Category Archives: Automation

New details are emerging on a proposed open process automation architecture, an interestand now an initiativethat manufacturers across most industry segments are supporting in an effort to add flexibility into industrial control. An open approach would also enable their technology infrastructure to scale and evolve, as well as avoid vendor lock-in.

While discussions of the need to create a standards-based, open and secure interoperable control system have been happening for a while, last year, the Open Process Automation Forum was officially formed. The group brings together end users, suppliers, academics and system integrators to map out a blueprint of what the future system should look like. To do that the group has had to have a whiteboard moment, meaning, erasing the current control picture and reinventing what a DCS or PLC looks like in a federated environment where different vendors offerings will work together.

The problem with the current set up is it is rooted in decades of legacy systems that are difficult to integrate to meet the current business needs. But we are entering the fourth industrial revolution where digitization of systems is required to support todays business drivers that include speed, safety, agility and the need to incorporate Internet of Things (IoT) technology.

The business of industry is moving into a real-time realm, said Peter Martin, vice president of business and innovation at Schneider Electric Corp., during his presentation at the ISA Food and Pharmaceuticals Industries Division (FPID) Symposium this week. Just as an example of the dynamic nature of business, Martin points to the price of energy, which changes every 15 minutes. Therefore [business] requires control technology.

The problem is, executives dont know how to deal with real-time control, but industrial engineers do. It is time for us to step up, Martin said.

And thats what the Open Process Automation Forum intends to do.

Dennis Brandl, founder of BR&L Consulting, who is part of the team defining the new requirements for this next-generation system, provided a glimpse into what that might look like using modern technologywhich consists of CPU, memory and networking processing power that are thousands of times faster than what was available in the 1980s and at a fraction of the cost.

It is a system that gets any information from any source with history from any device and any place, optimized for situational awareness, Brandl told a group of attendees at the ISA event. It will be capable of handling things weve not even imagined yet.

Brandls unofficial name for such a system is the Federated Automation Logic Control on Open Network Systems (FALCONS), which is based on distributed control nodes (DCN), a single-channel I/O module that supports both real-time application processing and interfaces with other network protocols. The system is a collection of DCNs with I/O and without I/O, and a DCN connection to the cloud for centralized applications. The set up would provide an execution environment of potentially tens of thousands of nodes.

A modular system allows paced, online, component-by-component migration toward any new platform, Brandl said. Every time you pull [a DCN] out and put a new one in you have more power, speed and capabilities. The system evolves naturally without ever having to do shutdowns.

The DCN infrastructure would consist of: High speed IP-Based wired and wireless Ethernet switch fabric supporting layer 3 switching, VLANs and QoS to enable network flexibility and segmentation. And, even the smallest single point device would have at least a 2GHz multi-core processor, 1GB of memory, 10MB to 1GB network support and multiprotocol support. In addition, a real-time virtual machine enables a shadow mode that would check software patches or updates before they become active to ensure they wont break the system.

The other big gain, Brandl said, is not from a better PID loop. We are darn good at keeping systems under control. Rather, it will come from higher levels of activity including data collection, production execution management, scheduling, tracking and performance analysis. It provides an environment for control at all different levels to close the loop of control.

The systems, too, would take care of communication and DCNs can pick up configuration from a neighboring DCN upon startup.

Timing for delivering this will happen in two stages. First, ExxonMobilwhich was been leading the effort toward an open, standards approach to controlhas a contract with Lockheed Martin to deliver a proof-of-concept using existing technologies by the end of this year. At that time, the specifications for the new architecture should be available with products rolling out in 2018/2019 timeframe.

While it may seem like an insurmountable task to deliver such an open and secure system, Schneiders Martin said it is certainly possible in this age of unconstrained automation.

If we can figure out what the problem is, we have the technology to solve it, Martin said. We can provide control functions in new ways that create incredible value. So technology is not the constraint. Imagination is.

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Industry is Reinventing the DCS - Automation World

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins has called out analytics, automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning as crucial to the future of the companys networking business.

Find out how to draw up a battle plan for securing connected devices and the key areas to target.

