power plants and factories with allowances related to permissible carbon dioxide levels, is gaining importance and this is projected to be an significant driver for automation and control solutions (ACS) in the European power generation sector over the next few years.

The Emissions trading scheme, together with reduced subsidies for less environmentally friendly power generation, are expected to boost demand and generate new investment opportunities for automation and control solutions. For example, investment in hydroelectric plants and wind farms is expected to generate demand for control and monitoring systems such as supervisory control and data acquisition system (SCADA) whereas increased demand of gas-fired plants and combined cycle gas turbines should generate new investment opportunities for distributed control system (DCS) systems.
Other drivers for growth in ACS include the deregulation of the European energy markets. Although this driver is expected to have less impact over the forecast period it is still expected to have a relatively high impact in Italy, Spain, France and also amongst EU accession countries.

In terms of geographical growth markets, the EU accession countries are expected to see increased investment levels in new power generation facilities. Existing power infrastructure is outdated and further investment is needed to comply with targets on carbon emission as well as achieve greater efficiency in power supply. Although the main source of energy is expected to remain coal over the forecast period, a gradual shift towards more environmentally friendly power generation investment is nevertheless anticipated.

An important trend in the European power generation sector will be the increasing importance of total system suppliers. As the power sector is operated by fewer but more influential power utilities, pressure will increase on ACS manufacturers to meet the evolving supply needs of the power utilities.

Through forward integration, many power utilities now control the complete product value chain from downstream generation to upstream distribution. Consolidation in emerging markets such as Eastern Europe has provided the major power utilities with opportunities to tap into organic growth.

The trend towards provision of complete solutions will also mean that smaller suppliers will lose out on new Greenfield projects as they do not necessary have the expertise in providing complete system solutions as well as the ability to provide services over a wider geographical region. The net effect will increasingly include major sector suppliers who are not only able to provide ACS but complete plant solutions.

According to a recent report the adoption of Internet Standards in the Building Automation Systems (BAS) market is giving birth to a new industry focusing on information management and analysis. It claims that the worldwide market for BAS is expected to exceed $25 billion in 2009.

In sharp contrast to traditional BAS protocols, the adoption of Internet standards allows building owners to perform sophisticated business intelligence analysis on facilities data that is typically reserved for business applications.  Recognising the emerging demand for Internet standards in the BAS market, IT companies such as Cisco are taking greater interest in partnering with suppliers already active in the BAS controls market. At the same time, traditional BAS suppliers are looking for help in providing high-level facilities data analysis tools to a new breed of customers in the increasingly IP-centric BAS market.

It is increasingly evident that adoption of Internet standards in the BAS market is necessary to drive further productivity gains of both employees and facilities equipment.  Businesses are increasingly transitioning toward dynamic, demand-driven models that require increased agility, flexibility, and productivity to be responsive to ever faster market changes.

Business agility, however, demands a level of data visibility and sharing that is not present in the infrastructure of most businesses today.  Most businesses have an extensive installed base of disparate equipment and systems that are unable to coexist on a single network including IT systems, BAS, and numerous building devices.  These systems and devices were implemented using a variety of suppliers with different needs in mind.  Most systems and equipment, and the applications that run on them, were implemented using a wide range of methodologies, languages, protocols, operating systems, and platforms, with no consideration of ever trying to bring disparate systems together, yet represent huge investments that cannot be discarded. Over time, businesses accumulate numerous different generations of legacy systems and equipment.  Consequently, most solutions designed to allow disparate building systems to share data across a common network require significant time and investment to complete the necessary custom integration or replacement programs.

Use of Internet standards helps achieve interoperability by simplifying and reducing the risk associated with exchanging data across various networks and systems.  The adoption of Internet communication standards in the BAS market is further extending the concept of smart buildings by allowing companies to create a single repository for all facilities data so that it can be easily retrieved and shared between all applications and all organizations within an enterprise.  Once facilities data is easily retrieved, companies are able to perform intelligent analysis on the enterprise's entire portfolio of facilities data.  In addition to providing enhanced data integration, the ability to work with numerous types of equipment and systems from numerous vendors using Internet standards is also key to providing facilities managers reduced uncertainty by removing the fear of the solution becoming obsolete due to the rapidly changing landscape of the controls market with new vendors and new technologies appearing on the market almost daily.

17 May 2006

Consider the scene: A hacker gains access to the computer system used by an industrial control system to open and close the valves of a gas pipeline. Having disabled its ability to communicate with a central facility, a major environmental disaster is only a few keystrokes away… It’s a scenario worthy of a James Bond film, certainly, but does it have much precedent in reality?

The list of control-system cyber-security breaches to have reached the public domain is admittedly small but makes for worrying enough reading on its own. Technologies such as SCADA, DCS and PLC, for example, are used in a wide range of sectors, from nuclear energy to food manufacturing, and are known to have vulnerabilities. However, the security effort is widely regarded as lagging behind its counterpart in the enterprise IT realm. While there is widespread awareness of the need to address information security in the automation world, the implementation effort exhibits a wide variance in sophistication levels.

So far, the vast majority of incidents appear to have involved malicious software, principally worms and viruses. While most are random or opportunistic attacks, some of those present in the available incident data look like they were written deliberately for a particular control environment.

Around 10 to 20% of the 100+ incidents recorded in BCIT’s Industrial Security Incident Database (ISID) to date have been targeted attacks. The knowledgeable insider is the most threatening scenario and provided the backdrop to a high profile, February 2000 case in Queensland, Australia. A disgruntled employee of a water-utility contractor gained remote access to the utility’s control system and managed to release over one million litres of sewage into local waterways.

Following 9/11, the US Department of Homeland Security played a prominent role in the industrial cyber-security effort. Given the potential chaos that could result from an attack on a system used by a major energy facility or utility, companies and suppliers in these critical infrastructure sectors have been among the principal pioneers.

However, the seriousness of the risk appears difficult to judge. At the Process Control and SCADA Security Summit, held in Florida in March by the SANS Institute, Tom Donahue of the CIA downplayed the potential threat from terrorists, suggesting that attacks on critical infrastructure lack the necessary dramatic display that seems to be preferred by this constituency. However, he says, this could well change.

