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14 EE|Times EUROPE

OPINION | SMART FACTORY
BARRIERS
Edge Computing, The biggest barrier to adopting digital
technology revolves around the fact that
operational technology (OT) was tradition-
Artificial Intelligence, ally designed around the need for machine
optimization, employing architectures and
networks that provide optimal performance
and the Cloud for machines. However, because any digitali-
zation project’s success relies on the IT and
OT worlds merging, OT technology has had to
evolve to be better able to integrate with the
By Dan Rossek, Omron wider world. Today’s modern machine-control
solutions incorporate IT functionality, includ-
There is certainly a buzz around the idea of digitalization ing direct SQL database connectivity, and
can also be provided with OPC-UA, as well
— for its ability to deliver the benefits offered by as MQTT, all providing solutions to achieve
greater visualization and analysis of data and to gain a a simple and seamless method of escalating
operational information from machine level
greater understanding of the root causes of unexpected to the IT environment and vice versa.
Middleware solutions are also now
downtime and production bottlenecks. But what are the available, which can act as gateways
options, and how can they best be employed? to connect legacy devices to the IT world
where necessary.

One benefit of digitalization — in addition to offering greater DATA-HANDLING SOLUTIONS
connectivity of devices at plant level — is its potential to escalate On-premises servers can offer a good
data to other systems and to make it possible to monitor plants data-handling solution for applications that
remotely, in more depth, and over wider distances and longer periods need fast access to data. When it comes to
than has been possible in the past. connecting the OT environment to the rest of
Manufacturing traceability, for example, would traditionally the world, security is often a concern. How-
have been achieved via paper-based batch recording, while ever, if the intention is to analyze and store
product-level traceability would not have been achievable without data in an on-premises IT server, security
digital technology. Predictive maintenance could be achieved but should already be provided by the factory
only via periodic monitoring of devices. firewall or existing security infrastructure.
So digitalization brings with it a host of valuable new functions that make use of the data that Nevertheless, because any connection point
probably already existed on the production line but was stranded in disparate systems. may be a potential security threat, there are
At its most simplistic, digitalization is about integrating devices to gain information about always some security measures that should
them that helps rectify problems. However, the potential goes much further, and the benefits be taken. One way to address this issue is by
of digitizing will be widespread, right across an enterprise. Visualization, for example, can give using “trusted certificates,” a recognized IT
greater insight into how productive and efficient the entire manufacturing plant is. security measure. The trusted certification is
unique to the OT device on which it resides
and can be easily identified by the IT server.
The downside of on-premises servers
is that they cannot store infinite amounts
of data, so if an application requires huge
amounts of data to be processed, a better
solution would be to use a cloud-based server.
However, this would require more stringent
security considerations. The cloud can pro-
vide a scalable data storage solution that is
not limited by capacity and requires no archi-
tecture changes if storage needs change.
The downside of cloud-based servers is that
they cannot provide a real-time connection.
There will always be some latency when it
comes to processing and reacting to data.
When it comes to data storage platforms,
different solutions offer benefits in differ-
ent applications. Tasks such as production
visualization lend themselves well to the use of
on-premises servers because less data needs to IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK
be stored and less data processing is required.
One benefit of digitalization is its potential to escalate data to other systems and to make Predictive maintenance requires huge
it possible to monitor plants remotely. amounts of data and processing power, so it

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