On an analyst conference call transcribed by Seeking Alpha marking the end of Ciscos fiscal third quarter, Robbins reiterated the suppliers focus on delivering value through secure, software-defined, automated and intelligent networks.

As our customers add billions of new connections in the years ahead, the network will become more critical than ever, he said. They will be looking for intelligent networks that deliver automation, security and analytics that help them derive meaningful business value from these connections.

These will be delivered through a combination of new platforms as well as software and subscription-based services, which weve been focused on accelerating over the last 18 months.

My vision for this company is to be the most relevant and most important partner for our customers as they enable their digital businesses and we will deliver on that vision.

Robbins referred back to a number of acquisitions Cisco has made in recent months, notably AppDynamics in January, which it is using to give customers more visibility across networking, datacentre, security and applications; and MindMeld, bought earlier this month, which brings Cisco an AI platform to build new conversational interfaces between humans, applications and devices.

During the third quarter, total sales at the networking sector kingpin dropped by 1% year on year to $11.9bn because of a 2% decline in its Asia Pacific, Japan and China region the Americas and EMEA were flat. Net income rose by 7% to $2.5bn.

Product sales at Cisco were flat and services sales down 2%. Wireless, security and switching products sold best during the quarter, while next-generation routing, collaboration, datacentre and service provider video sales were all down.

Robbins said that overall, he was pleased with the progress being made on Ciscos multi-year transformation.

But he also highlighted some weak spots, notably in US federal spending, which is currently heavily disrupted by budget uncertainty under the Trump administration, and the UK, where he described the post-Brexit referendum fall in sterling as real and impactful on Ciscos local business.

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Analytics, automation and AI critical to Cisco's growth - ComputerWeekly.com

At the end of 2016, Sun Microsystems founder and billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla made the eye-catching statement that, in future, up to 80% of IT department jobs could end up being replaced by artificial intelligence-based (AI) systems.

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Ironically, this would mean the sector that has done so much to automate away other peoples jobs over the past 40 years could find itself getting a taste of its own medicine. So should IT workers be quaking in their boots at this point or is the future rather brighter than Khoslas prediction would have us believe?

The view of Hans Stiles, head of IT for the Arriva UK Trains Shared Service, is somewhat mixed.

Do I agree that automation could render four in five IT jobs redundant? No, he says. Do I agree that automation will have a profound impact on the size and in-demand skills of an IT department? Absolutely.

But in his opinion, the current move to AI is only the latest iteration in a massive drive for consolidation that has been going on for years under the guise of everything from virtualisation to cloud and this drive has already had a huge impact on the size of the IT department and the types of people employed.

As a result, Stiles simply sees the AI automation piece as a further evolution.

In skills terms, he believes that commodity, repetitive, low-value functional tech roles will be undoubtedly be at risk in the new world.

But, on the other hand, as the IT department of the future adopts an increasingly advisory service/systems integrator role developing solutions based on commoditised building blocks, he expects that the skills required to run it will inevitably become more sophisticated.

People will need to move from being hands-on technicians to being able to manage strategic relationships, suppliers and off-the-shelf solutions, says Stiles.

Therell also be an increased need for change managers as we move to a more agile mindset, which means people will require the softer skills necessary to make the process smooth and to take users and the business with them.

This scenario will likewise see IT manager roles being replaced by IT business managers, who will act as account managers that handle the relationships between specific business teams and products.

Chris Rosebert, head of data science and AI at specialist tech recruitment consultancy Networkers, is also sceptical that as many as 80% of IT department jobs could disappear as a result of automation.

He cites the companys recent Voice of the workforce report, which was based on a survey of 1,656 IT professionals worldwide and found that only 4% believed their role would no longer exist in five years time.

Rosebert believes Brexit will have more of an impact on the overall tech employment situation than automation, as leaving the European single market will only make massive skills shortages in the UK worse.

Demand for tech skills is just going to increase. Automation may have some effect on service desk and infrastructure jobs, but the main impact will be on outsourcing and offshoring companies as processes such as claims handling or answering call centre queries are brought back onshore and automated. Thats where were seeing the main cases for AI, he says.

