“Things” and IT/OT Manufacturing

Feb 6, 2014

Sogeti Labs

Over time, more and more “things” – sensors, actuators, human-machine interfaces, controllers, tablets, computers, motors, pumps, and, yes, machines – will connect to the network. Devices and applications that join the network will need to integrate and collaborate in order to make the enterprise successful. This will lead to an Internet of Things where devices collaborate with each other as well as with their human counterparts.

OT and IT
In this environment, manufacturing (or OT= Operational Technology) focuses on how to build the end product, while IT focuses on the demand and supply components. Operations occur around the globe and a limited number of subject matter specialists are available to service and troubleshoot machines AND clients. This means IT and manufacturing operations (OT) must effectively collaborate.

Aa part of the OT environment, IT-ready machines are able to answer many questions. Just imagine if they could tell you things like:

•  I made 25 parts this past hour, five were rejected.
•  I’ve been starving for product for the past 30 minutes.
•  My drive system faulted.
•  I took two minutes longer to reach temp, can you check this?
•  I’ve had 22 parts jam in the past two days.
•  I could run 15 percent faster if you kept my parts bin full.
•  My current cost per part total = $27 (142 watts of electricity + 1.1 labor hours + 42 gallons of water + $3 of raw material).
•  I could reduce energy by 5 percent by sleeping while I wait.

Who (or what) will your machines talk to? ERP, MES, OEMs, other machines? You? Can you afford to ignore them?

Three Design Steps
What would be needed to accomplish such talkative manufacturing future? Three things:

1 – Marrying OT with IT
2 – Integrating OT/IT with SoRE (Systems of Record AND Engagement )
3 – Where possible combining HIoT (Human IoT) with IIoT (Industrial IoT) solutions (see my previous blog post)

SoRE
“Systems of Engagement will overlay and complement our deep investments in Systems of Record. Systems of Engagement begin with a focus on communications. We grew up with letters, phones, telexes, and faxes, and grew into email, shared text databases, portals, web sites, and mobile phones. Now we are going to incorporate a third (Machine to Machine) generation of communications, based on 1) connecting people in real time; 2) smart and geographically-aware mobile devices; and 3) ubiquitous and cheap bandwidth.”          

Sources:
Guidelines for Designing an IT-Ready Machine.
Geoffrey Moore, 2011.

About the author

Sogeti Labs

SogetiLabs gathers distinguished technology leaders from around the Sogeti world. It is an initiative explaining not how IT works, but what IT means for business.

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