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Inside:
Location intelligence efficacy p 4
Time-series data historians p10
DCS migration strategies p14
EDITORIAL
FEATURES
4
industrial spaces lead to opportunities
I
n the 1980s, this editor was the manager of attached to the file and all the memos therein were about
engineering services and quality control in the solving the exact same problem the consultant had been
engineering department of a mid-sized maker brought in to address. Unfortunately, not even the old-
of heat-treat furnaces and equipment. It was a good timers in the department remembered all the work that
job, as for one he got to look at practically every job that had been done then and there was certainly no way to
came in the door. systematically search for the prior instance.
At one point during those days, a design consultant was This editor recently spoke with Kevin Hall, CTO and
brought into the department to tackle a problem we had. cofounder of Ripcord, who said that these type chal-
When a loaded basket of steel parts is heated to 1800 F lenges persist today.
o
and brought out of a furnace for “There are still large stores of paper
quenching, it’s done so by means of a documents,” Hall said. “We see it
‘
chain extended through a trough un- as ‘trapped data.’ These documents
der the furnace door into the heating Large stores of weren’t digitalized in the scanner
chamber. era because the work still included a
Understand that besides the elevated significant manual element that made
temperature, the parts are also under a
paper documents equal doing so expensive and slow.”
nitrogen or inert gas atmosphere that
’
keeps oxygen from ruining the desired “trapped data”. Never again
metallurgical transformation. The sud- In operation now for four years,
den drop in temperature caused by Ripcord says it’s transforming the
quenching in oil “freezes” the metal- $25 billion records management
lurgical changes, which would otherwise unwind if the industry through robots that scan, index and categorize
metal cooled slowly. paper records, making them searchable on the cloud and
At the end of the chain extending into the heat integrated into existing enterprise systems.
chamber is a hook that bumps up onto the gridded tray Ripcord is based in Hayward, CA, and has raised $74.5
carrying the basket of steel parts and catches fast. Only million from investors that include Kleiner Perkins, Google
for this furnace for which we had a big order the hook Ventures, Baidu, and Steve Wozniak, among others.
wasn’t catching. That was the problem the design consul- In February, the company unveiled a new generation of
tant was brought in to fix. its digital imaging robots, which can support new types of
documents like extra-long format well logs, often longer
Unexpected discovery than 25 feet, that are extensively used in the oil & gas
Some weeks after the designer’s contract ended, a parts sector.
order came across this editor’s desk. There were two files Hall cited well logs as a good example of the kind of
for every furnace the company built since World War II. document that may contain trapped data of considerable
One was for bills of materials and routings and the other continuing value, if it can be accessed in a timely manner.
was correspondence. The files for the furnace, built in the The means by which the work is accomplished can
early 1970s, that this parts order pertained to were huge. be described as robotic in that the conversion process
The correspondence file must have been six inches thick. includes paper handling, fastener removing and digital
Some engineering files could read like epistolary novels imaging. About eighty percent of records classification
or detective stories. Intrigued, this editor dove in. It can be automated, or even 90% with training from re-
turned out all the oversize drawings carefully folded and cords managers. IIoT
2018
Gold Award
Seeq’s support for time series data and its challenges – connecting, displaying, interpolating,
cleansing, and contextualization – relieves you of hours and days of fruitlessly searching for
insights in your process manufacturing data. Seeq helps you get more value from the data
that you’ve already been collecting, and gives organizations data transparency and the ability
to execute on those insights.