In the tech space, workers such as data scientists, business analysts, software architects, high-level software developers and people who programme and manage the AI systems themselves will remain particularly in demand. Other areas of big corporate interest include cyber security, compliance and risk management.

But opportunities will also balloon as new industries and sectors such as self-driving cars and smart homes increasingly open up. This means that existing IT workers should be able to move sideways as long as they are prepared to retrain and/or upskill to ensure their skills are appropriate to the new positions being created.

Robert Coleman, CTO for UK and Ireland at CA Technologies, says: Each of these industries is going to need specific skills. Some will be transferrable but some will be industry-specific, so the situation will vary, but we will start seeing a mix of specialisations, which makes it more important than ever for industry and universities to work closely together.

This situation also means that automation is unlikely to solve the existing skills crisis as the problem will simply shift into new areas. The issue is only likely to get worse as the use of technology continues to spread and skills requirements become ever more sophisticated.

Steve Weston, CIO at recruitment consultancy Hays, says demand for technical expertise will simply continue to grow in line with ever-increasing digitisation.

This view is supported by a Deloitte report, which confirmed that technology has created more jobs in the past 144 years than it has destroyed, he says.

Legacy skills may reduce and become automated, yet every other aspect of our digital and IT capacity will grow.

In order to cope with this changing skills dynamic, Arrivas Stiles recommends two possible approaches. The first is to introduce an apprenticeship scheme to produce home-grown talent, and the second is to use the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) to define and manage individual and team competencies.

SFIA is a good way to map existing skills to what is required to refine the roles that exist. You can pick relevant skills and create roles and its clear what training is required to help people get there, he says.

But as automation takes hold, Stiles also believes that the IT profession will require more robust professional accreditation in a similar vein to chartered engineers or accountants to maintain credibility.

Theres currently too much variety on what good looks like. But as automation takes hold, well need a lot more consistency around cost, standards and benefits because its value proposition is about far more than just cost and reducing staff numbers its also about delivering things quicker and to a higher standard, he says.

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How will automation affect the IT skills gap? - ComputerWeekly.com

Industrial automation is not just about serving the automotive industry to lift car bodies, or electronics assembly to make the next iPhone or Android device. The food industry is also a prime candidate for robotic automation.

In the video above, we see how robotics can assist food processing facilities with the sterile handling and packaging of foods we find on our tables today, using robots like the MC50M Food-Grade Robot from Nachi Robotic Systems.

The name stands for the code for the food grade, and weve modified the robot to make it appropriate for use with dairy products and contacting food, said Robin Schmidt, VP of engineering and R&D at Nachi. We use an NSF-certified lubricant for the gear boxes, minimize places where debris could get trapped and have special cleaning procedures.

The robots silver hue is due to a food industry-approved stainless steel impregnated coating from STEEL-IT, which gives the robot a resistance to food industry cleaners.

The MC50M has a payload of up to 70kg (154lbs) and can use a variety of end-of-arm tooling to be able to handle a greater number of food products.

The robot has a repeatability of about 1/10th of a millimeter and has a reach of two meters.

For more information, watch the video above and visit the Nachi Robotic Systems website.

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VIDEO: Industry Certified Robotic Automation for the Food Industry - ENGINEERING.com

When machines control all the worlds finances and run factory floors, what will humans be left to do?

Well make art, says Kai-Fu Lee, a former Google and Microsoft executive who has since launched VC firm Sinovation Ventures.

Art and beauty is very hard to replicate with AI. Given AI is more objective, analytical, data driven, maybe its time for some of us to switch to the humanities, liberal arts, and beauty, Lee told Quartz editor-in-chief Kevin Delaney during a live Q&A session. Maybe professions where its hard to find a job might be good to study.

Students now deciding whether to pursue arts or sciences face an uncertain future: While automation is just starting to impact the workforce, Lee believes that 50% of jobs held by humans today will be automated in 10 years, extrapolating from an often-cited 2013 Oxford study. Jobs that require less than five seconds of thinking will be among the first to disappear, Lee says. He offers receptionists and factory workers as examples, which have already faced some level of automation. Next will be jobs that rely on crunching numbers, where data is available to make decisions, like bankers, traders, and insurance adjusters.

