It can, by applying Best Practices, system architectures and suitable software tools

From an Industry 4.0 perspective, increasing productivity by reducing downtime and costs is the watchword, and above all concerns the organization of the OT, Operational Technology, or Information Technology (IT) applied to systems in production departments and in utilities: it is necessary to be connected, but above all efficient, effective and productive without necessarily having corresponding increases in IT costs and budgets.

Industry 4.0 can be done, and it must operate by digitizing processes: defining change management systems, initiating the simplification, revision and digitization of processes, and intervening on their automation and availability and, finally, assigning the correct priority to the systems, in based on criticality.

Below, in addition to the details on the points indicated, I take the liberty of indicating, even before the hyper-connection, the need to get a handle on the structure of the systems in the factory precisely to prepare them for the dictates of Industry4.0. el

Hence the need to talk about preparatory topics (and software solutions) in order to then proceed with digitalisation: from Change Management systems, to Workflow systems, to software for High Availability and Fault Tolerance of factory systems, passing through traditional systems HMI/SCADA and Historian, big-data and analytics.

Change and configuration management

The processes of change management can reduce the downtime of automation systems, even by 70% (and some examples can also demonstrate this).

Change Management it means more things and may require interventions of a different nature.

In the first place it requires interventions of an organizational nature:

  • define the process change management,
  • review all changes with an involved team
  • define a quick and safe intervention plan to restore a stable situation if problems arise.

Il change management it must also provide the guidelines to be respected for the IT/OT systems in production. In particular, the guarantee that any technological variation (application software, hardware, firmware, operating system, ...) is made to the control systems, PLC, Robot, automation and supervision, can be tested, traced and uniquely used, in the direction of DevOps strategies .

Of course, to allow effective interventions, it may also be necessary to use systems of change e configuration management (CMS) designed for OT.

In every plant there are critical components of the automation and control system and it can happen that a PLC or a computer no longer works, or a disk crash occurs and one does not know which version of an application is running in the system when a plant/machine shutdown occurs.

Furthermore (not to add the Industrial Cyber ​​Security theme in this article), in recent times we have seen examples of how even factory systems have been reached by malware e ransomware who blocked PCs and Servers in the factory, blocking the plants.

Il downtime it then takes on a new, dramatic dimension.

Without a mechanism that is part of the entire maintenance phase, restarting the application can be difficult and costly.

This reason alone would suffice to declare the change management critical for PLC/HMI/SCADA systems.

In fact, many users can lose hours or days of work due to lack of an up-to-date and reliable backup of the current application.

Try asking yourself:

  • how many and which are the PLCs that control the production process?
  • Is a PC with critical SCADA being used by several operators over multiple shifts?
  • Are the PLC and PC-SCADA programs stored in a safe and secure place?
  • Are the backups kept up to date?
  • Have we ever tried to do a restart, a recovery from these back-ups?
  • Are the versions under control for updates and configuration changes?
  • Can you restart quickly in the event of errors, accidents, anomalies and breakdowns that require you to reload the software on the devices (PLC, PC, etc.)?
  • How long does it take to find, identify and re-upload the correct software version to correct the problem and restart production?
  • And how much does a stoppage and lost production cost?

An effective configuration management system (such as MDT Autosave) that has advanced Plug-ins for most of the PLCs, Panels, SCADA-HMI, Robots, CNC-DNC, present on the market, allows you to manage the configuration of automation devices and the application software: provides various functions, such as notification of any changes to the system, remote and automatic control of the connected devices; manages any restarts of the software versions on PLC and PC in an orderly and integrated way and provides the audit trail of the variations according to validation protocols, in accordance with GAMP, Annex11, 21CFRPart11 and Sox.

Digitize with a Work Process Management system

The second point to consider to reduce the downtime is the simplification of processes.

Simplifying processes is the basis of the production strategy lean production and in particular of the Six Sigma methodology.

Often in moving towards management read, companies operate on a project-by-project basis.

Six Sigma gives you the opportunity to control changes and subsequent improvements. With an automated process control with Work Process Management, companies can reduce the problems of downtime and consequent mediocre workmanship in the medium to long term.

Many initiatives read start by paying attention to manual processes.

This exercise will familiarize you with the definition, documentation and analysis of processes.

By digitizing the processes (or describing them with IT tools) the effectiveness of the processes themselves is increased and the error, the time required and the difficulties for the implementation and subsequent management and maintenance of the Work Process Management system are reduced: the personnel will be able to easily manage process variations and eliminate sources of human error.

With a Work Process Management system (such as WorkFlow by GE Digital) it is possible to set up leaner processes and keep the management of the unexpected active, manage processes in a safe, simple and documented way, keeping non-conformities under control, actions corrective, operator instructions (SOP-Standard Operating Procedure), sampling, quality tests and possible rework, set-up and configuration of machines and systems, optimization of processes and troubleshooting.