By Charity Rumery enable the safe, autonomous opera- connected parts and products at every
tion of equipment such as forklifts. stage across a supplier network and
F
rom optimizing the supply Simply put, location intelligence production process enables truly “just
chain to minimizing waste greatly improves safety levels and in time” manufacturing, which inevi-
and managing plant ma- boosts efficiency for IIoT operations. tably means huge cost savings.
terials and resources effectively, rich In addition, the latest global Accurate, real-time location data
and intelligent location data is at the positioning technologies can work and the latest connected and always-
heart of improving efficiency, safety to within centimeters of accuracy, on tracking technologies are power-
and security of Industrial Internet of depending on the technology, even ing this latest revolution in supply
Things (IIoT) operations. when there is no global positioning chain visibility, allowing operators to
Highly detailed real-time loca- systems (GPS) signal, as they combine understand exactly where parts and
tion information allows location and and synthesize data from billions of materials are in the supply chain and
tracking of any connected object, in- Wi-Fi access points, Bluetooth readers to better predict their arrival times.
door or outdoor, at an unprecedent- and cell IDs. High frequency access to and visibil-
ed level of accuracy, improving the Of course, having the ability to ity of this information enables optimi-
factory-floor production process and reliably track any connected object in zation of all material flows across the
providing clear and complete visibility real-time anywhere in the world opens supply chain as autonomous move-
across supply chains worldwide. multiple opportunities and possibilities ment systems are introduced.
Accurate and precise digital rep- in the IIoT. This improved supply chain vis-
resentations of factories, industrial ibility optimizes asset utilization and
spaces and indoor maps, for example, intelligent iioT supply chains reduces wasted time and effort. Not
open all kinds of opportunities that Intelligent and accurate tracking of only that, location intelligence also
plays a critical role in minimizing
waste or scrap in the manufacturing
process.
Notably, when you have real-
time asset visibility of work-in-
process materials, you are far better
equipped to reduce the levels of
waste by properly employing first in,
first out (FIFO) and last in, first out
(LIFO) inventory management in the
production process, in addition to
considerably reducing “down-time”
issues due to inventory “loss.”
Figure 1. intelligent and accurate tracking of connected parts and products at every Asset and resource optimization
stage across a supplier network and production process enables truly “just in time” man- Understanding the location patterns
ufacturing. image courtesy: Here Technologies of humans and equipment also helps
Microsoft
Amazon Web Azure
Services
IBM
Other Cloud BLUEMIX
Services
www.wago.us/IIoT
Remote Asset mAnAgement
By Brian Joe historical digression reminds us that then reseal when the process returns
the tools offered by the Industrial to normal, but it isn’t unusual when
I
t might seem like the Internet of Things (IIoT) are relatively they don’t reseal completely due to a
Internet has been around new. Just a few years ago, any facility worn seat, debris on the seat or other
forever, but even many mil- wanting to implement manufactur- mechanical issue. Condition monitor-
lennials can remember its infancy. Us- ing asset condition and performance ing looks for valves leaking slowly
ing Internet technologies for industrial monitoring would have had to un- without closing fully. Identifying which
applications has been a more recent dertake those efforts internally or use PRV has operated and for how long
development, as it took time for us- specifically dedicated products. is critical to identify the root cause of
ers to be convinced of its value and But today, the IIoT is indeed here, a process mis-operation. The chal-
suitability in manufacturing contexts, and the outlook is much different. lenge is to pinpoint one or a few bad
particularly in process industries. This More choices are available to support actors among thousands of PRVs in a
monitoring functions. Communica- timely manner because most of them
tion options have expanded, providing discharge into an enclosed collection
more opportunities for processing system, such as a flare.
facilities wanting to implement such Performance monitoring, on the
an asset monitoring program. other hand, evaluates the frequency
and duration of releases. Since a
Start simple PRV is strictly mechanical, there is no
Monitoring helps companies deter- electronic connectivity to inform the
mine two things about an asset. First, control room of its open or closed
its physical condition, so it is possible position. However, determining how
to know if it is running well or headed often it opens and for how long pro-
for a breakdown – hopefully before vides critical insight into the process.
there is a failure that can interrupt It is required to understand where the
production. Second, it can determine flare is coming from for environmental
how an asset is performing and do- reporting. Effective PRV maintenance
ing its job within the larger process. reduces the costs of product loss and
Both these monitoring methods, used environmental abatement since typical
effectively, deliver financial returns to facilities can face fines worth hun-
justify their cost. dreds of thousands of dollars due to
Let’s look at a simple and straightfor- fugitive emissions.