At the less purposeful end of the scale, there have also been incidents where industrial control operations were compromised by opportunistic hackers or ‘script kiddies’. While such an attacker is unlikely to be able to understand or control a manufacturing system, they might still be able to cause accidental disruption or damage by simply clicking around.

This is not a subject that will go away. In fact expect it to gain greater attention as more and more wireless applications come on line. For automation engineers designing control systems preventing unauthorised access will be high on the list of safety features.

26 January 2006

Prospects for the global automation industry seem better than at any time this century. The post millennium-bug hangover and the collapse of the dot.com bubble were followed by five difficult and, in some cases, near terminal years for automation vendors. 2005, however, having been billed as more of the same, now looks to have been something of a turning point. Not only have China and India continued to boom, drawing in automation investment, but manufacturers in Europe and the United States seem to have accepted that advanced automation is fundamental to any strategy for remaining competitive. Even events such as the oil price hike and Hurricane Katrina have had their silver linings, at least for the automation industry, the one ensuring continued and accelerating investment in the upstream oil and gas and the refining sectors, the other generating lucrative reinstatement, refurbishment and upgrade work at Gulf coast refineries and off shore installations.
 
Impressions of better times are reinforced by recently released market data. Analysts at ARC Advisory Group, for example, are predicting that the total automation business to discrete industries will grow at 7% compound over the next five years from $27bn in 2004 to $38bn in 2009, a full percentage point faster than their prediction for the same market back in 2003. Earlier last year ARC forecast that the total automation market for the process industries worldwide would grow at 5.1% compound from nearly $50bn in 2003 to more than $64bn in 2008. That may turn out to be something of an underestimate, given that its more recent forecast for the global Distributed Control System (DCS) market has it growing at an average rate of 6% compound between 2004 and 2009, up 2% on what it was forecasting just a year earlier.

Even in Europe, where investment in new plant has almost ground to a halt, refurbishments and retrofits will ensure that that the combined DCS and SCADA market will be worth $5.62bn in 2011, 23.5% greater than it was in 2001, according to market researchers Frost & Sullivan. Growth in the combined market between 2005 and 2011, they say, will approach $700m.

Barring accidents, therefore, it seems safe to assume that the overall global automation market will continue to grow for the rest of the decade. Indeed, combining ARC’s recent figures for discrete and process automation suggests that the total worldwide market will break through the $100bn barrier before 2009, that is certainly good cheer as we set out on another year.

Manufacturing capacity boosts drives market
By Sean Davies

15 December 2005

Strong global economic growth and buoyant consumer demand contributed to robust growth of the high power AC drive market.  Manufacturing companies in a variety of industries have been invested heavily to create additional manufacturing capacity and in capital equipment to upgrade existing plants.  The worldwide market for High Power AC Drives already exceeds $3.2bn last year and is predicted to grow by  nearly 9% a year over the next five years according to a new report from ARC.

The escalating energy costs experienced in recent years has forced manufacturers to focus on energy conservation measures.  Increased energy costs have spurred the use of high power AC drives particularly in energy intensive industries such as cement, chemical, and metals & mining.  "With energy costs increasing and drive prices falling, the payback period is becoming shorter, helping users to justify capital expenditures on AC drives.
 
Several factors are expected to contribute to robust growth of the high power AC drive market including manufacturer energy saving and reliability initiatives, incorporation of more user-friendly features, and new solution-based drive systems.  New applications such as drives for hybrid powered automobiles will also contribute to market growth.
Positive economic developments in emerging markets such as Asia also contributed to market growth.  As developing countries such as China and India continue to invest heavily in basic infrastructure related industries such as cement, electric power, metals & mining, and oil & gas, high power AC drive use in these regions will continue to be strong.
  
Users today are demanding comprehensive solutions with an emphasis on total lifecycle cost, productivity, and return on assets (ROA).  Responding to user demand for such solutions, global suppliers are bundling high power AC drives with a broader range of services such as higher levels of pre- and post-sale technical support including equipment installation, project commissioning, product training, and maintenance services.  Suppliers are also developing collaborative partnership arrangements with OEMs that manufacture driven equipment such as compressors, fans, and pumps to reduce system total cost of ownership (TCO).

Fair winds for DCS
by Sean Davies

1 Dec 2005

The Distributed Control Systems (DCS) market, used in industrial and civil engineering applications to monitor and control distributed equipment with remote human intervention, is predicted to grow strongly over the coming years. This increase is primarily buoyed by growth in developing countries such as China and India and a slowdown in hardware price declines, has experienced healthy expansion recently, a growth expected to continue for the next couple of years.

The expected growth in Asia – primarily China and India – has been boosted by the significant restructuring efforts in the United States oil & gas and refining infrastructure in the wake of an unprecedented hurricane season, as well as a return to stronger, albeit moderate growth, in the previously depressed Japanese DCS market. 

After years of decline in the hardware business, increased demand and overall market growth have resulted in resurgence in hardware growth.  Hardware revenues for suppliers are expected to grow at the average annual rate of just over 4 percent through 2009, which is a big departure from the declines witnessed in the hardware business in recent years.  Most DCS suppliers have retained key business elements of manufacturing and/or design of control hardware.

Contributing to overall DCS market growth is increased manufacturing capacity utilisation in North America and Japan, while developing economies in China and India continue to add significant amounts of capacity.  Capacity utilisation in the US, for example, is coming closer and closer to breaking the 80 percent mark, which, as a rule of thumb, should signal a capacity expansion mode, resulting in increased investment in automation.  In the US, productivity (measured as output per hour of all persons) increased by over 4 percent for manufacturing in the second quarter compared to the same period last year. 

Europe, meanwhile, is experiencing a downturn in capacity utilisation, which for manufacturing is normally much higher than utilisation rates in North America.  The reason for this is unclear, but may be affected by increased manufacturing growth in Eastern Europe.  The EU 25 New Orders Index for manufacturing has also fallen in recent months.

Yet more good news for an automation sector that is already encouraged by growth in the emerging markets that more than compensates for stagnation in the traditional developed economies. 

Integration automation
by Mark Venables

17 November 2005

Industrial automation is certainly an area that is growing. From its roots as a simple factory floor control system it is becoming the platform for greater productivity drives in manufacturing and heightened integration between manufacturing and enterprise systems. It is taking isolated factories and integrating them with wider and often global enterprises. So what is steering this movement? Nothing other than our old friends of supply chain integration and flexible manufacturing.

