Summary
羅克韋爾自動化舉行了2022年自動化公平in-person event in Houston, TX on November 10-11, 2021 as well as simultaneously virtually online. The company had in-person attendance of over 4,000 users and partners. This year’s event included 125 product and technology sessions, 10 industry forums, 40 sessions with hands-on labs, and 100
exhibitors on the show floor. For those who joined virtually, there were more than 100 sessions on demand to view and dozens of live streams that showcased innovations and solutions on the show floor.
As usual, two other events were also held just prior to Automation Fair, including the Rockwell Automation Process Solutions Users Group (PSUG), which was sold out at 550 attendees due to COVID capacity restrictions. PSUG consisted of 23 customer and technical sessions with four hands-on labs along with numerous demonstrations and case studies showcasing the company’s solutions and services being deployed throughout the process industries. The other event was Perspectives, which was a half-day session focused on providing the global media and analyst community with in-depth presentations and discussions with both the company’s senior leadership team as well as some key customers and success stories. The overall theme of all the Rockwell Automation Fair events was “Connecting the imaginations of people with the power of technology, to make the world more connected, more productive, and more sustainable, expanding human possibility.” This theme was like a digital thread that was evident throughout all the events.
Leadership Provides Perspectives to Kick Off Automation Fair
Blake Moret, Chairman & CEO of Rockwell Automation kicked off the Perspectives event by sharing Rockwell Automation’s vision to deliver innovative solutions for disruptive changes that achieve measurable results. Blake discussed how manufacturers can overcome changes and become more resilient, agile, and sustainable with technologies and services that range from flexible automation, robotics, remote optimization, remote factory acceptance
tests, digital production design, maintenance, operations, automation, energy optimization, and end-to-end supply chain planning.
Rockwell Automation will continue developing the building blocks customers need in addition to its core technologies, such as smart products, intelligent devices, process hardware and software, independent cart technology, drives, servos, software that is both on-premise or cloud-based, and the consulting and cybersecurity services and expertise that takes the information from the plant and throughout the enterprise. The company has adopted industry-specific applications and a domain expertise approach to services that allows its customers to identify the best opportunities for productivity improvements.
Blake discussed how the company has been busy developing new solutions and partnerships and acquiring companies to enhance its software and services portfolio to address digital transformation. Recent acquisitions include:
- AVATA, a services provider for supply chain management, enterprise resource planning, and enterprise performance management solutions.
- Plex Systems, a cloud-native smart SaaS manufacturing platform including advanced MES, ERP, quality, and supply chain management.
- Fiix, an AI-enabled cloud CMMS company that creates workflows for scheduling, organizing, and tracking of equipment maintenance.
- Oylo, a provider of industrial control system (ICS) cybersecurity managed services, assessments, implementations, and incident response.
- ASEM, a provider of digital automation technologies, including IPCs, HMIs, remote access capabilities, and Industrial IoT gateway solutions.
- Kalypso, a provider of consulting, digital transformation, enterprise technology, and business process management software and services.
- Avnet, a provider of IT/OT cybersecurity services and solutions ranging from assessments, penetration testing, network & security solutions.
Blake also discussed how these acquisitions have helped Rockwell Automaton extend both its cloud capabilities and on-premise applications to enable easier collaboration and deliver higher productivity. FactoryTalk software and service enhancements for new cloud technologies and services include:
- FactoryTalk Design Hub, using Remote Access and Vault to streamline automation systems design.
- FactoryTalk Operations Hub, leveraging Plex to simplify cloud-native operations management.
- FactoryTalk Maintenance Hub, utilizing Fiix for asset management and predictive maintenance.
Finally, Blake discussed how acquisitions of Oylo and Avnet also enabled Rockwell Automation to expand its global cybersecurity domain expertise and its portfolio of services by establishing a Cybersecurity Operations Center in Israel. The center offers enhanced remote cybersecurity managed services with an additional 15 remote service centers
around the world to serve the company’s global customer base, helping to monitor and mitigate cyber-threats utilizing countermeasures and protections that take advantage of these new cybersecurity technologies and partnerships.