ward example – pressure relief valves The ability to improve operational
(PRVs) – to illustrate the differences be- performance and avoid fines provides
Figure 1: Process manufacturing plants tween asset condition monitoring and the basis for calculating return on
have pressure relief valves as part of any performance monitoring. In most situ- investment (ROI) for adding a moni-
sealed system where pressure can develop. ations, PRVs (Figure 1) operate without toring system. For example, a 250,000
Large facilities can have hundreds. All anyone paying much attention. They barrels per day refinery launched a
images courtesy: emerson open during an overpressure event and PRV monitoring project and recovered
systems requires internal resources. to any authorized individuals within Best of both worlds
In many cases, this can be personnel the company via mobile devices or a Projects may take advantage of
formerly tasked with monitoring these portal, there will also be periodic sum- both in-house and Cloud-based
assets manually. mary reports. Providers with extensive methods (Figure 3). Once data is
However, if this type of solution is experience can offer observations on collected, it may go to analytics plat-
not practical with existing personnel, how the company is performing on a forms at the company or a service
it might make more sense to engage given metric compared with industry provider. A company may determine
specialized outside help. benchmarks. Since all the software that it wants some of the process-
and data storage are managed by ing in-house but leave the more
To connected services the provider, there is no maintenance complex and specialized analysis
Internet access adds new options required by the end user, and the and report generation to the service
for implementing a monitoring pro- solution is scalable. provider. In most cases, a company
gram. First and foremost, it is no lon- A process plant might begin a moni- must decide what functions it can
ger necessary to do all the work in- toring program as an in-house project. and should keep in-house based on
house. Parts or all of it can be issued However, early successes frequently asset criticality and availability of in-
to subject-matter experts outside the lead to a rapid increase in the number ternal resources. Consulting with an
organization on a subscription-based of monitored points, and the desire to established provider is a good first
contract. Remaining with our PRV expand into a wider range of areas so step if the end user doesn’t know
example, the same acoustic transmit- even greater returns can be realized. where to start.
ters would be used, still communicat- Leading assets typically monitored in For example, a large gas turbine
ing via WirelessHART, but they might process plants include: necessary to drive an entire facil-
be owned and installed by the service ity will likely have locally supported
provider. • Heat exchangers monitoring for the sake of immedi-
The service provider uses special- • Centrifugal pumps acy and quick response to incidents,
ists to perform the analytical services • Cooling towers while also using remote monitoring
and deliver recommended actions, • Steam traps. for asset optimization.
including recommending work orders In-house driven projects are still a
for individual maintenance tasks. The As deployments grow, management viable approach and the right choice
provider even can staff technicians at will have to determine how it wants for many companies thanks to the
the company’s site to carry out the to apply in-house resources. At this wide range of tools now available.
hands-on service work. point many companies find it much However, adopting a Cloud-based
While real-time information is easier to engage a service provider to subscription service often can bring
available from the service provider move forward. projects online faster and with
fewer lessons learned the hard way.
Fortunately, either is a viable choice
today, or even a combination of
both. IIoT
Imagine your devices had their own pulse. They would tell you how healthy they were and what you could do to
improve the performance of your process. Heartbeat Technology™ breathes life into your devices. It provides
you with diagnostics, verifies performance and monitors process data to support optimization and predictive
maintenance strategies. Our engineers listen carefully to you and understand your Mindset. It is their job to find
the best fitting products with Heartbeat Technology to deliver increased operational availability for your plant.
