By Jose Rivera
Traditionally, the fall season makes us reflect on the concluding year, often after an intense period of trade shows, automation vendor events and preparations for the next year. While travel and in-person events have been eliminated this fall, the workload remained intense as we all had to pivot to new operating ways.
This has also been the case for many SIs who are still coping with the realities of the pandemic, as I learned from recent conversations. One certified SI shared with me that the pandemic provided them with an additional and extreme test on their previously tested disaster recovery and business continuity plans, required by the Best Practices and reviewed during the certification audit.
What to expect in 2021
While we all look forward to being able to meet again in person, including for our CSIA Executive Conference, I am proud of the exciting calendar of virtual events that our staff has been able to create for 2021. The past months provided us with the opportunity to participate at many virtual conferences, virtual trade shows, webinars series around different topics within our industrial automation community, but also outside (e.g., association management, business schools, etc.).
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By Luigi De Bernardini
I hope you and your families are all healthy and safe and that you had a happy Thanksgiving. It’s wintertime and almost Christmas time, and COVID is still on stage. Times are still tough and uncertain.
We in Italy had a difficult fall (especially October and November) with a significant growth of cases and some critical situations. Differently from spring when I knew just a very little number of people who were found positive to COVID now the list is long, and the virus seems to be much more present all around us.
European recovery
Most of Europe was in the same situation and governments were forced to take actions to try to reduce the spread of the virus. This time it has been much more difficult since economy was already weak due to 6 months of restrictions and change of habits. Any initiative taken had to try to balance the need of public health and to save lives with the need to preserve and protect economy to avoid a dramatic social impact.
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By Lisa Richter
In no particular order, a few sundries:
1. Your Inbox: Is it bulging? We hear you. That’s why we have consolidated upcoming events and reminders into a monthly CSIA Digest, eliminating lots of one-off emails. Full disclosure: You will still get individual emails (1) per upcoming virtual event and when we roll out a new program, but rest assured we always consider the size of your inbox before we hit send.
2. White List: Speaking of email, do me a solid and make sure you white list CSIA in your email program – maybe even check your junk folder to makes sure we didn’t end up there. I hear all the time from folks who say they didn’t know about such-and-such. Don’t be that guy.
3. Professional Development: Don’t forget that CSIA members get discounted rates for the new CSIA Estimation Course.
4. Address change: Make sure your accounting and operations teams know about CSIA’s new address: 111 W. Jackson Blvd., Suite 1412, Chicago, IL 60604.
5. Renewals: Membership renewals rolled out last month, if you did not receive your invoice, let us know. Staff has been cooking up some new stuff, you’ll want in on that. If you can’t swing member dues right now – consider at least keeping your Exchange profile fresh. It’s a low-cost way to stay out there while you recoup.
6. Brag: As you go into 2021, consider adding your CSIA logo to your email signature, business cards and website. It’s such a simple, no-cost tactic to add credibility to your brand. If you want to be really nice, include a back link to controlsys.org. Google likes that.
7. Brag redux: Speaking of bragging, I need a couple of system integrators to get on the Talking Industrial Exchange podcast in 2021. If you are a member and have a Gold profile or package on The Exchange, let me know. Don’t make me beg.
8. Not a member? Start filling out your application now. You will be onboarded ASAP and get immediate access to your member benefits. Also, see No. 5 above.
Questions? Send me an email, I’m here for it. Well, except for the days I’m on vacation over the holidays. Then I’ll be in my housecoat, drinking red wine, eating flan and gorging on the Great British Bakeoff. Please don’t judge.
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2020 has heard plenty of choice words –
But let’s talk about some French ones
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By Mark Voigtmann and Brian Clifford
As we approach the end of 2020, we should all be able to agree that it was a year full of “unanticipated circumstances.” The automation lawyers at Faegre Drinker think about “unanticipated circumstances” a lot. We just use a fancy French phrase for it: force majeure.
As you continue to cope with the impacts on your company’s operations resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is useful to take a look at your existing contracts — and each new agreement coming into your pipeline — to ensure that your risks related to events and circumstances beyond your control are appropriately addressed. As examples:
· If public health orders or widespread employee illness or quarantine impacts your (or your vendors’ or customers’) operations, are you entitled to relief from your project schedule obligations? If so, does such relief include an equitable adjustment in your compensation? What are your notification requirements to seek such relief?
