Emerson’s new edge solutions simplify IIoT projects

April 2022 IT in Manufacturing

PACSystems Edge Solutions is a new portfolio of turnkey industrial edge hardware and software solutions from Emerson. Edge Solutions simplify selection and deployment, helping original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), systems integrators and end-users to reduce the time spent integrating, developing and validating digital transformation projects. From low-footprint connectivity and computing to plantwide analytics and supervision, the portfolio delivers a scalable range of edge capabilities in fit-for-purpose packages.

The solutions allow personnel in food and beverage, industrial machinery, renewable energy and other industries to easily collect and visualise critical data and analytics locally, right where they work, enabling them to optimise and proactively maintain operations for maximum uptime and efficiency.

Manufacturers are faced with many options for edge hardware and software, making it challenging to piece together effective IIoT solutions that can collect and process data at the edge for deep analysis to improve productivity, energy use, machinery health and more. PACSystems Edge Solutions are fully licensed and optimised combinations of Emerson’s edge and IIoT software and computing hardware, which reduces the time and complexity of selecting, configuring and supporting edge solutions.

End-users gain faster access to insights from disparate and stranded data sources across the operation, minimising the time to achieve results. OEMs can securely and proactively monitor machine health, improve actionability and visibility into performance, and notify operators of potential issues before they become downtime events.

“Accessing critical data and analytics right at the point of generation empowers plant personnel to take fast, informed action to improve production,” said Sabee Mitra, Emerson’s group president for Systems and Software. “With PACSystems Edge Solutions, any industry application using PLCs can deliver immediate insights when and where operators need them most, while maintaining easy scalability.”

Emerson’s new edge solutions leverage Movicon.NExT, WebHMI, Connext OPC UA server and the PACEdge platform in optimised software packages to provide powerful and flexible connectivity, visualisation and a cloud-enabled toolset. Users can connect openly to any field device or control system to create advanced edge computing, plant and energy analytics and supervisory systems, then present that information on a single, common human machine interface (HMI) from machine to enterprise level.

Individual fit-for-purpose PACSystems Edge Solutions interconnect seamlessly, unlocking scalability across the entire platform. Organisations can start with one application and build as future needs grow, expanding the value of solutions already in place. They include:

• RXi HMI: Improves visibility into machine operation and performance, and empowers operators with quick access to critical information.

• RXi Edge Computing: Harnesses data from any source to deliver real-time insights and machine learning that is immediately accessible to operators to improve decision making.

• RX3i Edge Controller: Unlocks real-time process optimisation through high-speed, deterministic control and machine intelligence in a single device.

• RXi Edge Analytics: Simplifies access and visibility to plant productivity, performance and energy usage with intuitive, pre-configured analytics.

• RXi Supervisor: Connects plant assets and production data into a comprehensive, real-time view of production operations with anywhere-access visualisation.

• End-users, systems integrators and OEMs alike will benefit from accelerated application development and secure, open connectivity from device to cloud, helping to meet the IIoT needs of engineers and operators, along with the necessary flexibility to support future OT and IT integrations.

Credit(s)

Emerson Automation Solutions

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