The keynote presentation at Invensys X-Change 2013 highlighted ‘The future of industrial automation’. Invensys Operations Management’s VP of platform and applications, Rob McGreevy, spoke of the business drivers and trends that are shaping the Invensys roadmap into the future. Mobility is the name of the game and Cloud Computing, Software as a Service (SaaS) and Big Data are the vehicles that are going to deliver contextualised plant information ‘to-go’, anytime and anywhere. In the future, information must be supplied in the context of the situation in which the queries are made. Much as Google Maps will show you all the pizza outlets close to your GPS location, assuming this is what you searched for, so mobile applications will evolve that provide maintenance records, for example, relevant to the section of the plant where the engineer happens to be. We were fortunate enough to catch up with Rob afterwards for some Q and A on this and other subjects.
[SAI&C]: What is the Invensys view with respect to the role of industrial automation in process optimisation?
[RM]: From a pure process point of view, we are doing a tremendous amount in the areas of APC (advanced process control) and dynamic simulation. Our roots are in process and production control, but over the last 20 years we have expanded that reach from the shop floor and are now getting closer to the enterprise. Because of today’s industry dynamics, it is no longer viable for manufacturing to be considered in isolation. A good example is the way engineering and IT are merging into manufacturing IT and how ERP systems are commonly integrated into manufacturing. For example, about 90% of the applications that we develop in MES and Operations are integrated with the organisational ERP systems.
Getting back to optimisation, we do all the basic process related activities like loop tuning and we also use our simulation tools to optimise for things like different grades of feedstock, for example. We do all of this with the aim of maximising the real-time production value of a facility. The ArchestrA platform is the basis for everything and provides connectivity to all the different systems that reside within manufacturing. Then, on top of the system platform, we layer the applications that are going to solve the organisation’s specific problems. For instance, we would use Wonderware MES for things like material tracking, downtime tracking and machine efficiency.
We have different applications depending on the industry and the problem that needs to be solved. We would use ROMeo for performance monitoring, our APC module Connoisseur for advanced process control, Wonderware Intelligence for visualisation, IntelaTrac for maintenance and ArchestrA Workflow for procedural activities.
In conclusion, optimisation these days involves more than just the process control loops. It needs to be a holistic approach across the entire business to create an integrated manufacturing enterprise.
[SAI&C]: In a manufacturing context, could you expand on the future of Software as a Service and Cloud-based applications?
[RM]: What we are seeing for SaaS and the Cloud is that the further you move away from critical control, the more attractive and practical these become. The type of applications that we think are most ready today includes reporting, analysis and dash boarding – you would not put your PID control algorithms in the Cloud though.
Invensys has several SaaS solutions now and one of the most common is SmartGlance. It is a reporting application for mobile phones that provides data connectivity to the Wonderware Historian and various other data sources. SmartGlance can send reports to subscribed smartphones automatically or on demand. This means managers can monitor things like KPIs from just about anywhere. This is pure SaaS in a Cloud-based application. We see these technologies as complementary to the facilities at a manufacturing site rather than as an ‘instead of’ option. The biggest benefit really is how easy it has become to gain access to real-time plant information from anywhere. Another example we have is an application for ArchestrA Workflow that operates in conjunction with SmartGlance. Now, when personnel go to site to investigate a problem, they can get instructions on their mobile device that describes the remedial action to be taken. This is a great example of SaaS providing contextual information from the Cloud to a mobile device.
[SAI&C]: Virtualisation is a topic that featured during the keynote presentations, what are the benefits of the technology?
[RM]: The primary benefits are hardware independence and cost savings. Computer technology is getting more powerful every day, what virtualisation does is to make it very easy to upgrade from one hardware platform to another. You just transfer the entire virtual machine from the old hardware to the new – that is it. Another benefit is that you can keep the software pieces running as is, regardless of operating system upgrades. This can be particularly helpful in regulated industries like pharmaceuticals, because you do not have to revalidate the entire system every time there is an OS upgrade.
A provocative idea for your readers to think about is moving the virtual machines off-site and into the Cloud. You would not do this with a critical safety monitoring application, but it is certainly viable for things like reporting systems. What is so great about this is that there are thousands of CPUs running in the data centre, so if one of them fails your application will not even know about it. Also, with platforms like Microsoft’s Azure, multiple system backups are automatically made to data centres at several different geographic locations. This offers extra degrees of protection over what you would expect from a typical manufacturing IT infrastructure. At Invensys we are seeing more and more acceptance of Cloud technology for certain applications. In South Africa SAB Miller and Exxaro are two of the early adopters.
SA Instrumentation and Control thanks Rob McGreevy for the time and insight he provided at X-Change 2013.
For more information contact Jaco Markwat, Invensys Operations Management, +27 (0)11 607 8100, tech@invensys.co.za, www.iom.invensys.co.za
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