IT Trends affecting Industrial Automation - Part 1

Consider the following two quotes:

“IT will never integrate into our Plant Floor; not whilst we are still here anyhow”

“We work closely with Plant IT these days, they sit in on most of our meetings, its critical”

Welcome to the intriguing world of Information Technology to Industrial Automation  relationships. If you are reading this article you probably hail from either the world of IT or the world of automation engineering. If that’s the case, then I am fairly certain that you will identify strongly with one of the two statements above, if you do not, I’m even more certain you will sit somewhere between the two.

Both points of view are based on valid reasoning, but over the next few years, I predict the second statement will eventually drown out the first.

But why?

To answer this we need to look into the past and into the future. Plant machinery has historically been built on a network that is separated from corporate infrastructure. The reason for this is founded on the sound premise that if a plant floor network is isolated from the outside world, the risk of production being affected by software viruses is minimalised. Just as the risk of foreign or government actors being able to gain access to trade secrets via cyber espionage are significantly reduced.

But as the world becomes a more competitive place and as third world countries begin to industrialise at an astounding rate,  the demand for Information from the shop floor to the board room is becoming a must have weapon in the arsenal of commercial warfare. The old proverb suggests 'knowledge is power' and to stay ahead of the game a modern business must be able to make decisions quickly, in real time, with accurate data.

Thus the two worlds are beginning to collide. IT managers are peering into the dust of the factory floor, like Captain Cook first did when he laid eyes on the Galapagos Islands. This is a strange world, with strange languages and strange computerized species, they look familiar, but on a second glance, it’s apparent that these are not quite the same beasts they maintain in their offices.

Conversely the inhabitants of the plant floor Galapagos’ spy a huge floating ship on the horizon, packed full of modern wizardry, The Ship’s captain seems very nice, he promises a new era, of greater flow of information, of streamlining traditional practices, of virtualisation, of cloud computing, of thin clients, of cyber security,  Yet the island inhabitants are cautious, as they should be, for just as on the Galapagos’ islands, despite the best will of all parties involved, an oversight on something as simple as a virus could wreak havoc on an unprepared, currently productive population.

I find myself peering into this chapter with fascination; I empathise with the views of both sides. The actions of both IT and engineering departments across the nation will determine the outcome of the inevitable change that currently sweeps our factories and production facilities.

Next Week: The discussion continues 

Ian Kilner, Internal Account Manager - Ireland & Scotland, SolutionsPT