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“I have been addicted to the podcasts, and it has been a breath of fresh air to hear some of our partners speak about the current state of the industry, and what we are all facing. Keep up the good work.”
Kyle R. Veugeler
ABB
Controls Project Engineer
Robotics & Discrete Automation Business
Robotics Business Line
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What does the tag
ALB_BLDG1_L1_M47_DISPUMP1_RPM mean?
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By Steve Pavlosky
How can we help customers overcome the challenges around deriving real value from data that is collected? The first step in turning data into information is creating context for the data.
Whether data is from an HMI/SCADA system, time series and alarm and event data from a historian, or IoT sensor data, industrial data is typically identified by a tag name. People such as system integrators who work with data every day understand how these “tags” correlate to signals coming from the plant equipment or other sensors. The problem is that set of knowledgeable people represents a small percentage of those who could potentially get value from the data.
The answer is for system integrators to create a mapping between the tag data and a representation of the machine, line, plant or enterprise – called an asset model. Any user who wants to know the value of any specific sensor (such as RPMs of a pump) can find the specific pump in the model and see the data values associated with the pump, RPMs in this example.
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By Lisa Richter
The past few months have been active on the M&A front for the industrial automation industry with the following transactions:
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Emerson acquired CSIA member company Progea, a provider of industrial internet of things (IIoT), plant analytics, HMI and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) technologies. It also acquired OSI, which has a broad utility software portfolio, ranging from supervisory control and data acquisition systems and software for utilities to operate distribution and transmission grids, to the back-office IT systems supporting utility geographic information systems, outage management and data analytics. Read the press releases here and here.
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CSIA member Schneider Electric acquired a controlling stake in ETAP Automation for digital twin software to complete its power management software platform. More information is available in this article.
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Rockwell Automation, a CSIA member, entered into an agreement to acquire Fiix Inc., a privately held, AI-enabled computerized maintenance management system company. For more information, read the press release.
If you have M&A information that has been made public, contact CSIA Industry Director Lisa Richter for consideration in the next issue. Disclaimer: M&A Corner is not intended to be a source for breaking news but a place to get caught up on recent deals.
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Scenario planning in the age of COVID-19 |
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By Ben Smith
As 2020 has shown, simply saying that “scenario planning is important” is an understatement. Scenario planning is essential.
Since March, COVID-19 has changed the world, and in doing so has challenged every modern assumption about enterprise as we know it. Businesses in every sector can no longer take anything for granted. Not their customers, not their employees, not their supply chain. Nothing.
If there has been one silver lining in the corporate world to the global pandemic, it has reinforced just how important thoughtful scenario planning is to the corporate world. As we begin to see more partners and colleagues go out of business because of the effects of the pandemic, it is not too late to revamp how we think through crisis planning and how we can improve. We need to ensure that we are more prepared if something of this magnitude ever happens again.
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How a 62-year-old manufacturing plant became one of the world’s most advanced smart factories |
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By Steve March
In this smart factory tour, see how a 62-year-old manufacturing plant became one of the world’s most advanced manufacturing sites. This Lexington facility was the first of Schneider Electric's U.S. plants to become a Smart Factory showcase site. Exemplifying "brownfield" innovation, it integrates Schneider Electric's IIoT-based EcoStruxure solutions, providing the latest in digital tools, including augmented reality, remote monitoring and predictive maintenance, to drive energy efficiency, sustainability and overall cost savings, while offering increasing agility and resiliency within the operation.
The results of the Lexington Plant’s digital transformation were immediate and significant:
- Monitoring and analyzing energy usage has driven an energy savings of 3.4 percent year-over-year, contributing to $6.6 million in regional savings since 2012
- Leveraging AVEVA's Discrete Lean Management software has reduced unplanned machine downtime by nearly 6 percent through increased visibility into operations
- Optimizing with EcoStruxure Power and Buildings has driven a 26 percent energy reduction, a 78 percent CO2 reduction in conjunction with renewable energy credits (RECs) and a 20 percent water use reduction
Kenneth Labhart, innovation leader at Schneider Electric, provides a tour of this Lexington, Kentucky smart factory, which was recently recognized as a Lighthouse Factory by the World Economic Forum.
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Contract insurance requirements:
Additional insured headaches!