By Michael Risse Process manufacturers are install- spreadsheets and time-series data
ing more historians daily, and this storage both were established soft-
T
he time-series data stor- spring OSIsoft, the leading manu- ware categories, a connection that
age application market by facturing data platform vendor, will remains to this day, as spreadsheets
any name – data histori- welcome thousands of attendees to are still the most commonly used
ans, process historians, enterprise its 29th user conference, PI World. analytics tool for historian users. The
historians – may seem an aging, and In 2018, industry analyst firms ARC foundation of these early efforts was
boring, software market. One IT ana- Advisory Group and Markets & Mar- delivering the essential components
lyst company has process historians kets both published studies to meet of an enterprise software product,
so far to the right on their customer customer demand for insights into so they were evaluated on reliability,
adoption curve they are about to the historian market. connectivity, scalability and compres-
fall off into obsolescence. Yet, this What’s next for historians, and sion or efficiency characteristics,
least glamorous component of most what’s driving the interest in and much as they are today.
HMI, DCS and SCADA deployments need for data storage systems spe-
refuses to fade away. Recent market cific to time-series data? To find the The second act
trends demonstrate a new genera- answers to these and other related With demonstrated value from
tion of offerings and revived interest questions, start by examining histo- historians for data storage and
in historian products. rian history. analytics, the second stage for the
historian market saw acquisition or
The first act development of a historian product
If an official history of the histori- by each of the leading automation
an application market exists, except vendors. A summary of all offerings
in the tribal knowledge of those would be an overwhelming exercise,
involved, it’s hard to find. But in but as examples, consider GE Fanuc
the mid-1980s, first with Oil System acquiring Mountain Systems in 2003
Incorporated’s plant information (now GE Proficy), the early days of
systems – later renamed OSIsoft PI WonderWare in 1987 (now owned
System – the notion of storing data by AVEVA), Honeywell’s 2007 acqui-
for regulatory purposes, reporting, sition of InterPlant (now Professional
asset availability and diagnostic Historian Database, or PHD), Aspen-
(root cause) analytics got its start. Tech’s InfoPlus 21, and too many
These early historians ran on DEC others to count.
VAX/VMS minicomputers – the In fact, one of the challenges of
manufacturing system of choice in the current historian market is simply
the 1980s. trying to size it. Vendors like Sie-
PHOTO 1: The concept of storing time- Coincidentally, introduction and mens, ABB and AVEVA have multiple
series data for regulatory, reporting, asset development of historian software offerings from a history of acquisi-
availability and analytics got its start back happened in parallel with that of its tions. AVEVA alone has Wonder-
in the 1980s with OSIsoft and its founder longtime partner in plant analytics, Ware, eDNA and Citec historians,
Pat Kennedy. Photo courtesy: OSIsoft the spreadsheet. By the late 1980s, for example. Other vendors simply
This includes data generation by time-series data storage business storage, moving data to the cloud is
sensors, data collection with net- (see Figure 1, previous page). increasingly a question of “when”
working and connectivity, and data and not “if.” Consequently, the big
storage. The cloud wants in public-cloud platforms are paying
So, if previously only the most Vast data volumes attract attention more attention to the largest sources
critical assets were worth monitoring, because “data has gravity”–meaning of data.
over time less important assets have data attracts high-value add-on ser- Amazon with AWS will offer
been included either in the plant vices such as management, security, Timestream, mentioned earlier, and
network or through a complementary analytics and consulting. The result? Google offers time-series storage
IIoT platform. These include discon- Manufacturing, which generates documentation for its BigTable
nected or standalone assets. twice as much data as the next lead- storage service. Microsoft also has
The change therefore is not in ar- ing vertical, has caught the attention multiple Azure services that can store
chitecture, except perhaps for wireless of companies wanting in. time-series data already in market.
