October 2019

| 12 | October 2019 www.smartmachinesandfactories.com | FEATURES – GAMBICA three-part digitalisation series | you factory going wrong can be serious. There are security, time, cost and safety implications of a fault on your line, or a breach in your cyber security. In this arena Smart Manufacturing can be a double edged sword. On the one hand, connecting more of your machines and systems to the internet can introduce more vulnerabilities into your organisation, but conversely, IIOT and in particular, the advent of accessible AI, could also protect your site. It is usually acknowledged that including some level of redundancy within a system is best practice. But of course there is a balance. As Mark Butters Omron UK’s General Manager notes “It’s all down to the cost of down time, that usually is more than the cost of adding redundant systems”. But IIOT is turning this idea on it’s head. Alan Conn, Managing Director at B&R Industrial Automation Ltd. Thinks that condition-based monitoring will in some cases negate the need for redundancy. “[when you’ve got CBM] if you’re looking to have network redundancy on a small or medium line, you probably wouldn’t be able to justify the cost”. Chris Evans Marketing and Operations Manager at Mitsubishi Electric drills down on this point “But the point of [Industry] 4.0 and cyber- physical systems is about modelling at one level what is going to happen at another and working out where the gaps are”. But are machines intelligent enough to not only see the gaps but rectify itself? “Ah, well this is where AI comes in”. Paul Streatfield Bosch Rexroth’s Product Manager want to know if anyone is really using AI in anger. “I think the phrase is ‘not yet’” chuckles Andrew Hodgson, Strategic Sales Lead for Digital at Siemens. The emphasis is on the “yet”. We take for granted technology as we have it now, five years ago we didn’t. Indeed the hallmark of an industrial revolutions, we being in the 4th, is rapid technological changes – and it is changing very rapidly. It’s not just condition-based monitoring that can protect your plant, cloud-based PLCs will fail-to-safe and protect your system if the cloud goes down. “But it could be down for a week” protests Chris Evans. “Yes” 1417329668 concedes David Randall, Business development manager for Lenze “it might be bad for the bank balance, but everything is still safe”. As with everything, it’s about balancing what is important. And you might be able to predict failures before the process is even built. With digital twins being taken advantage of to the full, smart machines and factories can be virtually designed, virtually commissioned, virtually tested and virtual accepted before they are installed on the shop floor. They will work first time because, s Andrew Hodgson neatly put’s it “you’ve [already] beaten it to death in VR”. What’s more, Mark Butters points out, “You can also map against a theoretical failure,” all before the kit is installed. The potential of new technology, with AI to make sure your factory keeps running is clear. But it comes with the need to make sure it’s protected too. The rate of rate of change and development of new technology is exponential. And the UK is known for “sweating the assets”. Chris Evans has often observed that UK manufacturers often have plants with really old kit “and they don’t realise that you can’t buy any spares they don’t realise the risk they are running on that system.” Andy Graham, Solution PT’s Wonderware Product Manager tells us that: “ it’s not just legacy equipment, it is exactly the same with SCADA. A huge percentage of upgrades we get are just for security reasons, because they know they need to get the latest window updates.” Running unsupported software is a huge security risk. The NHS cyber breach in 2017, where the IT systems of numerous NHS trusts were halted by ransomware was (partly) to blame because those trusts were running Windows XP and had thus made themselves vulnerable to such an attack. There remains a tendency to think about cyber-attacks in terms of obtaining confidential and classified information; bank details, the emails of major political parties etc., much of the emphasis on cyber-security is about protecting the data. But Andy Mills, Phoenix Contact’s Sales and Marketing Manager points