“Security used to be provided by the closed system—if you couldn’t understand it, you couldn’t hack it.” John Genovesi of Rockwell Automation discussed the need for today’s modern distributed control systems to include security at every level based on best practices from the IT world.
“We expect this to drive up to $3.9 trillion in productivity improvements through the manufacturing supply chain.”
Industry Week reports that 14% of manufacturing companies connect equipment to the enterprise, and one-fifth report loss of intellectual property in the past year.
“We need better security as industry collects two exabytes of data a year,” Genovesi said. “Then we have to harvest and sift through all that data.”
Modern DCS has lowest TCO
Meanwhile, “Unscheduled downtime is costing us $20 billion per year,” Genovesi said. “More than three-quarters of our plants are 20 years old or older, with $65 billion worth of control technology reaching its end of life.”
As you consider how to deal with the future while replacing systems, Genovesi said Rockwell Automation stands ready to deliver on four key points: faster time to market, lowest total cost of ownership (TCO), improved asset utilization, and enterprise risk management.
“I commit to you that if you consider the total lifecycle cost, from design to decommission, Rockwell Automation will have the lowest price,” said Genovesi.
The company does this by offering integrated hardware and software across the plant. I/O, controllers and their software work with intelligent motor control, and are supported with a global network of 3,000 Rockwell Automation engineers plus a “vast network of system integrators that double our capacity,” he said.
A conventional DCS uses proprietary I/O and servers, which are “expensive and difficult to modernize,” said Genovesi.
The PlantPAx modern DCS is open, using commercial technology, making it easy to integrate third-party components from control through utility systems, he said.
The PlantPAx system offers shortened development cycles, so you can upgrade portions of the system as needed instead of having to replace it all, continued Genovesi. The Ethernet network infrastructure is not proprietary, making it easy to integrate, make changes and add third-party systems. The same network is used at the factory and in the enterprise.
“It’s easy to integrate mobility and the cloud, and it’s future-proof because it’s easy to upgrade,” he said.
“Network speeds will increase to 100 GB in the next decade,” Genovesi added. “And our system will be able to take advantage of it.”
Prepare for the next generation
“Security used to be provided by the closed system—if you couldn’t understand it, you couldn’t hack it,” Genovesi said. “Instead, we need to apply modern technology for security at every level, using the best changes and standards from IT. It’s hard to know what the security requirements of tomorrow will be. You need a strategy that is flexible and can be upgraded to the latest requirements.”
Then there’s workforce productivity—who can deploy, operate and support the system?
Operators have been tied to the control room, and maintenance is a challenge,” Genovesi said. “Instead, we use technology like virtualized templates to speed deployments, implement model-predictive control, and provide support for mobile workers.
“The next generation of engineers will have different expectations—more intuitive, simpler, plug and play. Operators need to operate a system from wherever they are to see information and data.
“So next time you plan a new system, upgrade or migrate, consider a modern DCS.”
