Top Technologies for 2013

Transcription

1 MAY 16, 2013 Top Technologies for 2013 By Paul Miller and ARC Analysts Keywords Internet of Things, Analytics, Big Data, Simulation, Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Mobility, Wearable Technologies, BYOD, Remote Operations Management, Additive Manufacturing/3D Printing, Cyber Security Overview ARC Advisory Group analysts track a broad range of emerging technologies related to manufacturing, infrastructure, industrial automation and IT, and enterprise applications. This special ARC report highlights selected technologies that we believe will have significant In this special report, ARC Advisory impact over the next several years, if not well into Group analysts discuss the top technologies they are currently following the future. for manufacturing, infrastructure, and other industrial applications. Clearly, many of the hottest technology trends today represent a convergence of largely internetand IT-based enabling technologies. ARC believes that this convergence is likely to remove many existing constraints to help transform the way manufacturers and other industrial enterprises operate and collaborate, both internally and across their extended value chains and do so to a degree that we have not witnessed in recent decades. While far from a comprehensive list, we feel the following hot technologies provide a good feel for the overall landscape: Intelligent devices and the Internet of Things Predictive analytics for Big Data Cloud computing and services-based solutions Virtualization 3D simulation and augmented reality Mobility-enabled applications and wearable technologies BYOD Remote operations/asset management Additive manufacturing/3d printing VISION, EXPERIENCE, ANSWERS FOR INDUSTRY

2 ARC Insights, Page 2 Proliferation of Intelligent Devices and the Emerging Internet of Things As microprocessors and other electronics become increasingly smaller, more efficient, and less expensive, we're seeing intelligence being embedded into more and more consumer, commercial, and industrial devices. Increasingly, these devices communicate with each other via the emerging "Internet of Things" (IoT). This brings what the industry previously referred to as machine-to-machine (M2M) communications to a whole new level. In his keynote address at ARC s recent World Industry Forum in Orlando, ARC President Andy Chatha explained that the era of connected devices is already upon us. In 2012, there were more than ten billion Wi-Fi-connected devices, with projections for more than 50 billion devices to be connected by This will include more than five billion smartphone and internet users, most cars, and many home appliances. Free or inexpensive mobile platforms will dominate the market. Andy believes that, ultimately, these connected devices will help create a smarter, more sustainable world. Andy Chatha Intelligent devices and IoT have broad ramifications for industry, particularly for asset management, process management, remote operations management, safety and security, and supply chain applications. According to ARC Vice President Chantal Polsonetti, the concept of an Internet of Things has morphed from its origins in RFID to one that encompasses all networked devices, both within and external to a manufacturing operation. Along with intelligent sensors and machines, IoT encompasses cloud computing, analytics, Big Data, mobility, and universal visualization. The primary value propositions of improved business performance, production efficiency, and asset optimization remain the core objectives for implementing this enabling technology. Chantal Polsonetti In a manufacturing context, these objectives are achieved through the ability to gather data locally from the myriad of sensors, devices, machines, and other entities operating on the plant floor. This data are then made available globally via a cloud or similar infrastructure platform to all sanctioned parties for use in analytics, optimization, and a variety of other applications.

3 ARC Insights, Page 3 Chantal believes that the push to adopt an Internet of Things in manufacturing coincides with a concurrent enabling trend toward use of industrial Ethernet and wireless network technologies within the production environment. These technologies not only offer incremental benefit over dedicated automation solutions in many applications, they also favorably position manufacturers to support the data transfer requirements inherent in IoT. Paula Hollywood Dave Woll For plant asset management, Senior Analyst Paula Hollywood believes that field instrumentation and analytical chemistry-based device suppliers have made tremendous progress over the last decade in incorporating valueadded functionality into intelligent devices. This includes enhanced visualization and health monitoring functionality to facilitate predictive maintenance (PdM). However, despite these technological advancements, many manufacturers are not utilizing digital device diagnostics to their best advantage. To address this issue, the International Society on Automation (ISA) recently formed a new standard committee, ISA108, to characterize intelligent device management in the process industries. The committee will define standard templates for best practices and work processes based on information derived from intelligent field devices. These will include models and terminology, implementation guidelines, and detailed work processes. Vice President Dave Woll believes that once finalized, ISA 108 will provide best practices that enable industrial organizations to extract maximum value from their intelligent devices. Predictive Analytics: Gaining Value from Big Data Sid Snitkin According to Vice President Sid Snitkin, interest in analytics and business intelligence (BI) software has surged over the last few years. Leading software providers offer full analytics suites for enterprises to use to monitor, analyze, and manage a wide range of business activities. But while many industrial enterprises already use business analytics packages, their successes are primarily in customer-facing activities like sales, marketing, and product development. As a result, many question the applicability of using analytics to improve other critical, but more inward-facing industrial processes like operations and asset management.