connectivity replacing wired, but in Microsoft, Amazon and Google Therefore, the three largest public
economics. And the economics abso- specifically have focused on the oil cloud vendors, in addition to GE and
lutely are changed and are the principal & gas sector as a starting point for Siemens, have announced time-series
driver behind a host of industry trends their efforts. Like the Battery and storage services. This is in addition
such as Big Data, the Industrial Internet Benchmark VC investments, this is to the many IIoT platform offerings
of Things, wireless networking and clearly a sign of new market interest. such as PTC ThingWorx, industrial
Cloud data services. Computing is so It is also a sign of maturity in the vendor offerings such as OSIsoft
cheap users can justify generating, col- public cloud market. If historians are Cloud Services, and industrial data
lecting and storing ever more data. about 35 years old, it’s interesting platforms for contextualization and
All this data must be stored some- to note the age of the public cloud aggregation such as Cognite. Like
where, and whether the storage offerings. For example, Amazon the list of historian vendors, the list
system is called a historian or not, brought out AWS in 2002, and then of companies, and especially startup
time-series data storage options are introduced S3 (storage) and EC2 (vir- companies, with data collection and
exploding. Open source time-series tual machines) in 2006. Then cloud storage services on the cloud is long.
databases, cloud-based services computing competition got interest- Of course, data services by them-
(like the AWS offering mentioned ing with Microsoft’s and Google’s selves don’t make a historian or
earlier), data lake vendors and cloud cloud platform introductions in 2008. time-series database product suc-
platform startups are all rushing to With years of experience to get cessful. Historian applications, asset
be the vendor of record in the new used to the idea of cloud data model support, data connectors and
other features are critical require-
ments for a solution, as opposed to a
piecemeal, customer offering. What
is clear, though, is that data volumes
have attracted new players, and the
storage location for an increasing
amount of sensor data will be in the
cloud versus on-premise.
Paths to insight
The relationship of historians and
spreadsheets was mentioned earlier
in the context of their parallel, and
still shared, codependency. What
does every historian product offer
Figure 2: Advanced analytics software provides self-service capabilities for engineers to as a feature or product? The answer
create various views of data. image courtesy: Seeq Corp. is a connector to spreadsheets for
I
t’s dawning on major arounds is costly.
manufacturers that they • To avoid the enormous cost and Older DCS equipment, while built
must update or migrate risk associated with losing control well, has a finite shelf life and will
their outdated and unsupported of a process break at some point. Many legacy
distributed control systems (DCS). DCS parts are increasingly unavail-
How did they get to this point? • To leverage innovative technolo- able. If a facility needs spare parts,
In 1959, the computer revolution gies that improve operational they end up purchasing more ex-
met the industrial revolution when efficiency and performance. pensive and less reliable parts – the
the first industrial control computer dreaded “eBay and pray.”
system was built at the Texaco Port Even knowing they need to migrate Another financial driver for doing
Arthur, Texas refinery. Over the next to stay competitive, uncertainty and an upgrade or migration is increasing
30 years, industrial process control doubt can persist moving forward, es- lack of knowledge and service support
migrated from pneumatic control pecially when key personnel bandwidth for legacy hardware and software.
loops and relay logic to an ensemble is limited. A migration is a lot of work. Over the years, control engineers and
of distributed control systems from Risks run high without the right team technicians with legacy DCS experi-
different vendors. of experts to plan and implement. To ence have moved on from technical
At the time, these cutting-edge this end, consider the risks inherent to roles or are nearly at retirement age.
systems brought to bear high-value- a migration and how modernization With little OEM support or train-
adding technologies like graphical can help overcome these hurdles. ing, this poses a problem for current
operator displays and improved data systems but also pertaining to future
analysis software. New control strat- Associated risks system additions. Filling this knowl-
egies were implemented and tested, Hardware obsolescence is the edge gap can be difficult and costly as
at significantly reduced engineering main driver for migrations. If equip- demand and salaries for experienced,
time, with quicker alarm response ment fails, the associated risk can be knowledgeable engineers are high.