These acquisitions and additional cloud and SaaS capabilities are also used to enhance the company’s LifecycleIQ Services, which increase consulting, deployment and maintenance service capabilities with a lifecycle approach that begins with its customers’ business problems and their digital journey. Cases include, for example, in the food and beverage industry, helping to deploy rapid changeover solutions with intelligent conveyance systems. In the automotive industry, helping customers to be more agile by deploying software solutions that manage multiple variants on one line. In the mining industry, helping to ensure that material is available and keeping processes up and running and reducing delays, which in one case resulted in up to $200 million in savings for the customer. All industries also have a requirement to be more sustainable to be able to reduce the amount of energy consumed and make the most out of scarce resources. LifecycleIQ services have resulted in customers using up to 40 percent less energy while improving consistency. When customers are building or expanding facilities, LifecycleIQ services have resulted in speeding up the project completion times by up to 50 percent.
The Future of Manufacturing: AI Native and Autonomous Systems
Rockwell Automation’s new Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Cyril Perducat discussed his vision for the future of manufacturing and Rockwell Automation solutions to address the following market trends:
- Increasing efficiency becoming increasing sustainability & efficiency.
- 事件驅動的改進成為連續的即興表演vement.
- Hardware defined and connectivity concentric becoming edge, cloud, and software defined, where control and applications are executed anywhere based on user needs.
- Specialized control becoming universal and converged control, where there is a common development, operations and maintenance environment for areas such as control, safety, motion, and robotics.
- Cyber-physical systems and HMI becoming autonomous systems and augmented workforce, which enable humans to make decisions to expand human possibility.
- Software centric operations management becoming AI native operations management, with AI being an integrated element of the workflow in every phase of design, install, operate and maintain.
Cyril discussed how in the future, AI will have more of a role in industrial systems to transforms processes, capabilities, and business models. AI can be used for advanced process control based on model predictive control. The future of
先進的process control is a combination of physics-based systems and AI machine learning or deep learning capabilities. AI can also be used for system level monitoring, predictive maintenance, and applications. Beyond the PLC and PAC, the future is going to be about moving from an automated system to an autonomous system. By combining the controls learning with AI simulation models across the lifecycle from design, operation and maintenance, AI can be used to improve the process and simplify design generation by encapsulating best practices into the AI learning. AI can improve the system’s programming by generating the best blocks of code. By creating a partnership with machines, systems, and people, AI can expand human possibility by augmenting capabilities. AI will be embedded in every part of the architecture, resulting in systems that are moving from automation to autonomy, which is the future of the connected enterprise.
Connected Enterprise Production System Model
Brian Shepherd, Rockwell Automation’s Senior Vice President, Software & Control, discussed how the company believes in the power of combining data, technology and domain expertise to achieve results in manufacturing and
production, pursuing this vision for delivering new innovations built on these five principles of strategy: buyer scope, value driven, system engineered, innovation powered, and industry solutions that enable the needs of customers and their primary value to drive use cases. Buyer scope and value driven include focusing on the needs of the manufacturing and production with a personalized approach for each customer whether in production management, asset management, compliance and sustainability, or digital transformation.
The heart of the systems’ engineered strategy is found in the company’s Connected Enterprise Production System model. Innovation powered means based on being cloud first, highly accessible, data centered, new analytics and apps, and digital twins at every phase of the lifecycle. Industry focused means delivering the best possible user experience with a simple, straightforward production experience that combines information that matches the value created with a differentiated business model that is simple and consistent with users’ skills.
IoT and Safety Devices with Digital Threads
Rockwell Automation’s Fran Wlodarczyk, Senior Vice President, Intelligent Devices, discussed the company’s broad portfolio of products that create the connected enterprise production system for smart intelligent devices. These devices have been grouped into four categories:
- Sensing and industrial components for any production system.
- Safety devices that allow humans to interact safely with machines.
- Power control devices that enable efficient use of energy.
- Motor and motion control devices that enable accurate machine control.
The company has categorized smart intelligent devices as proving a digital thread that each contain information regarding device identity, device state, device run-time data, and device maintenance data.
Fran also discussed several new offerings including Armor PowerFlex Drives, Kinetix Servos and Independent Cart Technology. Enhancements to the PowerFlex 755T product line include smart technology that provides digital thread and predictive maintenance analytics. Independent Cart Technology combined with unified robot technology provides integrated control for machine robots in a Logix controller, simplifying the automation architecture for machine builders and reducing costs.
Lifecycle IQ Services and New Key Cybersecurity Partnerships
Frank Kulaszewicz, Rockwell Automation’s Senior Vice President, Lifecycle Services, discussed Lifecycle IQ Services, which combines consulting services, professional services, field services and workforce services. Frank also discussed how the acquisition of Kalypso enables expanding beyond manufacturing into product design and provides services that connect the value chain and digital transformation initiatives. Kalypso provides integration services for digital transformation with a digital thread that connects products, equipment, processes, and systems through a seamless flow of data. The approach combines domain expertise from Kalypso and Rockwell Automation’s ecosystems of technology partners with its customers’ strategy, technology, and human-centric change management.