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By Jeff Forbes
It can be tempting to overlook insurance requirements in contracts. Many integrators want to ensure that their limits match or exceed their customer requirements and may not pay much attention to additional insured or waiver-of-subrogation clauses. These clauses, however, can lead to long, million-dollar lawsuits. They can also impact a company’s loss history. Businesses need to know what they are signing up for when they agree to name a customer or a vendor as an additional insured on their general liability coverage.
Additional insured status
Additional insured status can cause complications in a number of different ways, but a major one involved a type of lawsuit commonly referred to as a “third party over action.” Typically, employee injuries are covered by workers’ compensation. Most state workers’ compensation laws provide that workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy in a bodily injury dispute between an employer and their employee.
To get around this, injured employees may try to sue general contractors, subcontractors or property owners when working on site for their employer. The injured employee in this type of case is hoping to secure a significantly larger payout from the insurance of the defendant who is not their employer than they could receive through workers’ compensation plans.
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CIMON offers live training on HMI,
PLC and SCADA programming
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By Christian Heilman
Automation is expected to see significant growth and changes in 2021 -- three-quarters of enterprises will be focused on automation and digital initiatives. With this in mind, CIMON has been ahead of the curve in offering free training to system integrators (SIs), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), as well as manufacturers and assembly lines looking to upgrade operations for higher efficiency.
Actual training
These are not lectures or a sales presentation. CIMON offers live online and in-person training. In its U.S. training center, it houses an entire software development team, as well as technical support and a training room of 12 fully equipped lab stations. It covers PLCs, HMIs, SCADA, industrial PCs, and the software to program and automate all the aforementioned hardware. With training centers located in the U.S. and abroad, CIMON has worked alongside domestic and international companies with both large classroom sizes and one-on-one instruction.
Become CIMON certified
With current advancements and expected growth of 4.0 technologies, both automation newcomers and veterans alike have seen the benefits of the training. Businesses and integrators appreciate that the course offers an authentic certification, requiring the completion of all three automation courses as well as an assignment to verify full understanding and competence.
Upon completion of training, there is a feedback process to reinforce retention of the education received. Successful completion of the program awards companies with the opportunity to become a CIMON Certified System Integrator, as well as access to numerous benefits available through the SI program.
Enjoy the advantage
CIMON offers the three-day training course each month at no cost along with hands-on technical support, webinars, tech notes, newsletters and more. CIMON certified integrators are listed on the SI locator page, where they enjoy direct project referrals and lead generation as well as promotion in the newsletter and social media.
More and more integrators are finding out that including CIMON products in their designs is giving them a competitive edge when quoting on new projects.
More information on how to take advantage of the CIMON SI program is available here.
Christian Heilman is pursuing a career as a process controls engineer. For more information, contact CIMON at sales@cimoninc.com.
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By Jack Barber
Strategic planning can be an arduous process. Some of our clients even question how it’s possible during these tumultuous times. But the fact remains that if you don’t have a vision for where you are going, you surely won’t get there by simply wandering through the desert.
Let’s not kid ourselves. We are facing a once-in-a-lifetime crisis. So, we cannot just hunker down and wait for this to blow over. As we look to 2021, we must do more than just survive. We cannot stay on the defensive. We must have the agility to adapt to the current and next normal and find our way forward. Perhaps more than ever, it takes the courage to show true leadership and chart your course.
Your northern star
In response to the question, how can we create (or update) a strategic plan during the difficult times, we respond that a strategic plan is like a northern star. While we may not know the exact path forward, our strategic plan provides a general direction. We still retain the flexibility to adapt tactics to our current environment, but we don’t waiver from our ultimate destination.
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Single pair ethernet enables digitalization |
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By Mike Vermeer
Businesses run on data. This data can take the form of sales leads that come from business development or marketing and sales that turn into pipeline data and provide visibility to future bookings and profitability.
In the Information Age, this data has primarily come from human inputs. More and more, this data is being automated through inputs created at the source, whether those are inputs from order entry systems on order bookings or inputs from operations teams that identify when an order has shipped and is ready for billing.
In the digitalization age, business-critical data will be collected automatically and flow seamlessly to wherever it is needed, whether that is the enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, manufacturing execution systems (MES), logistics systems or all of them together. A new physical layer technology that has been described as single pair ethernet now standardized through IEEE, IEC and TIA form a foundation for this next stage of digitalization.