While art isnt on Lees list of skills that will be replaced by AI, both large tech companies and small startups have dedicated resources to making AI that can generate artistic images, doodles, music, and entertainment. Googles Magenta project has the sole purpose of developing creative artificial intelligence and is working to make AI sketch, while Sony frequently releases research on generating new musiceven actress Kristen Stewart has explored using AI to help her make art.

But human authenticity wont go out of fashion, whether that be in art or even service jobs. In a commencement speech to Columbia Universitys engineering department yesterday, Lee said that a new class of workers will be born from AI: Workers of love.

The displaced workers can take up careers spreading love and experienceswhether a passionate tour guide, an attentive concierge, a funny bartender, an infectious sushi chef, he said. If those jobs dont pay, Lee suggests they volunteer, supported by some kind of universal basic income.

Lee also imagines this same kind of authenticity benefitting other professions, like doctors and oncologists. He predicts people wont want to hear their diagnoses from machines, so instead a doctors role will focus on delivering the bad news and assisting in treatment, rather than making the primary medical decisions.

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Your art degree might save you from automation, an AI expert says - Quartz

Automation is here and we need to pay attention Phoenix Business Journal Construction on the oncology clinic in the lot next to PADT's Tempe headquarters is almost done and they are starting on landscaping. When I pulled in to work the other day I saw a giant truck full of red crushed rock backing up, so I sat in my car in ...

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Automation is here and we need to pay attention - Phoenix Business Journal

Washington Post

Federal Reserve official speaks about jobs and automation Washington Post May 16, 2017 10:17 AM EDT - Glenn Hutchins, a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Board of Directors, spoke about automation and jobs at the Center of American Progress Ideas Conference on May 16. (The Washington Post). May 16, 2017 ...

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Federal Reserve official speaks about jobs and automation - Washington Post

Well, this is exciting the Apple world has a new conference dedicated to automation on 9 August 2017 in Santa Clara, California. CMD-D offers a packed 13-hour day of sessions on many aspects of scripting and automation. For those new to automation, theres an optional Scripting Boot Camp on the day before, 8 August 2017 (more details on that will be forthcoming).

The conference is organized by Mr. Automation himself, Sal Soghoian, with help from Macworld Expo producer Paul Kent and PR veteran Naomi Pearce. Its sponsored by the Omni Group and Apple device management firm JAMF.

The speakers lined up so far are top-notch, which I would say even if they werent all friends. Sal knows more about Apple automation than anyone, and hell be talking about power features of AppleScript, AppleScriptObj-C, and JavaScript for Automation that even most experts dont know. John Welch has been in the admin trenches for longer than I can imagine and will be talking about when automation is a must and when not to bother. Jon Pugh was one of the original members of the AppleScript team and will be talking about how AppleScript was created. Andy Ihnatko well, everyone knows Andy, and he is slated to discuss automation as a martial art practiced against tedious, repetitive work. And finally, Jason Snell, who has become one of the premiere podcasters in the Apple world after leaving Macworld, will be hosting a live Six Colors podcast session with the speakers on the present and future of automation.

Other sessions include a deep dive into Automator, automations role in managing hundreds or thousands of iOS devices, how to use the Apple-acquired Workflow to automate tasks in iOS, an introduction to the Omni Groups cross-platform scripting solution for their apps, and even an open-mic automation slam for attendees to share their most impressive solutions while competing for an award. I hope its a big shiny gear.

CMD-D will take place in the Santa Clara Convention Center, which is near the San Jose International Airport and not far from the airports in both San Francisco and Oakland. You can register independently for the CMD-D conference and the Scripting Boot Camp for $295, or sign up for both for $590. Thats early bird pricing, which is good through the middle of June; after that, each days fee goes up to $395 and the two-day pass increases to $790. Lunch and afternoon snacks are included.

