Whole Plant Network

dpslusser

Member
Join Date
Jan 2016
Location
PA
Posts
48
Hey guys, I have a customer who wants to install a plant process network. Of course this is a large project and its barely in the development phase. The plant has several stand-alone devices and several machines with local networks. Some of those machines have managed switches and others have dummy switches. The plant network would aide in cross communications between PLC's, device recovery, management of the devices. This may also include a VPN connection to the network for remote support.
Due to the size of the plant, the network would consist of managed fiber/copper networks.

Any advice or things I should look for in the design of this system?

Thanks
 
Segmentation, segmentation segmentation. I've been doing a LOT of work to our controls network for the last few weeks, and here are some things I have thought about.

First would be switch placement. You said "managed copper/fiber" which leads me to believe you want to avoid layer 3 routing for the most part and keep this part of the network isolated from the business network. Wise choice. Place switches in dry, clean areas that are easy to run cable to. This will both protect equipment and prevent dumb switches being used.

Examine all local equipment. Many times it may be better to use a small managed switch in place of a dummy switch with NAT to preserve equipment settings while still being able to access the rest of the network. If you use gigabit ports, and if the runs aren't too long (back to main switch rack placement) you can get away with gigabit ethernet and have it be plenty fast enough. Dummy switches can easily create network loops and cause funky problems. You really want to avoid a reason to use these in the first place.

Build for expansion. As equipment is added and removed and stuff changes around, it is good to have oversized conduit to run wire through. This is where places junction boxes to, say, a 2" conduit is nice. You can just pull to the box and take the main conduit the rest of the way to a switch. I have been doing this with new pulls and have found it quite handy.

VLANs are awesome. Use them.
 
You first need to determine or share with us what kind of layout you will have? Meaning is this a continuous process where raw material come in one side of the plant and finished goods out the other and most of the operation and control is done from a few people in a central control room or is it more of a cell based setup where you ave line 1, Line 2 etc. or work cell 1, 2, etc.

Do you wish to provide OEM's with remote access to their equipment for support? Do you want it so that OEM's can only see their equipment and nothing else?

Myself I use fiber anywhere I can. I only use copper if I have no other choice because with fiber I can run it any route and not have any noise issues but with copper I have to be careful where and how I run it to the machine and even more careful how I route it inside the control panel and hope no one will come by later and decide to reroute it for some reason.

How are you going to use the physical corporate network? Do you plan to use it as a backbone or run an entire physical network for the plant floor? My vote is for a separate network for the plant floor.

How will you attach to your corporate network? What data needs to be exchanged to the corporate network and how much?

Will there be a firewall? I vote yes. Who will manage the firewall? I vote you.

Will NAT be used to maintain OEM IP Addressing? I vote yes.

Is there a need for wireless? How will it be used? What area needs to be covered?

These are just some of the question you should be asking and finding answers to. Start writing some things down and start a written plan. I will change and evolve from now on but is that is OK.
 
keep your plant network away from the internet!!
we have remote access through a firewall system to access the plant plc's from home ( I'm in the it department and also one of the plc programmers)
in case there's a production issue that maintenance can't resolve.

have virus software installed on hmi pc's that get regular updates from the plant side server. Watch the firewall, it may break things, so you may have to turn it off.

regards,
james
 

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