It is a move from mass production to mass customisation – for everything from cars to breakfast cereal the talk is about mass customisation – I came across an online company the other day that would prepare and deliver breakfast cereal to customers with the exact amount of fruit, nuts, flakes, bran etc. On the supply chain it is a movement from a traditional discrete supply chain to the modern, fully synchronised and integrated affair.

According to Rockwell’s chief technology officer, who I bumped into at the company’s Automation Fair at St Louis this week there are five technologies that will drive the future of industrial automation: control and diagnostics; communication; software; electronics; and materials – with the former trio being the most important. However technology trends are of no relevance unless they solve problems in manufacturing.
Multiple control disciplines have already been integrated with safety in modern automation systems but the next step is integration with information. All of this will be accomplished through software rather than traditional hardware embedded in the PLC, and achieved by leveraging the rapid revolution in IT technology. Despite the claims of other standards, including Profinet, Ethernet is the fastest growing network in industrial automation and industrial Ethernet will become the dominant network over the next couple of years. On top of this World Wide Web standards – such as XML, SOAP, and web services – are making their way into industrial automation.

Another change is occurring among the traditional three-tier software hierarchy of a manufacturing company. Today you have the enterprise systems at the top level – the ubiquitous SAP or Oracle systems much beloved by the boardroom while being mistrusted on the manufacturing floor , in the middle there are the manufacturing execution systems (MES) – which at present are mainly piecemeal customised offerings, and below that the factory floor control software. What Rockwell, among other companies, is trying to do is bridge that gap between shop floor and boardroom. Their thinking behind this is that while the factory floor is now capable of being fully integrated, the manufacturing processes that occur in the middle, or MES level, or still disparate. It is their belief that automation vendors, who have the data capturing already on the shop floor, are the perfect partners to integrate the manufacturing processes layer. If this comes about it will be an enormous boost to productivity by allowing access to historical performance data for all manner of tasks from production planning to condition monitoring. Of course data on its own does not solve any problems or increase ROI, but when factory floor data is combined into an MES application such as Rockwell’s BizTalk or Siemen’s Simatic IT, the results are impressive.

Whether these products can close the loop by bridging the divide between shop floor and boardroom remains to be seen, but what is clear is that they will certainly help at the manufacturing level.

13 October 2005

Manufacturers from various industries are increasing investment in automation software in order to meet the requirements of compliance laws that mandate them to maintain electronic records of all activities ranging from production, packaging and batch information to shipment. For example within the pharmaceutical industry, the 21 CFR Part 11 standard requires all companies to store their patient records with appropriate electronic signatures while the recent Europe Food legislation specifies the need for an electronic system to ensure traceability of manufactured goods. Manufacturers in the pharmaceuticals, automotive and food & beverage industry are showing greater interest in human machine interaction (HMI) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems that are not only easy to use and configure but also minimise manual intervention and improve accuracy. Increased efficiency, ease of usage and faster return on investment (ROI) are some of the other advantages industrial automation software is providing the end user.

Automation software vendors are now relying on the powerful communication capabilities of the Internet and wireless technology to enable remote monitoring of manufacturing plants. Besides providing some advanced diagnostic capabilities, the latest series of HMI/SCADA software packages is available on mobile devices. These systems coordinate with the sensor devices, aggregate the information and send appropriate alert messages to the user’s handheld device. Remote monitoring of manufacturing facilities works particularly well for hazardous factory environments.

Quality control in manufacturing processes is crucial, especially in the food & beverage and pharmaceuticals industry. Sensors coupled with state-of-the-art HMI/SCADA software systems aid in monitoring manufacturing processes, tracking problems and identifying solutions. Automation software vendors are also integrating SCADA systems with higher-level management systems such as manufacturing execution systems (MES) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) for improved business planning and decision-making.

Compliance is not always seen as a positive force in industry but if it can boost the take up of automation it may be a price worth paying.

Out with the old, In with the new
by Sean Davis

Automation software vendors in Europe face a challenging task ahead as they try to convince end users across various industries to replace legacy programmable logic controllers (PLCs) with the more sophisticated software-based systems such as human machine interface (HMI) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA).
The emergence of the Internet into the manufacturing floor makes the plant data more vulnerable to security attacks. Apart from security concerns, users are sceptical regarding hardware dependability and the stability of the underlying operating system, especially for running mission-critical applications. Since industrial users are unwilling to risk their production pipeline on software-based systems, automation software vendors need to offer SCADA and HMI software packages that come with embedded security tools.

The general concensus is that given that new technologies, such as Web services and mobile devices for monitoring and controlling processes, are yet to gather pace, automation vendors should concentrate on educating users on these technologies emphasising on the benefits they could offer in terms of better return on investment, improved resource efficiency and higher throughput.

Vendors could also stress on the capabilities of the latest SCADA and HMI software packages that besides providing some advanced diagnostic capabilities allow remote monitoring of manufacturing facilities.

Embedded state-of-the-art sensors, advanced vision systems and other supervisory systems send appropriate alarms to the engineers through short messaging service (SMS) to the mobile phone or personal digital assistant.

Here, vendors need to emphasise the value of collecting, acquiring, presenting and analysing the data, which is crucial for monitoring quality and fixed costs in a manufacturing organisation.

Moreover, SCADA systems are providing data on a real-time basis using technologies such as eXtensible markup language (XML), simple object access protocol (SOAP), wireless mark-up language (WML) and extensible stylesheet language (XSL) that keep production downtime to a minimum.

Powerful languages such as C++, VC++ and Visual Basic are also available, which help in developing complex motion applications and simplify the transition from legacy systems to the latest automation software packages.

The application logic is provided as a separate layer from the software implementation layer, which makes the system versatile and suitable for different application environments. There has also been significant advancement in the HMI hardware systems area to better suit the industrial segment. For example, 3M Touch Systems has launched its latest product in the touch screen genre, which performs well even in rugged manufacturing environments, and is now exploring the use of sound and speech technologies as a part of the HMI systems.

Automation software vendors are also integrating SCADA systems with higher-level management systems such as manufacturing execution systems (MES) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) for improved business planning and decision-making.
In the long term, compliance laws are expected to be the most significant driving factor for automation software, compelling manufacturers, especially in the pharmaceutical sector, food & beverages and automotive industry to set up HMI/SCADA systems.