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New CMD-D Conference Targets Automation - TidBITS

What do automation and embedded systems have in common? The short answer is more and more. The annual Embedded World trade fair, held every winter in Nuremberg, Germany, has become the worlds largest show for the highly fragmented embedded community of suppliers, developers and users. Though the embedded market is fragmented into thousands of different application areas, the focus on automation has grown sharply in recent years as automation suppliers put more intelligence into their field devices.

The ongoing success of Embedded World is due to the growing influence of embedded systems, primarily in the automotive sector, but also in automation. Just as the importance of software is rising, embedded systems (the combination of computer hardware and software designed for a specific function within a larger system) is growing rapidly. In addition to everyday applications like automobiles, medical equipment, airplanes, vending machines, cameras, household appliances, toys and mobile devices, embedded systems are employed frequently in industrial machines and process industry devices. And the number of applications is expanding as industrial devices become more connected.

Time-Sensitive Networking

Many exhibitors at the show highlighted implementations of the IEEE standards for Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN). National Instruments, for example, is cooperating with the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), Bosch Rexroth, Cisco, Intel, Kuka, Schneider Electric and TTTech to develop a testbed for this new IEEE 802.1 real-time Ethernet standard for use in industrial applications. The testbed will evaluate the use of TSN in a live production application.

TSN, an open standard network architecture, provides cross-vendor integration and interoperability. The technology supports open, deterministic real-time communication over a single Ethernet network, such as between motor control applications and industrial robots. TSN provides access to data in real time. This is necessary to optimize business processes and create new business models based on intelligent, interlinked networks, systems and machines. So TSN will play an important role for the realization of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

Open source in industry

For the developer community, the open source idea has long been a golden rule. Increasingly, this approach is now entering the traditionally conservative automation industry. Companies like Kunbus or Janz Tec are offering small industrial PCs (IPCs) based on Raspberry Pi modules.

Though there are limitations for industrial use, these types of open systems lower the entry barrier for developing software applications. Depending on the knowledge and preferences of software developers, they can use various programming languagesfrom simple graphical, up to more demanding high-level languages.

Automation companies discover Embedded World

Just a few years ago, no major automation suppliers were to be found at Embedded World. But times have changed. From year to year, we see more and more automation companies participating, even if their numbers are small compared with the SPS IPC Drives exhibition held every year in November at the same location.

Some of the automation suppliers we spoke to at Embedded World include:

Cooperation and alliances abound

One notable ARC Advisory Group takeaway from this years Embedded World was the high level of cooperation and alliances announced among embedded suppliers, automation suppliers and IT suppliers. Many exhibitors highlighted their respective cooperation with partners, especially in areas like networking, security and the cloud. The embedded industry clearly does not regard this just as a technical task and the partnerships with associations like OPC Foundation will help to make different systems and protocols compatible for end users.

Automation end users and suppliers alike should keep an eye on the embedded industry and visit Embedded World or similar exhibitions. Trends from the embedded industry are entering the automation industry at an increasing rate as the operational technology, engineering technology and information technology worlds converge. This trend will continue for the foreseeable future as the importance of embedded systems for industrial automation continues to grow.

>>Fabian Wanke is an analyst for ARCs automation team in Europe, and is based in Dresden, Germany. He specializes in the automotive, aerospace and polymers industries, as well as economic modeling and forecasting. He has a special focus on industrial PCs and operator panels, and is also responsible for the European automotive research. David Humphrey, director of research, Europe, is based in Munich, Germany. He has more than 25 years of experience in industrial automation, including specifying, designing and programming control systems in areas ranging from automobile to packaging, implementing projects involving PLCs, HMI hardware and software, industrial networks, drives and motion control.

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Automation Meets Embedded Systems - Automation World

Forbes

Restaurants Look To Automation To Cut Labor, But Will Consumers Buy What The Drone Is Serving? Forbes Have you ordered lunch via a kiosk rather than a human order-taker? Maybe you've paid for dinner at an on-table iPad instead of giving your card to your server? Automation including kiosks, iPads, robots, drones and other frictionless modes of ...

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Restaurants Look To Automation To Cut Labor, But Will Consumers Buy What The Drone Is Serving? - Forbes