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Meeting the challenges, sharing the spoils
Author : By Martin Walder, VP Industrial Automation at Schneider Electric
07 January 2020
Behind closed doors, every business is facing its own inherent challenges. To overcome these challenges, stakeholders need to take every means possible to increase business efficiency and reduce costs. Ultimately this optimisation is underpinned by electrification, automation and digitisation.
The benefits of digitally transforming businesses are second to none but require close collaboration of IT and plant professionals working together to put the right connected systems in place to benefit the operational performance of the business as a whole.
In particular, the rise of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) with systems and devices permanently connected to the cloud will have a huge part to play in the future of picking and packaging in the food and beverage industry. With machines getting ever faster and ever more complex the adoption of IIoT will allow maintenance and performance data to be collected quickly for informed decisions on preventative maintenance and production optimisation which will increase business efficiency. This will pave the way for machine builders to offer production as a service as opposed to simply selling machines.
Key considerations for IT and plant professionals
Whilst traditionally plant and IT professionals haven’t directly worked together, they now have the same goal. To ensure IT and OT come together to allow their businesses to seize the opportunity presented by digital transformation for improved long-term performance and business sustainability.
Particularly on the factory floor, plant professionals need to ensure uptime, safety and product quality. Whereas, IT professionals will be just as concerned with data collection, cyber security and systems integration where legacy systems are involved.
Now is the time for both IT and plant professionals to synchronise with each other to uphold standards and make their lives easier.
Enter the Industrial Internet of Things
Over the last few decades traditional installed systems have increasingly provided smarter manufacturing methods, improving industrial process efficiency and productivity, whilst reducing downtime.
The production process has consistently become more efficient, but today’s industrial businesses are wondering where the next wave of improved industrial productivity will come from. Most are banking on IIoT as the next big breakthrough.
The introduction of IIoT will help to bridge the divide currently faced by the industry. New technologies will have the ability to support substantial improvements in production efficiency, process reliability and safety.
This IIoT connectivity provides a common platform to develop new digital services, improving the efficiency and reliability of all sorts of machines and industrial processes. This platform is essential to leverage the power of big data, seamlessly connecting plant field and cloud applications.
The future rests on IT/OT
Businesses need to realise that to ensure they have long term success; they must reconfigure and align their organisations to fully transform to the new digital world.
Advances in intelligent maintenance and monitoring allows companies to future-proof their investments, by prolonging equipment life and deferring future capital expenditure. However, this will only be possible if IT and OT converge.
As systems have evolved with Ethernet connections and general IT capabilities, operational teams – often with very limited IT capabilities – have started building their own networks and linking to the outside world – more often in an insecure way that poses significant risks to the company. This has to change.
IT professionals need to work with businesses to ensure the business progresses in the competitive landscape. The most successful businesses of the future will be the ones that master the integration of OT and IT – the alignment of goals and full collaboration of teams if separate teams at all.
By using Schneider Electric’s EcoStuxture, businesses will realise the potential that exists in bringing systems and processes together. It will ultimately leverage advancements in not only IIoT but also in mobile, cloud and cybersecurity technologies to improve sustainability, efficiency and traceability.
In fact, companies must let the OT needs set the agenda for the IT deployments – as the biggest scope for increased business profitability comes from improved productivity and energy efficiency both controlled by OT. Ultimately, the most successful industries will be the ones who have seamlessly integrated both IT and OT and in particular when OT is actually driving the IT agenda.
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