Tough Customers
By Sean Davies

Like many other sectors the chemical industry in Western Europe is feeling the economic squeeze. However rather than using this pressure as the catalyst for giant leaps in productivity by encouraging companies to adopt the most up to date systems it appears difficult trading conditions may be stifling take up. Demand for automation and control solutions in the chemical sector is being hampered by twin factors of chemical production moving overseas, and the absence of new chemical plants being set up in the western states of the European Union.

Nonetheless, the counterbalancing trend is that chemical manufacturers are expected to invest in retrofits and upgraded systems in order to improve their production efficiency and counter intense competition from low-cost suppliers. Even as new technologies are brought to the market, the uptake within Europe’s chemical industry has been slow due to a cyclical decline in investment. Solution providers have had to work harder to convince chemical customers of the long-term cost reduction benefits in the new generation of automation and control solutions, particularly when trying to develop new supply relationships.

Chemical firms are particularly reticent about investing in supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) solutions, and SCADA suppliers in particular are faced with convincing them of increased functionality and reliability of SCADA, particularly in batch-oriented chemical manufacturing.

Suppliers of new-generation systems like MES and IAM solutions in particular, face a considerable challenge in persuading chemical customers to additionally purchase their solutions at a time when clients need to be convinced of the ROI in each and every purchase. The challenge of educating end users of the potential cost efficiencies and production benefits will undoubtedly aid in growth of these sectors. Ironically it is the build up of competitive pressure from low-price competition from outside the EU, that will boost chemicals firms perception of many cost-saving solutions. These products are being rapidly developed and exploited by large branded solution suppliers, which is also fuelling the projected rate of uptake throughout the industry as a whole.

The future is bright, the future is ZigBee
by Sean Davies

ARC Advisory Group has issued a new Strategy Report entitled "ZigBee in a Nutshell: How Suitable for Industrial Applications?"  This report explains what ZigBee is and why new technology like ZigBee will be needed in future wireless sensor networks. 
The report says that manufacturing end users see a huge potential value in wireless devices, but will only make large deployments of products when they are based on standards. Reliance on standards assures better radio frequency coexistence, multiple sources of supply, and predictable performance as deployments scale up. The ZigBee Alliance has positioned itself as being the key technology standard not only for wireless coexistence, but for device level interoperability – hence the ZigBee marketing tag line "wireless control that simply works".

According to the report developers of products and solutions for industry are now choosing from among several wireless technologies.  Their menu of technology choices consists of IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.15.4 (either with or without ZigBee), Bluetooth, and even more far off wireless technologies like UWB.  Among these radio technologies only 802.15.4 has the property of very low power consumption that long-lived battery-powered industrial products will require. Most industrial applications will deploy at least some fraction of battery-powered devices. As a result, the question on the table today in many industrial development and deployment roadmaps is still to ZigBee or not to ZigBee?

Working with the  802.15.4 standard — which focuses on low-rate personal area networking — it capitalises on the inherent reliability, long battery life and mesh network support to enable reliable, low-power, wireless data communications for monitoring and control devices. It also extended the inherent security of the standard with the robust encryption option of AES-128 security, which can be tailored to meet the specific needs of any network.

By creating a standards-based wireless networking solution, it ensures that vendor-independent product solutions will be interoperable. Vendors choosing to build on the ZigBee standard can focus on product innovation, instead of developing costly proprietary solutions, and expand on the potential for new and creative applications to be brought to market.

While it supports a variety of network topologies, including star, mesh and cluster networks, mesh networking is a fundamental and differentiating attribute to its design. In fact, mesh network support is so integral to its value proposition that the name is based on the ZigBee Principle; the zigzag path of bees that serves to signal a new food source to other members of the colony. The bees’ survival depends on the continuous communication of information between every member of the colony.

The continuous flow of communication exacted by a mesh network topology provides the reliability required for wireless-based connectivity of remote monitoring and sensing controls. By providing multiple pathways for data to travel, a mesh network eliminates the single point of failure scenario and affords a transparent recovery of a network node.
Although having given other technologies a head start, particularly Bluetooth, in the industrial arena ZigBee is destined to make big inroads in the next few years backed by standards, an organisation promoting its adopting and component manufacturers bring more compatible products onto the market.

A winning formula
by Sean Davies

2 September 2005

It's not often that I give space to an individual company's achievements, but Emerson Process Management's success in winning the Frost & Sullivan Company of the Year award for the second year running deserves some mention. As you probably know, Frost & Sullivan is a global consulting company whose surveys and awards are taken very seriously by the industry.

Frost & Sullivan presents this award each year to the process control and automation company that has demonstrated excellence in all operations, including business development, competitive strategy, and leadership within its industry. The award recognises the recipient’s outstanding management, consistent growth, exceptional customer service, and positive social and economic impact.

A chat with Sath Rao, Frost & Sullivan’s research manager, revealed that it was innovation and customer focus that had made Emerson stand out in the judge’s eyes, and this set me thinking about just what it is that makes a company successful.

A quick glance at the figures reveals that Emerson continues to grow faster than the market and, according to all the market vibes, they continue to provide products and solutions with superior project management and execution skills. But maybe the most telling statistic is the company’s growth in customer services of nearly 24%, underscoring its ability to provide solutions that impact customer bottom-lines. Providing products and solutions is one thing, but ensuring that customers benefit from this is most important.

The final piece in the jigsaw of achievement is the company’s ability to penetrate emerging markets, with continued growth in China, Eastern Europe, Russia and India. This not only generates current profits but will also help the company consolidate its early mover advantage. In 2004, Emerson Process Management continued its global expansion, increasing its sales to an all-time high of $3.7bn.

It’s only fair to report Rao’s words of praise when presenting the award to Emerson: "With this award, we also recognise Emerson’s ability to create winning teams to complement its capacity for technology innovation. The company’s people practices provide its employees with an enabling vision, empowering them to exceed targets. Their focus on customer support and responsiveness ensures repeat business."

Emerson has succeeded by innovating, ensuring that its customers take full advantage of that innovation, and continuing to explore new markets. A blueprint for success in any language.

PAM goes from strength to strength
by Sean Davies

25 August 2005

Along with safety, the growing ability to monitor performance in real time is one of the key drivers of growth in the control sector.