and diagnostics. DCS suppliers guar- enormous – both from a safety and Installed cybersecurity vulnerabili-
anteed long product lifecycles for financial perspective. Safety instru- ties also must be examined. Legacy
these robust systems. mented systems (SISs) help avoid a systems are from a time when it was
Today, however, these same DCS crisis, especially if the DCS fails. assumed that the “air gap” protected
suppliers have consolidated their However, these systems are rarely systems from external, remote threats.
obsolete products or even discon- tested with a view to an entire unit However, with the advent of the
tinued them. Companies reliant on being shut down, such as would be Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the
DCS technology realize migration is the case in the event of a redundant process-control system world is today
difficult and the process delicate. If controller failure, where actuators at- connected to the business world.
a DCS is the “brain” of the facility, tempt to revert to their failsafe mode Technology and tools exist to secure,
migration carries a degree of risk of operation. manage, version, analyze, track and
analogous to brain surgery. With Beyond safety issues, when a report automation-related process
that amount of risk, why would facility shuts down, it is no longer information and data. However, with
Modernization’s impact
Today’s technologies provide op-
portunity to improve asset utiliza-
tion and fully realize the benefits
of Big Data, increased processing
‘
Image courtesy: MAVERICK Technologies
power and enhanced connectivity.
Many legacy control systems rely on Hardware obsolescence is the main driver for
proprietary data structures that lack
systems interoperability. Increasingly, DCS migrations. If equipment fails, the associated
manufacturers look to use this data
for a variety of functions, including risk can be enormous—both from a safety and
’
analytics, environmental calculation
and monitoring, enterprise resource
financial perspective.
planning integration, asset manage-
ment, predictive maintenance, digital
twins and various other IIoT applica- tion that increases implementation Migration leads to a well-docu-
tions. Modern control systems deliver time and costs, creating an obstruc- mented system. Legacy systems have
accurate, real-time data to enable tive barrier for new engineers or been annotated by generations of
these capabilities. technicians. Maintaining and ma- workers using different standards.
With increased processing power, nipulating large databases using Ex- Abandoned logic obscures the
more complex control techniques can cel or XML formats instead of older system. Migration is a “once-in-a-
be applied. DCS platforms of 30 or text dumps enhances quality control career” opportunity to clean the
40 years ago bore constraints that and abilities to build and edit large slate and correct past bad habits and
are no longer valid. Process control amounts of programming in bulk. inconsistencies.
techniques like initialization, windup Graphical function block configura-
protection and override selection are tion is a common feature in modern How to modernize
no longer an issue and are easily in- control systems and is easier to learn, A complex DCS migration requires
corporated. Model predictive control maintain, and document than the a planned, thoughtful approach. Be-
and fuzzy logic no longer require older, text-based forms. Sequential cause a failed project leads to cost in-
additional software and licenses, logic programming and troubleshoot- creases, mitigating risk is paramount.
allowing facilities to use simulation, ing is also easier. Homing in on the If done right, a migration happens
whether simple loopback or more dy- stuck valve is significantly quicker very infrequently, so it shouldn’t be
namic methods, instead of hardware- than looking at a valve lineup to try taken lightly. Before starting, consider
based testing. Offline configuration to make sense of a poorly com- the following.
testing and operator training are mented 20-year-old structured text Domain knowledge: Domain and
conducted more easily, inexpensively, program. It’s also possible to improve business expertise are what counts.