弗蘭克討論Kalypso創建一個PLM的例子backbone and a digital thread that helped a global medical device
manufacturer connect product development and manufacturing capabilities and provided the ability to get more complex products into the market. Another example was how Kalypso helped Fresenius, a medical products company, undergo a digital transformation with connected products, interconnected operations, analytics, digital twins, and other technologies to improve their manufacturing practices. A third example was Kalypso, combined with Logix AI, enabling a global tire manufacturer with the ability to evaluate their tire production and reduced splice errors. Logix AI trained an algorithm using digital twin technology to predict when tire slices were in bad places and predict what would happen in real time. The tire company was able to produce an additional half million tires a year in just one plant and adopting and scaling the same approach across more sites.
弗蘭克還討論了羅克韋爾自動化的新探討tments to help enhance its IT and OT cybersecurity offerings. These initiatives include new strategic partnerships with Dragos and CrowdStrike in addition to its partnerships with Cisco and Claroty. Dragos, a provider of cybersecurity solutions for industrial control systems (ICS)/OT environments, will partner with Rockwell Automation on incident response and recovery services and threat intelligence. The two companies will offer enhanced incident response services and a mutually developed threat intelligence feed. CrowdStrike, a provider of cloud-delivered endpoint security and workload protection solutions, will partner to deliver end-to-end cybersecurity and network service solutions. The partnership will examine initiatives for CrowdStrike’s cloud-native, AI-powered Falcon platform with Rockwell Automation’s global deployment, network architecture, support, OT, and managed services capabilities.
Digital Transformation Success Stories
Scott Genereux, Rockwell Automation’s Senior Vice President & Chief Revenue Officer went over some success stories, such as Eli Lilly, where Rockwell Automation is helping with its cybersecurity strategy, its serialization program, and its modernizing data architecture from asset to edge to cloud, turning data into information that allows for better and faster decision making and delivering on the goal of a predictable plant. Also, helping Fonterra with innovation, sustainability, efficiency and safety objectives, aligning teams with a single vision of business objectives, and providing an integrated OT and IT architecture working alongside its partners Microsoft and PTC. This led to significant increases in OEE, unlocked additional capacity, reduced waste, and provided a new level of insight across production lines.
Leveraging Data to Drive Productivity and Sustainability
Rockwell Automation’s Tom O’Reilly, Vice President, Sustainability, and Arvind Rao, Director, Product Management and Head of Industry Solutions, discussed the company’s sustainability strategy, designed to help its customers aim to achieve a net zero strategy. The strategy extends not only to the customers but to the company and communities in
which Rockwell Automation operates. Sustainability strategies include energy, offering contemporary industrial energy management software solutions that put energy data in context to production data, to reduce energy use across the value chain.
Sustainability strategies also include water, offering smart water solutions that leverage modern software and analytics to improve operations visibility, system reliability, and worker productivity while supporting security needs and meeting regulatory obligations. Finally, sustainability strategies include waste, helping to enable a circular economy for managing automation assets and focusing on developing solutions to automate developing industry-specific processes. Examples of some of the sustainability software tools that are available include FactoryTalk Energy Manager, which takes a scalable approach to energy monitoring in context to production.
Conclusion
Whether you attended the event live or virtually, the theme of expanding human possibility was clearly the digital thread that connected all sessions and solutions throughout Automation Fair. Rockwell Automation clearly stepped up The Connected Enterprise strategy to new levels, combining technology, services and expertise to help its customers make scalable progress on their digital transformation journey. A key part of that journey where Rockwell Automation is helping its customers is with IT/OT convergence, which includes IT/OT cybersecurity that helps its customers fill existing security gaps and ensure consistent security levels across the enterprise. Also, the company has made substantial investments in acquiring and partnering with companies that can help its customers migrate to the Cloud while not leaving behind those that still require on-premise solutions. At the same time, Rockwell Automation remains true to its automation roots and continues to invest in the core technologies that enable its automation products to be smart, intelligent, and connected, taking advantage of edge technologies, analytics, AI, and autonomous operations. This positions Rockwell Automation and its customers well for the future.
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Keywords: Automation Fair, Process Solutions Users Group, LifecycleIQ Services, AR, VR, Autonomous, IT, OT, Cloud, SaaS, Edge Digital Transformation, AI, ML, ARC Advisory Group.