automation platform, controls the system. Beckhoff’s U.S. headquarters are in Burnsville, Minn. “The use of the embedded PC gives us many advantages,” says Kahl, such as plant-level documentation.

The embedded PC and the Itec-specific touch panel communicate with one another via a DVI/USB (digital visual interface/universal serial bus) system interface. “Various possibilities for remote maintenance assist us in reducing service expenditures,” notes Kahl. “To this end, we integrate the machines in superordinated (multiple unit) systems via Ethernet TCP/IP.”

All sensor data is acquired and evaluated via EtherCat. The system’s servo drives support EtherCat,says Kahl, and are driven directly with no loss of performance. All data points are integrated in the EtherCat bus system via EtherCat terminals. “The system is not only more powerful than before, it is also simple to configure,” says Ralf Wiesbrock, Itec’s product developer for automation equipment.

The other aspect of the convergence that Rockwell’s Petrokonis speaks of is cultural, and this, for many North American companies, is proving harder than the manufacturing aspect. To make it work, he says, “you need a robust infrastructure to ensure remote access to the machines on the floor while also ensuring security. That takes careful planning, and the IT guys, the enterprise-system-level guys, have to be involved in this. These groups have different outlooks and some plants are still struggling with this.”

The Wonderware business unit of automation vendor Invensys Operations Management (IOM), in Lake Forest, Calif., seeks to tap the power of connectivity from a slightly different angle, while providing a pre-engineered pathway to enterprise-level integration. “Because there are so many OEMs providing packaging lines, it’s the nature of the industry that they are, typically, disconnected from one another,” notes Maryanne Steidinger, commercialization director, operations & information portfolio, for IOM.

Wonderware’s PackML-compliant operations management software product called Industry Application for Packaging seeks to bridge those gaps by running atop existing systems and providing reporting, alarms and data visualization for the packaging operation as a whole. Moving from the general to the specific, Steidinger zeros in on one of the concrete ways in which greater connectivity, in this case through the mechanism of her company’s product, can improve efficiency.

“You can look at uptime for different lines or different machines at specific times of day and make some correlations. You might find, for example, that one line is plagued by micro-stoppages—little glitches that cause the equipment to stop for just a fleeting instant. By identifying precisely when that happens, you can begin to figure out why it happens.”

Looking more closely, you might find it’s a case of wrappers getting briefly stuck and needing to be yanked free. Is it because of a specific vendor’s packaging materials, or perhaps because of the viscosity of the product at that point? “These are stoppages that would be invisible to other forms of monitoring except to a skilled operator or engineer standing right there watching. Knowing that they are occurring allows you to discern their cause and correct it.”

Coda is a musical term standing for a short segment that, while formally distinct, nonetheless serves to both round out and summarize what precedes it. Perhaps MSU’s Robb Clarke provides one when he observes that, “Essentially, machinery mechanics haven’t changed much in 50 years. Sure, there have been improvements, but the interior functions are still largely based on cams, levers, gears, chains and so on. What has changed is control and the function of control, and that is where the greatest improvements are taking place.”

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