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Here’s your quarterly roundup of recent content you may have missed. |
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Industrial Automation Exchange Blog
Recent topics posted on the Exchange blog include:
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Talking Industrial Automation Podcast
If you are a podcast fan, you’ll want to check out CSIA’s Talking Industrial Automation. Some of the latest episodes include:
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Episode 46: Josh Eastburn of Opto 22 talks about how the company likes to work with people who are looking for something different – “cool stuff that just works.”
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Episode 47: Barry Brian of DRM recounts how he and his partners grew from a two-person team to a company with 80+ employees in southern middle Tennessee.
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Episode 48: Ken Mroz of CIMON Automation reveals how the company is making a play to penetrate the North American and Latin American markets.
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Business and Technical Webinars
CSIA members share their expertise in these free webinars as well as the Webinar Wednesday series.
Interested in being a podcast guest or guest blogger? Both are available to member organizations that have upgraded to a Gold Profile. Contact Lisa Richter to learn how you can take advantage of these opportunities to position your C-suite as thought leaders.
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LATAM Update / Noticias de LATAM |
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Ending 2020 and the challenges for 2021
By Carolina Casas Anzola
Technology is altering the status quo of companies, and automation, in particular, is key to rapid digitization thanks to its ubiquity. Digital transformation has been leveraged with intelligent automation, which mixes the benefits of artificial intelligence and analytics with robotic process automation. This has allowed organizations to quickly adapt to the new normal, with key additional benefits such as cost, speed, improved accuracy and customer experience.
Industry 4.0 is certainly here to stay. With all the events of this year 2020, it is likely that we will have a lot to expect from industrial automation during 2021. Above all, because this year the needs of companies have changed radically, each time more and more human labor is being dispensed with, and as we have seen during the course of this year, it is most likely that the following year we will enter the so-called new normal.
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Finalizando el 2020 y los retos para el 2021
Por: Carolina Casas Anzola
La tecnología está alterando el status quo de las empresas, y la automatización, en particular, está siendo clave para una digitalización rápida gracias a su omnipresencia. La transformación digital se ha apalancado con la automatización inteligente, que mezcla los beneficios de la inteligencia artificial y la analítica con la automatización robótica de procesos. Esto le ha permitido a las organizaciones adaptarse rápidamente a la nueva normalidad, con ventajas adicionales claves como su costo, velocidad, precisión mejorada y la experiencia del cliente.
Sin duda, la industria 4.0 ha llegado para quedarse. Con todos los acontecimientos de este año 2020, es probable que tengamos mucho que esperar de la automatización industrial durante el 2021. Sobre todo, porque este año las necesidades de las empresas han cambiado radicalmente, cada vez se comienza a prescindir más de la labor humana, y como hemos visto durante el transcurso de este año lo más probable es que el año siguiente entremos en la llamada nueva normalidad.
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Interoperability Best Practices, Integration, Automation, Controls
Editorial deadline: Jan. 4, 2021
Through mergers, acquisitions and pilot programs, organizations have been exposed to multiple control systems and various automation vendors’ products. Control Engineering research shows increasing willingness to consider automation purchases from other vendor as standardization frameworks encourage more interoperability. Here’s what you need to know about interoperability efforts as you step out of one automation ecosystem into a wider world.
Note to potential authors: Control Engineering article subscribers include end users, system integrators, original equipment manufacturers and machine builders. For more a full list of article topics, see www.controleng.com/2021articles. Images, graphics or tables must be original: no internet, stock or other third-party images are allowed. Articles can be 500-1500 words and should be tutorial in nature, only mentioning specific vendors or products in captions, not in the body of the article. Send questions or submissions to Mark Hoske, mhoske@cfemedia.com. Please put “CSIA member contribution for Control Engineering” and the article topic in subject line. Control Engineering will edit all useful articles for online use, and the best of those will get into print as time and space allow.
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Connect with us on LinkedIn! |
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Looking for even more ways to stay involved with CSIA and get the most out of your membership?
Follow us on LinkedIn and stay in the know on the latest CSIA and general system integrator news!
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Date: Wednesday, December 16
Time: 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. (CST)
Date: Thursday, January 7
Time: 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. (CST)
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Stay in the know on the latest CSIA and industry news. Follow us on social media! |
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