Skeptical about IoT, Industry 4.0, Openess, etc...

userxyz

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Hi,

I am a little skeptical about IoT, Industry 4.0 and openess.
Maybe skeptical is the wrong word... what I mean is, these words don't convince me that everything is and will be so much better in the digital factory today or the one from tomorow. I believe everything is evolving just like the last decades everything was. I believe in standardisation, in OOP programming and all other modern ways of thinking. But...

About IoT:
At home I have my heating on a app, my doorbell on a app, my surveillance cameras in a app, etc... This is luxery, but not life changing things that convince me of IoT in homes. IoT in industry... how can this be seen... when I visit a brand I get to see things like... possibillities to see trend apps on cell phones, apps for OEE on cell phones, etc... for me this doesn't change much and can also be seen as a nice to have for managers. What do you guys see a IoT in the industry.

About Industry 4.0:
Well, I believe in OOP and also in architectures. I believe that OPC UA can be a standard in the factory of tomorow for communication between different machines but also to upper levels like Scada, MES and ERP layers. But the question I have here is, define Industry 4.0 without the marketing talk... can anyone put a definition on it ? To me it is nothing more then a marketing word. Siemens use this term a lot in combination with Mindsphere... a platform that has very little interest from the Automation industry at this time.

I think IoT has a little overlap with Industry 4.0, IoT is the marketing word for USA and Industry 4.0 is for europe... or is this totally wrong ? Opinions please :p

About openess...
Siemens talks a lot about openess in several categories IMO:

- Eplan can be imported in TIA, this is openess to Siemens. This could allready be done 10 years ago...

- Import and export with XML files: Wonderware had this allready 10 years ago.

- Linking TIA PLC Advanced to their 3D designer: I agree that this is a really money saver for expensive and complex serie machines. But first most engineering company's have their standards in their own 3D software like Inventor, Cocreate or whatever. They can also simulate in those softwares (without the PLC). But can a Mechanical Engineer write PLC code and link it to a PLCSim Advanced ? I really don't think so. It takes time to link a 3D virtual machine as a digital twin to a PLCSim, a lot of time.

- And then you have the TIA openess API. Yes we know how to program things in C#, so we tried the API. We have a OOP standard voor Valves, Motors, Positioning drives, etc..., so we have types and faceplates for our OOP standard. So we can create a software to generate a standard project with the objects generated automatically. This was allready possible with Simatic also... just write a software or excell with makro's to generate the SCL sources and this does basically the same thing. I love TIA because you can link UDT's directly to faceplates and think Object Oriented, but with the API it's a lot of work to make a standard software package around it. And you need to manage versions, updates and so on. The question about the API I have... is this groundbraking ?... wel to me it is not.

When I look on Linkedin I see videos with robots, big titles around it with INDUSTRY 4.0 until your head explodes :geek:
Now watch the movie Terminator 1 from 1984, there were Fanuc robots in that movie 🔨
So my conclusion: LinkedIn is lightyears behind. :unsure::Do_O

Can anyone clear some things up for me, I'm lost in the marketing terms they use these days :)

Thank you,

kind regards,
Combo
 
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About IoT:
At home I have my heating on a app, my doorbell on a app, my surveillance cameras in a app, etc... This is luxery, but not life changing things that convince me of IoT in homes. IoT in industry... how can this be seen... when I visit a brand I get to see things like... possibillities to see trend apps on cell phones, apps for OEE on cell phones, etc... for me this doesn't change much and can also be seen as a nice to have for managers. What do you guys see a IoT in the industry.

Honestly, I don't see managers watching OEE on their phones either... I always like to think about the use case of the app controlled lights at home as an example of doing things for the sake of doing them rather than doing them right.
Most people install these smart lights, but each time they need to interact with them it takes longer to pull your mobile out, login to it, open the app, navigate to the light and actuate it. Then people get fed up, use the physical switch and the app no longer works. A lot of these systems, believe it or not, don't have a physical switch that works off the internet to avoid this problem.

A lot of this IoT stuff still suffers a bit from this thinking.

What IoT should mean is that we should be able to collect more data that would have been impossible or expensive to do before... however, these solutions are anything but cheap and therefore remain in some manager or engineer's idea box.

About Industry 4.0:
Well, I believe in OOP and also in architectures. I believe that OPC UA can be a standard in the factory of tomorow for communication between different machines but also to upper levels like Scada, MES and ERP layers. But the question I have here is, define Industry 4.0 without the marketing talk... can anyone put a definition on it ? To me it is nothing more then a marketing word. Siemens use this term a lot in combination with Mindsphere... a platform that has very little interest from the Automation industry at this time.

I think IoT has a little overlap with Industry 4.0, IoT is the marketing word for USA and Industry 4.0 is for europe... or is this totally wrong ? Opinions please :p

I have asked Siemens and GE the same question and only get buzzwords or if I push harder, get to the roadblock (for me personally) of paying rent to access my data. When you ask for examples, these are only in projects that have a massive package from X brand where the initial cost of setting the cloud system is low and they are making use of the Gillette model to get their money back in the yearly subscription.
This also highlights shortcomings in their SCADA offerings too as other brands (Ignition), make it dead simple to work with data, reporting, etc... whilst a lot of the established players don't or rely on third party tools for it.

Openness for me is more along the lines of following on open protocols/standards rather than individual "links" between brand X and Y in an attempt to make things easier for designers so that they default to their brand. It's understandable, but I wouldn't call it openness unless it would do that with AutoCAD Electrical in the same format, for example.
 
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