accurately, and safely than ever. the operator human-machine inter- You don’t hire an electrician to do
Legacy systems’ reliance on out- face, incorporating high-performance plumbing, so why trust someone
dated user interfaces and unintuitive graphics for optimal operator aware- without experience to do a DCS mi-
programming styles creates a situa- ness and alarm response. gration? Every process unit in a facility
www.controleng.com/IIoT IIoT For Engineers MAY 2019 | 15
DistributeD Control systems
has different inputs, equipment, enterprise-wide buy-in. FEL plan- During the typical “dog and pony
operating conditions, safety risks ning should accurately determine show,” each vendor is predisposed to
and peculiarities, not obvious to the effort and time required for a flaunting its “best-in-class” product
someone without that experience. migration. and solution for every application,
If lack of resource bandwidth is For instance, it should include time making it difficult to identify what’s
a concern, consider consulting a and cost estimates to reverse- best. To make an informed, unbiased
platform-independent third-party engineer and document an old sys- decision, a facility should specify
partner with experience in legacy tem and engineer and test a replace- critical-to-quality (CTQ) parameters
systems and modernization tools ment. It should also include DCS by working with key stakehold-
and techniques. installation, electrical, hardware, and ers: operators, process engineers,
Planning and budgeting phase: software costs. Discovery and docu- maintenance personnel, production
Emphasis can be placed on sound ments must be modified and refined managers and others. Parameters
planning and budgeting via a front- as the project progresses, resulting in to consider include considerations
end loading (FEL) process. The FEL overall project cost savings and lower like advanced process control (APC)
process reduces operational project risk. An experienced third-party au- support, scalability, life-support track
costs, minimizes scheduling is- tomation team can help with proper, record, high-performance graphics,
sues, decreases scope changes after upfront FEL planning. migration path, industry and region
authorization, and increases likeli- System and vendor selection: install base, IIoT and control strat-
hood that a project meets or exceeds Choosing an appropriate replacement egy portability. Again, consulting an
financial goals. Defining an optimal system is important. A wrong deci- unbiased third-party partner with
future state with consideration about sion results in millions of lost dollars experience with the vendors and
future features and IIoT functionality and years of frustration. Too often, technologies leads to a holistic view
is another key part of this effort. This the slogan “you’ll never pay more of how these vendors stack in each
way avoids accidents and down- for less” will be heard. The selection of the CTQs.
time, especially considering how process comes down to two possible
intertwined process units are, with choices: 1) If possible, stick with the Key takeaways
products and byproducts from differ- same vendor, or 2) switch. Change is painful. Modernizing a
ent units being fed and reprocessed Sticking with a vendor can be a control system is a huge, risky, but
throughout the facility. positive experience in that they typi- highly necessary, undertaking. Taking
Ideally, for example, cutting over cally have a well-defined path for mi- a proactive and planned approach
a control system should occur while gration plan and execution. Another allows for the required steps to be
the unit is down for maintenance. benefit is that many control strategies taken to mitigate risk and migrate
Some ancillary units may be able to can be ported more easily with con- the system accurately, safely and
be cutover during partial turnarounds trol features with similar functionality more cost effectively. The improved
or equipment inspections. Others to that of the legacy control system functionality and profitability gained
only come down for full facility shut- – which may not be the case with a from a modern, optimized control
downs, which may only occur every new vendor. system will make it so that your engi-
couple of years. Understanding each A risk common to either path is neers, technicians, facility managers,
process unit’s maintenance schedule that many vendors have a conflict of procurement and even investors will
and interactions with other process interest. They want to sell additional thank you. IIoT
units is key to an efficient FEL migra- hardware and software and some-
tion plan. times stoop to offering unnecessary Jake Henn is a business develop-
Commercial considerations: The or sub-optimal solutions. Moreover, ment manager at MAVERICK Tech-
point of manufacturing something during actual implementation, DCS nologies, a platform-independent
is to generate revenue and profit. vendors oftentimes rely on auto- automation solutions provider offering
DCS migrations should protect and mated tools that do not accurately industrial automation, strategic manu-
enhance that ability. Justifying how capture the original code. Correcting facturing solutions and enterprise
much the effort will cost and how this code manually can be a huge integration services for the process
long it will take is key to getting undertaking. industries.