4 ARC Insights, Page 4 Steve Banker Industrial enterprises collect enormous quantities of information, or Big Data, about their facilities, their industrial processes, and the products they produce. They also generate huge volumes of information to manage their extensive supply chains and the many large, complex projects they execute on a continuing basis. Unfortunately, most of this information remains buried in process historians and other software applications. Andy, Sid, and others at ARC believe that smart organizations will want to implement predictive analytics and associated visualization technologies to better understand the factors that impact performance and identify the practices that can move them forward in their quest for operational excellence. ARC Service Director Steve Banker agrees that embedded analytics (along with other technologies) will play an important role in improving application usability and providing increased value to end users. Janice Abel Principal Consultant Janice Abel adds that analytics can help batch manufacturers (specialty chemicals, food, pharmaceuticals, biotech, etc.) utilize data they are already collecting to make real-time decisions and take appropriate actions. Real-time batch analytics can help companies gain better understanding of their processes, minimize variations, and focus on key areas for improvement. Cloud Computing and Services-Based Solutions Harry Forbes According to Senior Analyst Harry Forbes, the technology disruption that cloud computing represents centers on information technology (IT), rather than operational technology (OT). Cloud represents a new model for IT, challenging an organization s established IT practices in every area; new platforms, new services, new deployment, licensing, and support models. Cloud forces an IT organization to examine each application within its portfolio and reevaluate the way the application is currently deployed and supported. From a business standpoint the cloud model offers several potential advantages over the traditional IT service model, including rapid deployment, elasticity, reduced capital investment, and increased access and mobility across a global enterprise.

5 ARC Insights, Page 5 Peter Reynolds Senior Consultant Peter Reynolds adds that cloud computing allows users in manufacturing and other industrial plants to get started quickly and then scale up as demand changes. It reduces IT management and server administration tasks, provides organizations with a high-availability architecture, and enables collaboration by increasing accessibility to knowledge and visibility across the enterprise. The Cloud addresses key user pain points, including IT costs, version control, patch management, and application monitoring. It can also help cultivate faster adoption of new products and technologies. Virtualization As Principal Analyst Barry Young explained in a recent Insight, virtualization, a computing approach that decouples hardware and software, is rapidly gaining traction in the traditionally conservative automation and control industry. While initially met with skepticism for industrial applications, this is no longer this case as end user demands to reduce costs and make more efficient use of computing resources drive suppliers to incorporate the technology. Barry Young Today, most major automation suppliers support virtualization in one form or another, predominantly for PC and/or server virtualization. With virtualization, a single computer can host multiple instances of the same or different software applications as if each was running in its own dedicated computer regardless of the specific operating systems employed. In this manner, much of the hardware simply goes away, offering significant benefits over the lifecycle of an automation system. ARC Vice President Craig Resnick adds that virtualization also lowers cost of ownership, empowers disaster recovery for critical production processes, and reduces hardware failures due to its high-availability architecture. System deployment and disaster recovery leverages virtualization technology to quickly get systems back up and running when computers fail. 3D Simulation, Augmented Reality, and NUI Craig Resnick According to Senior Analyst Dick Slansky, an increasing number of companies in the energy and process industries use 3D virtual simulation and visualization tools to help address some of the many challenges they face. This technology allows plant engineering and operations groups to create