In practice, it allows to reduce the variability of costs and quality, reaching a new level of operational excellence, allowing more and less expert users to digitize manual and automatic operational processes with a single tool, acquiring process, traceability and quality data from all systems to reduce errors, plant stops, waste and delays.

Companies can adopt a management system that takes into account the exception, manage production and obtain results based on certain events and data, enhancing existing DCS, SCADA, MES, HMI and ERP systems.

Below I report only some of the improvement scenarios that are obtained with the implementation of a system Workflow:

  • Instructions-Machining Operator /SOP – with a guide accompanying the operators step-by-step: this scenario ensures, through validated data entry, automatic or manual, the conformity of production to defined processes
  • Lean Manufacturing with electronic “Standard Work”. – it is possible to establish graphical relationships between the working processes and the existing SOPs and always monitor new procedures for continuous improvement
  • Machine set-up and production configuration – operators can follow the procedure step-by-step to configure a machine or a recipe
  • Training and Functions of Virtual Trainer Processes perfected by experienced operators are digitized into formats that others can use, allowing new operators to practice SOPs and production activities
  • Quality control: non-conformities, rework and quarantine – the automatic activation of the workflows associated with non-conformities allows companies to better manage quarantine and recall initiatives, with coordination and management of out-of-spec lots
  • Management of alarms, corrective actions and exceptions – this scenario allows you to react immediately, automatically and dynamically, to alarms and deviations from the process by adopting the right corrective actions and not improvised management of exceptional events
  • Troubleshooting (Troubleshooting): repair of equipment and in-process products – research is guided towards the root cause and resolution of production problems, thereby improving both availability and compliance.

Digitize and Automate processes

Applications for automation, supervision and control of plants and production processes remain based on data acquisition and storage software (HMI / SCADA ed historian), for traceability and compliance, especially in regulated sectors such as energy, food, pharmaceuticals, etc.

ServiTecno has long been distributing and supporting GE Digital software products for automation, control and Plant Intelligence (understood as business intelligence on plant and production data) in Italy, and has announced new versions of HMI/SCADA iFIX and Historian.

In addition to the now traditional reliability and compliance for applications in all industrial sectors, the release includes important new features that further enrich those of previous versions. Among these the most powerful is the interface for historian (the most widespread industrial variables historicizer) which allows users to access and view the historicized data very easily, associating these data with animations and graphs. Furthermore, thanks to Historian Analysis, it also allows you to have Analytics in the graphic pages using not only real-time data but also historical data. All for the purpose of effective traceability and troubleshooting.
iFIX extension allows powerful data analysis charts and dashboards to evaluate the time intervals relating to the data thanks to a better quality of the graphs, allowing the use of the UX interface according to the most modern and current system ergonomics criteria. This makes it a real tool “Analytical SCADA"

 High Availability and Fault Tolerance: Automate and Simplify

Once priorities and budgets have been defined, resources can be allocated wisely.

In order to prevent the downtimeavailability levels, service levels, and DR disaster recovery requirements can be established for each system by allocating resources for high availability (High availability), according to the layering of (virtual) systems with high availability software up to Fault Tolerance.

Stratus Technologies' EverRun software is a solution that protects single and multiple networks, systems and data workloads. Using market standard hardware and software (Intel) it operates in Windows Server and Linux environments, synchronizes two standard servers in a single operating environment for complete redundancy.

The software guarantees this protection as it automatically detects any errors with complete monitoring of systems, networks and disk I/O; it replicates the data and has a automatic failover for critical applications when needed, without IT intervention.

Error detection and subsequent automatic response reduces the possibility of human errors that can delay system recovery and eliminates the downtime, taking action to resolve problems before they cause disruption to service.

A High Availability system like EverRun must be self-maintained, without requiring IT interventions: once configured, it can be put into use in a few minutes and continue to operate over time, support the concept of stratification of virtualized systems by offering distinct levels of availability , with the possibility of using the right level of protection for each application and being able to manage them all through a single interface.

To define the correct protection to be guaranteed to the automation, control, remote control and supervision information systems, it is therefore important to map the activities and priorities of the systems, their belonging to one of the availability levels based on the alignment requirements, the needs of the plant and the Company's business.

Conclusions

To remain competitive in the current global market situation, manufacturing industries must stay constantly tuned to the ever-changing requests that come from their customers and at the same time must do everything to contain costs compatible with quality specifications, standards and regulations.

Many companies implement lean production procedures to reduce waste in production, but realize that this is not always enough: a fundamental point is being able to be constantly innovative in procedures, in their development and adoption, in operations and training to the operators. In a word: in manufacturing excellence.

And this, as we have seen, means helping everyone to operate at their best, avoiding wasting time looking for information that is there, often not very accessible, hidden who knows where; correct said information and then leave a reliable trace and above all make it always available, reachable at the time of need.

Therefore, more time to think and innovate: improve processes with new ideas, practical and functional to management and production processes, as required by Industry 4.0 strategies.