D
riven by pervasive, battery- which wireless option matches their until it reaches the gateway. In full
powered sensor net- architecture and use cases. mesh networks like WirelessHART, all
works that capture data sensor nodes have the routing ability
at unprecedented granularity, the Mesh networks to relay data from other nodes. In
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is IEEE 802.15.4 is a radio standard, partial mesh networks like Zigbee or
reshaping the industrial connectivity defining physical and medium access ISA-100.11a, only selected nodes can
landscape. From remote monitoring control (MAC) layers in low-rate act as routers.
and energy management to worker wireless personal area networks (LR- Reliability in a mesh network is
safety and environmental sensing, WPAN). Though the IEEE 802.15.4 achieved through its self-healing
IIoT applications demand wireless standard allows for operations in capability. If a router or sensor node
infrastructure that satisfies power different license-free industrial, fails to function, the message can be
consumption, scalability, mobility and scientific, and medical (ISM) bands, re-routed through another path. To
cost requirements without compro- most solutions built on this standard avoid package collisions and further
mising carrier-grade reliability. are tuned for the 2.4 GHz band only. improve robustness, approaches
Low-power mesh networks based Examples include WirelessHART, ISA- such as “listen before talk” or time-
on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard and 100.11a, and Zigbee, all commonly synchronized communications are
low power wide area networks adopted in industrial applications. employed.
(LPWANs) are the two leading edge As the 2.4 GHz operations mode On the downside, the 2.4 GHz
connectivity options. While both cater provides a very limited range of only band is highly congested with multi-
to low-throughput IIoT applications, 10 to 100 meters, these solutions ple sources of electromagnetic noise.
they vary greatly in network criteria. resort to mesh topology to improve While WirelessHART and ISA-100.11a
employ channel hopping or frequen-
cy hopping to improve interference
immunity, this approach doesn’t help
if all 2.4 GHz channels are saturated.
Furthermore, the weak penetra-
tion capability of 2.4 GHz RF signals
means that multipath propagation in
structurally dense industrial settings
can degrade range and signal quality.
By reducing the data rate to a max-
imum of 250 Kbit/s, IEEE 802.15.4
solutions aim to significantly lower
power consumption. The relaying
nature of mesh topology is, however,
inherently energy-intensive. In full
Figure 1. Two variants of mesh technology. images courtesy: Behr Technologies mesh networks, nodes placed close
Operating in the licensed spec- higher data rates and relatively low Though different from IEEE
trum, cellular LPWANs (e.g., NB-IoT, latency of these networks make them 802.15.4-based networks, not all LP-
LTE-M) based on Third Generation an ideal alternative to expensive wired WAN solutions are based on rigorous,
Partnership Project (3GPP) standards networks in certain industrial automa- worldwide proven industry standards.
are alternative reliable solutions. tion and controls applications. So far, there have been only two
Nevertheless, it is worth noting that LPWANs are a better option for standardized LPWANs: one is cellular
quality-of-service and scalability in geographically dispersed campuses LPWANs implementing 3GPP stan-
cellular LPWANs are achieved at the with challenging topography and dards; the other is MIOTY, a solution
expense of comparatively higher greater physical obstructions, thanks implementing the ETSI-standard
power consumption and costs. to excellent range and penetration telegram splitting technology (TS 103
performance. They offer a more 357). Unlike proprietary protocols,
Takeaway decisions scalable, cost-effective and power- solutions based on industry standards
While IEEE 802.15.4-based mesh efficient solution for latency-tolerant are verified for their quality of service
networks and LPWANs are both IIoT use cases requiring only periodic and scalability while helping avoid
meant to support battery-powered data transmissions. Examples include the problem of vendor lock-in. Even-
sensor networks, each is suitable for condition monitoring, predictive tually, this helps companies better
different IIoT use cases and installa- maintenance, environmental sens- secure long-term return on invest-
tions settings. The 802.15.4 solutions ing and energy management. With ment from their IIoT projects. IIoT
are a better fit in medium-range and exceptional mobility support, certain
medium-sized applications where LPWANs also offer viable connectivity Albert Behr is founder and CEO
nodes are mostly fixed and positioned for various worker safety and vehicle of Behr Technologies, the worldwide
in proximity with each other. The management use cases. licensee of MIOTY.
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