Manufacturer needs are creating unprecedented growth in the Plant Asset Management (PAM) systems market. For confirmation of this, look no further than ARC's recent study Plant Asset Management Systems Worldwide Outlook.  ARC predicts annual growth close to 10 percent over the next five years, in a market that currently exceeds $1.1bn.

Regardless of the type of asset being monitored, PAM systems make use of intelligence to predict asset health, optimise maintenance and plant operations, increase production availability, and enable a predictive maintenance and operations strategy.

The ARC report suggests that PAM systems are rapidly becoming the initiative of choice for manufacturers in today's competitive environment. Improving management of capital assets is one of the best ways to increase productivity with little or no production upsets.

Not surprisingly in such a buoyant market leading suppliers continue to grow, buoyed by a number of factors contributing to a fertile climate for manufacturer investment. These include an aging technical workforce, personnel reductions, and a huge installed base of old equipment. PAM systems are becoming a leading strategy to manage changing business conditions and are increasingly garnering a larger share of business investments, and not only in old systems. This growth is also helped by PAM systems moving from their traditional market, that of heavy process industries, into the mainstream industrial environment.

The increasing popularity these systems for automation assets is also spurring demand for PAM solutions for production assets. Manufacturers are increasingly adopting protection and prediction solution upgrades using better analysis software developed in the predictive PAM automation space. 

Previous solutions were designed to monitor automation assets or rotating and reciprocating equipment, and were commonly referred to as condition monitoring. However, many suppliers have now developed PAM infrastructures that combine both classes of assets. Combining information from intelligent field devices, sensors, and process information, in the right context, has proven to be a viable way of identifying problems and assessing the health and performance of any asset, regardless of type. Easier implementations and lower cost solutions are further contributing to increasing demand and the release of a broad, diversified, set of PAM solutions from leading suppliers.

Are Robots The Answer?
by Sean Davies

18 August 2005

The flood of manufacturing from Britain to low cost economies may be slowing and reversing, with more companies turning to automation to reduce their costs. This trend is increasingly apparent, according to Tony Jones Managing Director of systems integrator TEC Manufacturing in Melton Mowbray. When I spoke to him recently he explained that the exodus was at its height a couple of years ago and many people were predicting the total demise of manufacturing in Britain.

He went on to explain that they had noted that the most switched-on companies were not so enamoured with the idea of trying to co-ordinate operations halfway around the world. They had the same cost pressures as everyone else but preferred to invest in on-site automation so that they kept all their activities physically close together.

It is a trend that I have come across with increasing regularity, people bringing their manufacturing back and automating as they do so.

Outside of volume automotive assembly and a few other key sectors, the robot population has been very low to date. Jones says that there are three reasons for this. Until recently the cost of a robot was such that you could build a bespoke mechanical handling system for the same money.

There was the chicken-and-egg lack of confidence in which potential users would not commit to robots because not enough other people had done so before them.

And the technocratic reason was that manufacturing lines did not previously need the flexibility offered by robots, but with short-run production now the norm they are now often the best if not only solution. The flexibility of multi-axis robots is such that they can switch from one task to another in seconds or can be redeployed to completely different duties with very little change over time.

This increase in the uptake in robotics is reflected in recent figures from the United States, one of its key markets. According to figures released by the Robotics Industries Association (RIA) North American robotics suppliers saw orders leap 36% in the first half of 2005, putting the industry on pace for a record year, according to new statistics released by Robotic Industries Association (RIA), the industry’s trade group.

A total of 10,712 robots valued at $638.9 million were ordered by North American companies through June. When orders from companies outside North America are included, overall sales for North American robot suppliers totalled 11,381 robots valued at $673m in the first half of 2005. The April through June quarter was the robotics industry’s best quarter ever, with 5,396 robots valued at $336.3 million ordered by North American manufacturing companies.

The first half surge was led by demand for robots that perform applications such as material handling and arc welding. Orders in the automotive and metalworking industries were especially strong. Experienced users such as the automotive manufacturers are now finding expanded uses for robots as they strive to reduce costs, improve productivity, and speed time to market with their new products. New users are turning to robots to help them become globally competitive and to keep manufacturing jobs at home.

Automation and robotics provide a variety of benefits to the manufacturing community including improved efficiency, better quality, reduced piece price, minimized risk and improved control of operations. Of all the forms of automation, robots prove to be the most flexible and offer more opportunities for companies to maintain profitability.

The Case for Neural Monitoring
by Sean Davies

Condition Monitoring increases overall knowledge of asset condition and allows decision makers to perform Condition-based Maintenance (CbM) by scheduling downtime, labour, and materials based on machinery health. The benefits of a CbM programme are many, and they impact a variety of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) by improving plant metrics such as Return on Net Assets (RONA) and lower inventory costs and increased Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).

Condition monitoring occurs in various guises from sensors monitoring individual items of equipment such as bearings, motors or drives to fully integrated, plant-wide systems that monitor the condition of an entire factory or manufacturing process. And its utilisation is growing rapidly.

Today's lack of concrete information pertaining to capital assets, however, makes any decision regarding postponing asset purchases or eliminating capital assets a gamble. The importance of an effective capital asset management strategy that enables executives to make such decisions accurately and confidently is painfully clear.

While information from isolated sensors is relatively common, the constant drive to maximise performance from asset investments and automate maintenance processes means plant operators need more than just accurate data. They need knowledge. Artificial neural networks, and in particular those based on novelty detection, can often provide solutions to complex and/or demanding monitoring needs where traditional techniques fail.

Traditionally, the health of industrial plant and assets have been monitored by individual sensors. These sensors have pre-programmed alarm limits based on a prior knowledge or understanding of the changes in condition of the asset. Artificial neural networks (more commonly referred to as simply "neural networks") differ in that they are trained with data from multiple sensors. Although this data is known to have some relationship to the condition of the asset, the actual relationship may not be understood or definable. Training allows normal and fault conditions to be recognised. Given the right application, neural network-based solutions can provide excellent results in relatively short timescales.

Neural networks learn from experience and are particularly well suited to solutions which are complex or difficult to specify, but where sufficient data can be provided from which a response can be learnt. In addition, a neural network can even be trained to give the right response to data it has not previously seen. This is possible, with expert design, based on its ability to interpolate from a previous learning experience.

