Digitalization is reaching the manufacturing sector, albeit very slowly. Less than 14% of machinery manufacturers have interconnected their machines or production systems to their corporate network, according to Industry Week. In other words, more than 86% of manufacturers have no automated interaction between their manufacturing and business systems.To reverse this trend, Rockwell Automation and Cisco are helping companies with their digital transformation to improve their production processes through the Connected Enterprise initiative.
“Connected Enterprise” is the name given to the new industrial revolution, based on the exchange of information between all types of devices and systems, both in the factory and throughout the rest of the supply chain,” explains José Paredes, General Manager of Rockwell Automation Iberia.
For his part, Ignasi Errando, director of Internet of Everything at Cisco Spain, highlights that “the digital transformation of the manufacturing sector involves connecting machines, sensors and control systems to the Internet, capturing and analyzing data, ensuring security and obtaining complete visibility to make better decisions in real time not only at the plant level, but throughout the entire value chain.”.
The exponential increase in the capabilities of plant equipment (from instrumentation to control systems), along with improvements in other factory technologies and, especially, significant advances in communication capabilities, enables a new way of rethinking production processes. The resulting benefit is greater manufacturing agility, with significant increases in productivity and process sustainability.
According to Paredes, “Technological evolution and new trends in production systems allow for substantial changes in today's factories. With concepts such as the 'Internet of Things,' 'Connected Enterprise,' and 'Industry 4.0,' new frameworks are being defined between control systems and information systems. The convergence between these two platforms is key, and significant competitive advantages for the industry depend on its success.”
Errando, from Cisco, agrees that “a converged network architecture, with computing power, intelligence, analytics, and security capabilities, is fundamental for companies in the sector to adapt to changing business needs and succeed in the new digital economy.”
Thus, “Connected Enterprise” is a necessary step to address the challenges of Industry 4.0, which is fundamentally based on the comprehensive connectivity of all plant systems—that is, the connection of operational technologies (OT) with information technologies (IT). To this end, Rockwell Automation has partnered with Cisco to develop connectivity between the IT and OT worlds, eliminate silos, and optimize processes. EtherNet/IP communication technology is considered ideal for application anywhere in the enterprise, including the factory floor, ensuring convergence between OT and IT.
“Thanks to our collaboration with Rockwell Automation, we provide proven solutions and the necessary expertise to achieve ubiquitous, intelligent, and highly secure connectivity from the manufacturing floor to the enterprise network, facilitating the convergence of IT and OT environments and the orchestration of the supply chain,” concludes Errando.
According to Paredes, “this total connectivity will allow for the provision of specialized, detailed information to each individual at the right time, reducing decision-making time and improving the quality of those decisions. Overall, it implies increased productivity throughout the supply chain, not only at the factory level but also in terms of customer-supplier integration at each plant.”
To properly implement this Connected Enterprise strategy, Rockwell Automation has developed a maturity model based on five stages, which begins with an organizational assessment, continues with the updating of security and communication networks, then moves on to the definition of work data, proceeds to the analysis phase, and concludes with the collaboration stage.
Towards the Connected Factory:
Several examples of the "Connected Enterprise" model already exist. One such example is a food corporation with over 100 factories worldwide that has successfully implemented this model. The company's objective was to move towards a connected factory that would achieve: integration of production lines with the rest of the factory system, improved utilization of assets and production processes, and a global model that would allow for comparison of results across its factories.
The project implementation began with a consulting phase and definition of the integration model, detailing the necessary data and information, the infrastructure to be used, and security procedures. This was followed by the execution phase, developing standard software libraries to reduce costs and increase implementation speed.
The result is a plant-by-plant system architecture, composed of controllers on each machine, centralized in a line controller (PAC), which communicates with plant servers for data management. Some of the data can be analyzed remotely via the internet. The advantages obtained have been numerous, including: the speed of integration of production lines, a monitoring system and data at a reduced cost, improved asset utilization through OEE control, and reduced safety risks thanks to the platform used.
