Imagine a scenario where a devastating flood engulfs all the Industrial Control System (ICS) equipment that powers your machinery and orchestrates your processes. PLCs, drives, HMI/SCADA systems, recipes, MES configurations, historical data—all lost to the flood. As the waters recede, a daunting question emerges: How long will it take to recover your manufacturing operations, if recovery is even possible? This somber picture underscores the vital significance of having a service like OT SafetyNet that not only provides an OT asset inventory and discovery tool, but also a disaster recovery strategy, making the difference between a momentary setback and an insurmountable halt. Read More
This article was originally published on AutomationWorld.com on March 27, 2023.
Key aspects of equipment integration into the manufacturing process are often overlooked. These machine-to-enterprise integration methodologies and tips will help you create a viable digital integration strategy.
Manufacturers must have real-time access to information from their processes. Such information can assist users throughout the organization in analyzing, troubleshooting, and suggesting enhancements to improve operations. Following are three frequently overlooked integration aspects that, when implemented, will ensure you have access to the information you need: Read More
In Lean manufacturing, the Andon system was created to notify operators of any issues on the production line as a means to promptly identify and tackle any production issues. Traditionally, an Andon was made up of a cord, which the operator pulls to indicate the occurrence of a problem, and an Andon light, which draws attention to the issue. Today, Andon systems are available in various forms, each progressively more advanced in terms of technology: Read More
As a Rockwell Automation systems integrator, we recently attended the much-anticipated Rockwell Automation on the Move 2022 at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA. The last Rockwell Automation on the Move event at Worcester was on July 1-2, 2015, which is about seven years ago!
The locally sponsored event is a fantastic venue for any industrial automation or OT professional not only providing a great networking opportunity with customers, OEMs, vendors, and other systems integrators, but also providing the latest cutting-edge information regarding products, services, and solutions from Rockwell Automation. Read More
During Walker Reynolds’s 4.0 Solutions Podcast on June 14th, he recommneded this blog as great place to start for anyone looking for help in introducing people to UNS architecture, wanting to demonstrate what is UNS and understanding whats’s the most effective strategy for digitally transforming the organization.
The 4th Industrial Revolution is here and reshaping the plant floor through digital transformation. Access to real-time data, cloud computing, and machine learning are the driving forces behind Industry 4.0. I subscribe to iiot.university, created by Walker Reynolds and Zach Scriven from 4.0 Solutions, and I learned quite a bit about their philosophy on digital transformation and achieving that through an architecture called the Unified Namespace (UNS).
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The growing use of PLCs (programmable logic controllers), PACs (programmable automation controllers), and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems in manufacturing has facilitated the practice of standardized software to help plants get up and running with new processes faster and to maximize operational performance. Standardized software is a unit of code that has been developed, tested, documented, logged and controlled. If the code does not meet that criterion, it is not considered a standard. Read More