It is likely that potential applications will already have some form of monitoring due to the critical nature of its performance and/or safety requirements. Monitoring the data from a number of disparate sources and measures (vibration, temperature, and pressure) will allow for the detection of fault conditions much earlier than single sensor systems.

The main difference between using neural networks and pure knowledge-based systems lies in the ability of neural networks to integrate complex signals at a low level. This provides more information and allows for more accurate interpolation of parameter settings as well as automation of systems of increasing complexity, and thus a better ability to manage equipment effectively.

A growing market
by Sean Davies

28 July 2005

While the service sector represents a significant growth area, the worldwide process automation market also gets a boost from growth industries such as pharmaceuticals, food & beverage, and water & waste water, as well as safety systems and software segments. The worldwide market for Total Process Automation is expected to grow at more than 5 percent per annum over the next five years. The market, which was nearly $50bn in 2003, is forecasted to be over $64 billion in 2008.

While manufacturers are expected to remain cautious, plant equipment capital expenditures are expected to rise modestly across many industries. Global competition will compel most manufacturers to improve their plant machinery and processes in order to stay competitive. Fast growing regions, increasing service revenues, broader solutions, regulatory requirements, and expanding scope of applications for automation products due to their low cost and increasing performance will also boost the market growth.

A number of new dynamics are shaping the global automation market. Manufacturing companies perceive the need to track and improve their plant and enterprise productivity and performance through Real-time Performance Management (RPM). As RPM initiatives take hold, intelligent and fieldbus devices, along with control systems, will be more widely used.

Dr Klaus Kleinfeld, president and CEO of Siemens, told a recent press event in Lisbon that organic growth in the Automation and Drives Group was slightly less than ten percent, although they were growing nearly three times as fast as the market. The boom areas for the company are Asia and the Americas. In Asia alone, the growth rate was roughly 30 percent, whilst in the Americas the figure was 15 percent.

Another of the key players, ABB, reported in its Q1 results that process automation showed the strongest growth from amongst its portfolio driven primarily by the oil, gas, petrochemical and chemical sectors.

There are also opportunities created by the manufacturing base shifting to low-cost regions. High-growth countries offer opportunities for the use of process automation equipment in manufacturing as well as for the infrastructure industries. While the shift of manufacturing bases to low cost regions is fuelling growth in those regions, this growth comes at the expense of growth rates in developed regions.

While this is of course good news for the control and automation vendors, it also reflects well on the manufacturing sector as a whole. Continued investment in automation is vital and to view such a pick up amidst market worries shows a solid underlying confidence.

Beauty and the PACs
by Sean Davies

21 July 2005

For the past decade a passionate debate has raged about the advantages and disadvantages of PLCs compared to PC-based control. The technological differences between the PC and the PLC have significantly reduced. PLCs and SoftPLCs have gained advanced functionality traditionally only found on PC-based systems, and PC-based controllers have gained the reliability of PLC systems by employing advanced real-time operating systems. The reality is that a new class of controller is emerging, the Programmable Automation Controller or PAC. The PAC concept was created by the Automation Research Corporation (ARC) to describe a new generation of industrial controller that combines the ruggedness and reliability of a PLC with the flexibility and advanced functionality of a PC. The PAC acronym is now being used by both traditional PLC vendors and by PC control companies to describe their industrial control platforms.

In the last three decades PLCs have evolved to incorporate analogue I/O, networking and new programming standards like IEC 61131-3. The reality is that around 80% of industrial applications use just discrete or digital I/O and simple ladder logic programmes with perhaps a few analogue I/O points. This is what has driven the growth of low-cost micro PLCs. It has also created a discontinuity in controller technology where 80% of applications require simplicity and low cost and 20% relentlessly push the capabilities of traditional control, needing higher loop rates, advanced control algorithms, more analogue functionality and better integration with enterprise networks.

Over the last 10 years, these ‘20 percenters’ have been evaluating PCs for industrial control. The PC provided the software capabilities to match their advanced requirements along with graphical software development tools, floating point processors, high speed I/O buses such as PCI and non volatile storage. As a platform the PC offers unparalleled flexibility, highly productive software and advanced low-cost hardware. But the downside is that PCs are still not ideal for control, with the main challenges being stability, reliability and unfamiliar programming environments.

For this reason developers of advanced control applications have either lived without functionality that is not easily provided by a PLC or they stuck together a PLC and a PC. This approach often leaves the engineer navigating a system with multiple software tools and components from several suppliers, often not designed to work together.

This is where the PAC comes in, combining PLC reliability and ruggedness with PC power and flexibility in the same system. As defined by ARC, a PAC is built on an open modular architecture, employs de-facto standards for networking and is programmed and configured using a single multi-discipline software environment. PACs have multi-domain functionality, being able to address not just logic but also applications as diverse as machine vision, motion and advanced control.

A good example of the PAC approach is the range of modular PAC platforms from National Instruments. The common architectural thread through all the platforms is the LabVIEW graphical development environment which not only targets different classes of modular hardware from industrial PC through PXI to rugged Compact RIO, but it is also an open and modular environment equally at home tackling advanced control as well as motion, machine vision and traditional sequential discrete control.

An intriguing development is the inclusion of user reconfigurable FPGA hardware into PAC systems. This opens up the potential of users ‘building’ their own custom hardware solutions to advanced control challenges by just using software. Within the NI PAC platform this advanced capability is made easily accessible via the same LabVIEW software environment.

Fundamentally PAC systems open up a whole new field to control engineers. They bring the power and flexibility of  PC-based technologies into the industrial control arena without sacrificing ruggedness and reliability. With the inclusion of FPGA-based reconfigurable hardware they go well beyond the capabilities of traditional PLCs.

Safety drives control separation
by Sean Davies

7 July 2005

Safety Instrumented System (SIS) has become more important in process control applications in recent years due to accidents. The most devastating that comes to mind is the accident at a Union Carbide Chemical plant in Bhopal, India where an explosion at the plant led to the death of 2,000 people and the injury of over 50,000 people. Accidents such as this require the process industry to take a hard look at current practices such as maintenance, management of change and process design. It also leads insurers of process plants to enforce more stringent policies around risk mitigation.

These incidents have led to engineering organisations developing best practices and standards that suggested that a separate system needed to be implemented for safety functions away from the basic process control system (BPCS).

