OPEN INDUSTRY 4.0 ALLIANCE SPOTLIGHT: "I AM A DRILL MACHINE FROM 1900, I CAN STILL DRILL."

July 28, 2020.

On July 16 and 17, 2020, the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance held its first "Virtual Fair", presenting the its strategy, active working groups, deployed technologies and initial case studies in numerous zoom meetings. With Endress+Hauser, Hilscher Gesellschaft fuer Systemautomation, KUKA, MULTIVAC, Pepperl + Fuchs, SAP, SVA and Voith, 8 members and 14 speakers from the now total of 60 Alliance members contributed. The Virtual Fair was held in English and recorded over 360 registrations and up to 200 simultaneous participants from Europe, the USA, but also China, India and Japan.

One of the keynotes came from non-member Roche. Speaker Michael Clever, Director Production Support at Roche Pharmaceuticals, used his own example to describe the need for solving standardization in the process industry. At Roche Pharmaceuticals, 4 ERP systems (Enterprise Resource Planning systems), 3 MES/DCS systems (Manufacturing Execution Systems), 5 LIMS (Laboratory Information and Management Systems) and 3 BAS (Building Automation Systems) need to be brought together in the medium term. The face numerous challenges - whether it is in terms of connectivity (parts of the infrastructure cannot be connected via HART radio transmission, for example), non-uniformity with many IIoT components or non-existent IT security. Clever expects from the alliance the implementation of standards to be made easier, in the sense of "ready-to-use standards" and help in filling gaps in processes that consistently map the entire production process.

Nils Herzberg, the Alliance spokesperson, emphasized the Alliance's approach: it does not want to sell anything and does not want to define new standards. The aim of the Alliance is to develop directly implementable solutions within the framework of existing standards through the cooperation of its members. The focus here is on brownfield sites, i.e. factories that are in operation. The alliance wants to enable all components of an industrial process to say: "I am ... I can ...".

A nice example is the vintage drilling machine, approximately from the year 1900, which Konrad Heidrich, Senior netIOT Solution Architect at Hilscher Gesellschaft für Systemautomation mbH presented as a case study. The historical drilling machine of unknown origin was bought via eBay and has probably already been retrofitted twice. Now it is to be integrated into 4 clouds and a production process with the help of 8 members and some IIoT components. The first steps have already been taken, the Alliance Framework is installed on a gateway and the application of the drilling machine will be extended to a complete proof of concept, which will be shown at the upcoming SPS.

At the SPS fair in November, the theme will be: "I am a drill machine from 1900, I can still drill."

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