Digitization with open standards: the recipe for a good night's sleep

'Can we meet my predictions? Can we deliver before the deadline? Do I have enough insight to know for sure? How is the plant doing in terms of QCDE (quality, cost, delivery time and environmental impact) against our targets and compared to the competition?' These are just some of the concerns that keep factory managers awake at night. "Concerns that can be addressed with the help of digitization," states Tim Foreman, European R&D Manager at OMRON.

"In a digitized production environment, plant managers do not have to worry about the uncertainties, risks and what might happen. Digitization removes uncertainty and enables performance-based optimization. It provides insights that help factory managers improve quality, reduce costs, shorten delivery times and reduce environmental impact. The manager of a digitized factory shouldn't have to worry in the middle of the night, but if they do, a quick glance at the cell phone is enough to know that everything is working properly," Foreman states. However, the transition from sleepless nights to a healthy night's sleep is not easy. "Digitizing can be quite difficult. Project managers rarely have the luxury of starting with a clean slate. Usually they work with a combination of old technologies. They are trying to digitize machines in production lines that have never captured data and were built before data communication protocols existed. All this adds up to a significant challenge in terms of OT and IT integration."

Aim for 80%

"My advice is to accept that not every square foot of an existing plant can be digitized," Foreman said. "This would be far too expensive and complex. Most factories built in the last five years are expected to be able to digitize at least 80% of their workflow. The key to this is standardization. This means standardizing the type of data generated and collected, the metadata used to document data, and the way data is exchanged and communicated. For collecting real-time machine and process data, a common modeling language such as PackML provides standardization. Successful digitization also requires a standardized communication protocol so that machines can communicate with each other and with other Industry 4.0 components. OPC UA is becoming increasingly common in the industrial automation environment. OMRON is part of an automation industry-led steering committee that is extending OPC UA to industrial field devices, under the name OPC UA FX. This open standard supports full interoperability within a factory. It allows machines to communicate not only with each other in data terms, but also with IT systems such as ERP and MES systems and with data analysis systems operating in a local or virtual cloud."

New opportunities

The true potential, according to Foreman, lies in the ability to support mutual information sharing and communication between different sites and in the supply network. "Digitization with open standards allows manufacturers to compare different factories to promote further improvements and duplicate working methods from one production site to another. They can even use data from their suppliers' processes as information for their production schedule, such as information about when a particular part will be delivered. One of the questions I often get about digitization with open standards is whether it can be applied retrospectively. OMRON has developed an edge data controller that translates data from older machines into the latest language and data types. In effect, it's a gateway box that can be used to bring older machines up to the open standard."

Quiet sleeping 

"Digitization is becoming increasingly important due to increasing awareness of the real benefits that data-driven insights can provide. However, standardization is a major challenge for factories looking to digitize industrial automation. By using open standards, manufacturers can successfully implement digitization and plant managers can sleep easy."