A separate SIS minimises the risk of common cause failures and is becoming an industry standard. Though separation allows for safer operations, it is not without its difficulties. Configuration of the SIS can be a tedious process with data mapping and networking considerations between the SIS and BPCS. On top of this additional hardware gateways can add complexity and additional possible points of failure.

Why has there been so much interest in the Safety Instrumented System (SIS) market recently? Safety is something that everyone considers important but it has received an increasing amount of attention lately and without a doubt the focus on process safety and Safety Instrumented Systems is here to stay.

While all countries do not have a governing body that forces the use of standards, many require the use of 'good engineering practice' that is normally defined as the use of a widely accepted industry standard.

The Basic Process Control System (BPCS) is the lowest layer of protection and is responsible for the normal operation of the plant. If this system fails or is incapable of maintaining control then the second layer (Operator Intervention) attempts to resolve the problem. If the operator cannot maintain control within certain limits then the Safety System Layer must attempt to bring the plant to a safe condition.

For this hierarchy to be effective it is critical that each layer be independent or separate. This means that the two layers (BPCS and SIS) must not contain common components that in the event of a failure would actually prevent the SIS layer from protecting the facility/people when the BPCS layer experiences a problem. There would be little value is using a single transmitter connected to the BPCS and the Safety System. If this transmitter caused the failure by giving false information to the BPCS it could not be relied upon to give accurate information to the safety system.

This idea of eliminating common cause faults has lead to many discussions about separation. For this reason the end devices and the logic solvers in each system need to be separate from the BPCS. Therefore responsible designers and governing bodies have made standards that enforce this separation.

It’s a wireless world
by Sean Davies

30 June 2005

Last week I wrote about the growth in wireless networks in industrial applications, and this week I again look at wireless networks with some thoughts on how they can be successfully implemented.  Wireless networks are becoming more and more popular as they allow a high degree of flexibility, reducing costs both during installation and operation of a plant. Without a wireless link to the communication network many applications with moving equipment are impossible, or can only be implemented much less efficiently.

Another advantage is that moving vehicles involved in data communication are no longer restricted to fixed tracks that require considerable effort to modify. In the wireless network, production and service data is available practically everywhere within the company – it can be acquired and modified simultaneously. During commissioning, engineers can observe actions affecting the entire plant directly on site.

In industrial applications, operating reliability is of particular importance. It demands the use of extremely reliable products providing mechanisms for real-time support and deterministic characteristics. This means that devices such as programmable logic controllers (PLCs) can transfer their data reliably even in critical situations. The wireless standards from the IEEE working group 801.11, to which the Wi-Fi seal relates, provide only limited options. The methods of the standard can be taken as a good basis that can then be optimised for industrial application. This can be achieved through extensions such as the I-features of Siemens Industrial Wireless LAN products; these features represent an expansion of the standard and are fully compatible.

Apart from the use of reliable products, operating reliability is also achieved by optimum planning and installation of the wireless link. With a measurement report of the field strength values of the intended wireless network the customer is confident even in the face of dynamic disturbances. There must be an adequate budget reserve even when a moving fork lift truck carrying large metal containers causes reflections and shadows that change the wireless link.

Apart from being reliable, a robust construction is an important requirement of the industrial customer. This is reflected in housings that need to be dust and waterproof. As a result devices can be set up centrally without a switching cabinet allowing maximum flexibility. This installation flexibility however has a further important aspect. Often the simplest location for installation is not the ideal location from a wireless transmission perspective. As a simple illustration of this, a switching cabinet functions like a Faraday cage and traps radio waves. It would be possible to install a distant antenna on the roof of the switching cabinet but it must be remembered that the coaxial cable connecting the antenna and device attenuates valuable output power. This is not the case when the coaxial cable is not required for additional antennas because the ideal location in terms of wireless transmission can be selected and the antennas supplied with the product can be used.

It is clear that operating reliability and robust construction are a given, but to achieve the maximum potential it is necessary to push the envelope of the IEEE standard.

Look, no wires
by Sean Davies

23 June 2005

In the home and office the use of wireless applications is growing, but on the ever-conservative factory floor the pace of adoption has been much slower, although the technology is there and is gradually being implemented.

An industrial facility comprises a relatively small control room surrounded by a relatively large physical plant. The control room is equipped with panels that depict the state of the plant as captured by sensors and input devices that control the actuators, affecting the state of the plant. The actuators and sensors are often relatively inexpensive when compared with the cost of the cable that needs to be used to connect them. The difference becomes even greater when considering the high installation and maintenance costs, the high failure rate of connectors and the difficulty of troubleshooting them.

The information being communicated in industrial environments is typically state information and as such in normal operation it takes the form of repeated streams of small packets. At the same time, these packets are associated with critical tasks having strict timing requirements in harsh environments. The latter may include extremes of temperature, intense vibrations, explosive atmospheres, corrosive chemicals and excessive electromagnetic noise caused by large motors and conductors. Thus in general the required data throughput of the network is relatively low, but its reliability needs to be high.

In recent years, the desire for connectivity and physical mobility has caused an exponential growth in wireless communicating systems. Wireless telephony has entered our daily lives and wireless local area networks increasingly serve as a means to access business and private data. In industrial environments, apart from lower installation and maintenance costs, wireless systems can offer ease of equipment upgrading and practical deployment of mobile robotic systems and micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS).

There are already examples of wireless applications and products. In Germany Phoenix Contact use Bluetooth to replace parallel wiring. A wireless multiplexer can replace wires for us to 32 digital inputs and outputs and two analogue inputs and outputs with latency of 10ms or less. In the UK Expert Monitoring have developed WiSNet that allows sensors or instruments to be installed wirelessly. A typical system consists of an Ethernet/USB network controller and sensor transmitter modules that enable sensors to be positioned anywhere inside or outside the plants. The transmitters use Bluetooth to send sensor data to a wireless network controller unite connected to a PC.

In the US EnVision have developed a wireless sensor that enables bio processors to monitor fermentation and cell culture processes directly in reactors. The sensor can be configured by a Bluetooth wireless browser-based interface, or configured for Foundation Fieldbus communications.

The need to retrofit wireless to existing installations means that in the short term there will be a requirement for hybrid wired/wireless fieldbus networks, but as time moves on, just as in the home, wireless may prove the way to go for many applications.

