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Planning Pays Off When Implementing Industrial Ethernet in the Plant or Factory
Experts offer tips for building and implementing an effective industrial Ethernet network.
When Danny Vujovic co-founded Tekkra Systems Inc. in 2005, selecting a network for the packaging equipment was a straightforward decision. Ethernet was the only option that made sense. Tekkra uses EtherNet/IP, an ODVA protocol developed by Rockwell Automation Inc., in its shrink bundling equipment and end-of-line packaging systems. After the basic benefit of Ethernet, increased connectivity with business-level systems, remote diagnostics is one of the biggest benefits for the Romeoville, Ill.-based supplier.
“EtherNet/IP's remote diagnostic capabilities allow us to provide 24/7 customer support,” Vujovic says of the protocol from ODVA (formerly known as the Open DeviceNet Vendors Association). Networking the controllers, drives and human-machine interface (HMI) lets customers monitor machines and control the manufacturing process by communicating with other machines on the line, he explains.
That's an increasingly common occurrence, but networking specialists all warn companies such as Tekkra and its customers that only the decision is easy. Installing Ethernet on the factory floor is not a simple plug-and-play process. “The biggest difference is the planning involved with an Ethernet network; you have to have the appropriate topology with switch placement for devices in the right places. Generally, there is more planning on the front end,” says Chris Vitale, senior product manager with automation-components supplier Turck Inc.'s network division in Plymouth, Minn.
But that planning involves many different facets. When teams build networks, they have to examine many facets such as redundancy and whether the cost of managed switches has a payoff. They also have to pay far more attention to security issues now that factories are accessible from the outside world...Read
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Wireless Moves Forward
The freedom that comes when cabling disappears has captured the imagination of industrial engineers.
Over the past couple of years, market growth for wireless networks has soared, as untethered nodes pop up in all sorts of new applications.
Wireless technologies were viewed warily early in the decade, but that's waned as initial applications proved that the noisy electrical environment didn't cause signal loss. After that roadblock was removed, wireless networks have been gaining momentum like the proverbial snowball rolling down a hill.
Some companies say that even in this down economy, wireless is growing at rates of 50 percent or more. Wireless networks give designers the freedom to install nodes and move them around without figuring out cable routing schemes.
“We are seeing a lot of Wi-Fi (for Wireless Fidelity) used in plant floors, for example, on autonomous guided vehicles that move about a factory and can't have wires attached to them, but still need to be able to communicate to a central control location,” says Ariana Drivdahl, product marketing manager for Industrial Wireless at components vendor Moxa Americas Inc., of Brea, California...Read more
Opening the Door, Whose Job Is It?
Ethernet is one of those technologies that blurs the line between the information technology department and engineering.
IT departments adopted the technology early on in order to fulfill their mission to use technology to increase white-collar productivity. At the same time, engineers were still debating the wisdom of using any network at all. The head of controls engineering at a large automotive engine manufacturing plant told me in the early '90s that he would never approve a networking wire connected to a programmable logic controller.
Somewhere around five years later, I started going to classes on DeviceNet. This was networking—but a network solely connecting control to input/output field devices. This was totally under the control of engineering. They didn't have to worry about IT people—and, in fact, didn't want to have anything to do with them unless it had to do with connecting to the enterprise system in order to place work order requisitions and the like.
Now, information needs drive connectivity from field devices to enterprise applications. Ethernet became ubiquitous in the enterprise because it was relatively simple, wiring could be inexpensive and it allowed myriad devices and applications to run over it. So Ethernet has reached the factory floor. It now behooves engineers to learn more about how to install and maintain this network—and to know when to call in the network administration professionals. We're all connected now...Read more
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