Successful digital transformation initiatives have common properties. These include connecting people, business processes, and equipment with the objective of improving operational efficiency.
For manufacturers and producers, this means connecting the intelligence in plant floor devices with integration and analytics at the edge and with the cloud for higher-level analysis and informed decision-making.
Boundless Automation is Emerson’s vision for an industrial architecture built on a consistent, cohesive software ecosystem from intelligent field devices to the edge and the cloud—integrating operations to make all data instantly accessible, understandable, and usable for analytics, innovation, and performance improvement.
For manufacturers in the discrete and hybrid industries, it’s critical to analyze and solve problems where they occur—at the machine’s edge. Gathering the data from all the surrounding smart sensors and actuators enables predictive analytics to help facilitate faster problem-solving and reduce maintenance and downtime.
Not all smart sensors and actuators are connected into the machine control systems. The edge device takes control system data and non-control system data. It integrates it so users have one view of the entire operation and can make better decisions with this holistic view of the equipment.
Edge technology allows access to data from isolated elements, gathers data from other business/internet constructs, and consolidates the information. Equally important, edge technology allows better analytics at the plant level to help give meaning to the data collected. So, regardless of the user’s control system, edge technology is needed to make the system smarter.
The primary types of edge technologies are edge gateways, edge devices, and the new edge controllers that integrate PLC/PAC and edge functions into a single box.
- Edge gateways would likely be sufficient if your application requires data collection at the machine and then offloads that data to the cloud or other higher-level computing systems for processing.
- Edge devices allow processing at the machine level. The device is integrated with the current control system, consolidates additional IoT data from available sensors and smart devices, and is the choice in existing brownfield plants that don’t want to change control systems.
- Edge controllers integrate PLC/PAC control and edge processing into a single system. Edge controllers offer a generational advancement to PLC- and PAC-based industrial control systems by enabling safe, secure communication between real-time deterministic control and non-deterministic applications that leverage external data to analyze and optimize business operations.
For hybrid and discrete manufacturing applications, visit the Industrial Edge Software & Solutions for more on how PACSystems Edge Solutions convert costly, cumbersome big data into affordable, manageable “little data,” where problems can be identified and rapidly solved.
You can also download the whitepaper Edge Technology: Accessing and Integrating Critical Isolated Data (The Truth Behind the Hype) for guidance for users, systems integrators, and OEMs who want to explore these essential technologies for successful digital transformation initiatives.