Batch process control
by Sean Davies

16 June 2005

At its simplest, batch control can be described as the application of sequential automation and control to repetitive processes. The fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries have changed their approach to manufacturing, moving away from dedicated production facilities to smaller, more flexible process areas that can be linked in various configurations, or switched from one product to another.

The pace of product development is accelerating, for example through efforts to target specific diseases with tailored products derived from biosynthetic reactions. At the same time, regulatory requirements to ensure product quality, traceability, and production records are increasing.

In process plant control systems, the batch control features face close scrutiny: they must allow the manufacturer flexibility to achieve the required production versatility whilst collecting production records needed to maintain regulatory compliance.

Most modern control systems are 'open', i.e. they can be linked to other information systems more easily than in the past, so technology is not now the limiting factor. Today's technology allows very close integration between the process and business layers, but there is a huge amount of work required to define exactly what is shared between the two and how the data is used.

The focus has shifted from "How can we make these system communicate?" to "What information shall we share and why?" Federal Drug Agency (FDA) validation continues to be a topic that dominates any discussion between pharmaceutical end user and vendor.

The food and beverage industry is showing the largest growth for batch control systems. This industry sector, which still depends on manual operations, is relying increasingly on automation to improve productivity and product quality. That is being closely followed by the pharmaceutical industry. With the approval of electronic batch records and signatures by the FDA in the United States, there is now greater incentive for the regulated industries to move to paperless systems.

The worldwide market for batch process control is expected to grow at nearly 6 percent per annum over the next five years. The market, £1.56m last year is forecasted to be over £2m by the turn of the decade, led by the increasing the demand for packaged foods and beverages in the Asian economy, which is leading the demand for batch control in that region.

The manufacturing industry in Asia has entered a rapid growth phase with China in the lead. The people of Asia, with changing demographics and lifestyles, are creating a massive demand for life science products. In response, the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical industries are growing. Many countries such as China, India, and Singapore in the region are focusing on setting up pharmaceutical facilities to produce bulk drugs and generics, so indeed the future of batch control methodology looks bright.

The power of SCADA
by Sean Davies

9 June 2005

SCADA or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems are based on a central processor that receives information from sensors, determines the control requirements and sends commands to control actuators. It is a system used to electronically monitor and control remote operations from a central point. For example, SCADA can be used to control and monitor the status of a remote pumping facility from a water or wastewater facility and is finding increasing favour in the deregulated power market.

A system consists of five major components: master computer, software, communication link, remote terminal and input/output devices. The key component is the communication link that can be dial-up telephone, cellular telephone or radio frequency.

For a SCADA system to be effective, it is becoming increasingly important for it to be integrated with business systems throughout a company. It must be enabled to provide real-time data to all of the required nodes of the enterprise. For electric utilities, a model of the operations network usually includes platforms dealing with geographic information systems, customer management systems, workforce or maintenance management systems, and ERP. Information from SCADA must be integrated to workforce and asset optimisation programmes in order to affect business process change that will improve transmission and distribution system reliability, improved performance, better customer service, and lower operating costs.

The latest SCADA systems encompass a new generation of technology and improved functionality and are now being integrated with IT systems enabling it to be used for a wide range of applications and business processes for a variety of purposes.

The underlying technology that enables traditional SCADA functionality has changed dramatically with emerging technology enabling systems to be tightly integrated to the domain of business processes, creating an improved value proposition for its usage. As the need for real-time data spreads, the ability to share real-time information and synchronise diverse data sets becomes critical.

SCADA systems bring improved performance to geographically dispersed assets and provide a framework for real-time performance management on a global basis. Emerging capabilities of SCADA systems will allow its utilisation for additional classes of assets across a wider array of vertical industries.

Operating structure regulations as well as those related to environmental and safety issues are driving growth in SCADA revenues. End users realise that the level of operating detail gathered and made available is essential in evaluating and maintaining sufficient minimal operating margins, and to survive the increased levels of competition of a deregulated market. Deregulation has split the power industry horizontally and vertically. To be competitive and efficient, the separate parts of the fragmented industry need to be synchronised. In setting up the model of a deregulated operation, additional data points have to be added to the SCADA systems.

Servos take control
by Sean Davies

2 June 2005

In this week’s missive I am looking at another technology that, although not new, is not as widely adopted as it should be.

If you are still relying on old-fashioned, mechanical clutch and brake systems in your automated plant, you’re reducing your efficiency and increasing your costs.

Wherever there’s a motor and a driven load, some sort of control is essential. Traditionally the method has been a clutch and brake system located between the two, and used to start, stop and position the load. For example, where there’s a continuously running conveyor motor, the clutch is used to disengage the motor so that an item can be positioned, and the brake is used to hold the item in the correct place.

In theory, it sounds simple but effective. In practice, the problems soon become clear. Firstly, the fact that a clutch and brake system is mechanical means that it can wear over time. Secondly, this wear, combined with any variation in the load, can quickly lead to inconsistency in the positioning.

Switching to servo technology will resolve both these problems, and as a result save time in the production process, reduce downtime and cut replacement costs.

The advance in motor and load control technology from a mechanical to a servo system has led to a number of advantages, not least of which is a reduction in maintenance and repair requirements. Some clutch and brake systems with a heavy workload may need replacing several times a year, and each replacement results in significant and costly downtime, over and above the cost of buying and stocking replacements. Though having replacements ready in stock is a sensible precaution, it can’t mitigate against the fact that when clutch or brake failure does occur it is sudden, unannounced and therefore extremely disruptive.

Servo systems, by contrast, eliminate the need for routine replacement. Being electrically rather than mechanically operated, they have fewer moving parts to wear out – resulting in a significant reduction in the overall life-cycle cost. Add to this the increase in uptime as less maintenance is required and you can see the operating advantages which servo systems offer.

Of course productivity isn’t only about fewer things going wrong. It’s also about more things going right, which is where servos also win out over clutch and brake systems. The higher levels of performance and smaller sizes of servos often lead to faster cycle times, with the net result that production is increased.

Recent developments in servo technology have led to a continuing reduction in the price per axis of servos systems. At the same time, the ease of use of servos has improved, and their integration with controllers has also become a far simpler process.

Could your company benefit from this? If you currently utilise clutch and brake systems and replacing them is negatively affecting productivity then you know the answer.