Overview
The session on Strategies for Connecting Thousands of Factory Assets on the 2021 ARC Trade Discussion board elicited attention-grabbing views on the imperatives of asset connectivity and collaboration to speed up digital transformation methods. Introducing the subject, ARC Advisory Group’s Vice President Craig Resnick stated that step one on the digital transformation journey is to make sure that there’s asset connectivity, which is crucial to implement Trade 4.0/Industrial IoT options. When manufacturing traces, machines, tools, methods, and persons are linked, digital transformation delivers organizational worth. Connectivity offers a single model of the reality and helps to optimize asset, operations, and enterprise efficiency. A number of audio system from main automotive producers and requirements organizations mentioned numerous instruments and options which have helped discrete producers obtain better interoperability and operational resilience.
Audio system: Peter Lutz, Director, Subject Degree Communications, OPC Basis; Andreas Faath, Head of Interoperability, VDMA; Thierry Daneau, Automation and Robotics Knowledgeable, Renault; and Dr. Julian Backhaus, Head DevOps Group IoT & Edge Computing, BMW Group.
Panelists: Erich Barnstedt, Chief Architect, Requirements & Consortia, Azure IoT, Microsoft; Charlie Sheridan, World Technical Director, Google Cloud Manufacturing Trade Options, Google.
OPC UA Contributes to the Digital Transformation of Discrete Industries
The imaginative and prescient of the OPC Foundation and the Field Level Communications (FLC) initiative is to offer an open, unified, requirements primarily based Industrial IoT communication answer that addresses many necessities of commercial automation 
(manufacturing unit and course of automation), stated Peter Lutz of the OPC Basis. By utilizing OPC UA (unified structure), bidirectional industrial interoperability between the sphere and the cloud is achieved; and knowledge is offered and accessible in a safe and versatile method, supporting IT/OT convergence. Evaluating the normal automation pyramid mannequin with the OPC UA mannequin, it’s evident that the brand new strategy is extra versatile and harmonized.
The OPC Basis with its FLC initiative is extending OPC UA to cowl many necessities of commercial automation that features Ethernet TSN, SPE, APL (and sooner or later, 5G, Wi-Fi, and so on.). Greater than 300 technical specialists from over 60 member corporations of the OPC Basis are energetic within the Technical Working Teams; and 27 corporations are represented within the Steering Committee of the FLC initiative. Peter spoke about Ethernet TSN (Time-Delicate Networking), a key know-how for industrial automation and supplied a know-how overview of FLC work gadgets and dependencies, together with the creation of device-specific profiles with a toolbox. To hurry up developments, the OPC Basis can be cooperating and collaborating with different non-profit organizations, equivalent to Profibus, ODVA, and Sercos.
Interoperability for Manufacturing facility Automation
Andreas Faath of VDMA spoke concerning the group’s efforts and outcomes for manufacturing unit automation and OPC UA’s companion specs. The VDMA represents the broad machine constructing/manufacturing business and represents over 3,300 corporations within the mechanical engineering business. Andreas spoke about VDMA’s specification necessities (communication on an open platform, safety by design, help of various protocols, and semantical machine description) and anticipated consumer advantages (producer impartial communication, discount of interfaces and supported protocols, plug and work, situation monitoring and predictive upkeep, and manufacturing optimization) of standardized interfaces for the mechanical engineering business. OPC UA as an answer meets these VDMA specification necessities, stated Andreas, and defined the phases of growth, giving the instance of the VDMA OPC robotics initiative for its eventual use in business. Andreas spoke concerning the course of to get area particular harmonized data fashions which might be primarily based on OPC UA’s meshed and cross-domain communication community in addition to the totally different specs of the working group and interoperability between all of the layers.
Requirements for the Future
Giving an summary of his firm, Thierry Daneau of Renault stated that the corporate has 5 manufacturers and one alliance (Renault Nissan Mitsubishi). Groupe Renault has 38 manufacturing websites and 13 logistics websites in 16 nations with over 115,000 workers. In 2016-17 the corporate started its digital transformation journey, and the principle pillars of transformation have been: real-time information pushed operations, full observe and hint, versatile provide chain and plant, Trade Knowledge Administration 4.0, and the linked workforce. Thierry cited a couple of real-time examples and defined how one commonplace have to be the spine that helps information, useful wants, and what the consumer is searching for. The frequent goal at Renault is “acquire as soon as and use many.” Industrial information seize is in two layers – information referential and information acquisition. To beat the challenges and obtain success, Renault deploys the OPC UA+ information mannequin. Thierry confirmed how the operational layers (Unified Knowledge Collector, Knowledge Circulate Platform, and information lake) are linked. The corporate’s Trade Knowledge Administration 4.0 breaks down provide chain information silos, which ends up in improved efficiency and offers a aggressive edge. Thierry described the corporate’s future imaginative and prescient, which incorporates:
- Creation of a global commonplace to share information fashions.
- Speedy deployment of AI/ML fashions.
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Key phrases: ARC Trade Discussion board, Automotive, Asset Connectivity, Digital Transformation, Cloud, Edge, COVID-19, Requirements, ARC Advisory Group.