6 ARC Insights, Page 6 very comprehensive and accurate virtual environments that represent the complete physical plant/facility. These are used to help to plan operational procedures, train operators and maintenance technicians, and meet health and safety requirements; all within a computer-simulated 3D environment. Increasingly, planners also take advantage of this advanced technology to improve their scheduling activities. Dick Slansky Janice Abel adds that high-fidelity operator training simulation software is designed to exactly replicate the specific plant or process, creating an interactive environment in 2D or 3D. The simulator uses a first principle or empirical model of the specific plant and/or process. Laser scanning technologies are often employed to provide the realistic, three-dimensional view of the plant. The training can take place either on the plant s actual control system, or on an off-line personal computer or tablet that incorporate an image of the actual control system running. 3D immersive technology incorporates dynamic, high-fidelity simulations of the plant, process, and control system with an enhanced interface, similar to 3D gaming technology that provides a highly realistic, immersive environment for the trainee, including dynamic avatars that can insert the trainee into the simulated plant environment. Research Director Ralph Rio believes that 3D gaming technology will find increasing adoption in industrial applications and that a new class of applications will emerge that will employ a natural user interface (NUI). According to Ralph when combined with stereoscopic 3D (S3D), the NUI will create the next disruption in the user interface market. Mobility and Wearable Technologies Ralph Rio Ralph also believes that new technologies often provide the key enabler for process re-engineering and business process optimization that can significantly enhances performance. For maintenance, mobility can provide major improvements in its primary objectives: uptime, asset longevity, safety, and cost control. The vast majority of maintenance personnel technicians, supervisors, and stock keepers are mobile during their typical work routines. Mobile devices and the associated software applications offer improvements in the

7 ARC Insights, Page 7 associated work flow and business processes. They also improve data integrity by eliminating paper forms and the delays for manual data entry. Senior Analyst Tim Shea and others at ARC believe that wearable technologies represent an important emerging mobility-enhancing technology trend. Tim believes that wearable technologies, such as the mobile voice and video system already offered by at least one major automation supplier, could enable a technician to capture and transmit live video of the devices he or she is working on to experts at a distance to be able to get real-time feedback about the correct procedures and actions to carry out. Tim Shea Wearable technologies support the move toward a hands free computing and communications platform that can save companies time and cost and increase productivity. BYOD The trend toward BYOD ( bring your own device ) driven by the today s profusion of commercial smartphones, tablets, and other handheld computing devices is another enabler for mobility in industry. Increasingly, plant personnel at all levels prefer to use their own familiar handheld devices while on the job. Harry Forbes explains that, in many process industries, field devices must be certified to operate in hazardous locations, a requirement that excludes consumer devices from consideration. For industrial service, smartphones, tablets, and other mobility devices require enhanced ruggedness, hazardous location certification, and in some cases dedicated higher performing interfaces for barcode scanning or other job-specific capabilities. While ubiquitous connectivity and technological convergence have enabled the BYOD trend, it has been constrained by the limited capability of enterprises to manage the more complex demands represented by mobile consumer devices operating within the enterprise. Harry believes that industrial organizations will have no choice but to overcome these management issues, since like it or not BYOD is here to stay.

8 ARC Insights, Page 8 Remote Operations Management According to Dave Woll, in the past, the focus on operating remote industrial facilities had been to maintain steady-state operations despite frequent disturbances, with operators doing whatever was required to keep the facilities running and meet production schedules in a safe and environmentally acceptable way. Although some remote facilities still operate in this mode, the next-generation of remote facilities will not. Tighter production specifications and the need to maintain supply reserves, plus more stringent process safety measures, cyber-security standards, and environmental regulations further challenge this dynamic environment. According to Dave, the traditional hierarchical SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems used to monitor and manage remote operations are evolving into a new generation of more flexible remote operations management (ROM) technologies. Emerging technologies, such as FOUNDATION fieldbus for ROM (essentially an extended control LAN), will provide operations staffs with tools that define precisely what is happening, what will happen, and if the current trajectory is leading to an unacceptable result, what needs to change to achieve an acceptable result, thus providing the opportunity to take corrective action. Additive Manufacturing Scott Evans According to ARC Analyst Scott Evans, emerging additive manufacturing (3D printing) technology provides product design teams the ability to perform rapid prototyping to speed product design and reduce costs. Additive manufacturing systems, driven from CAD models, can use a variety of different build materials; including metal, polymer, or sand to build prototypes. Manufacturers are finding tremendous value in additive manufacturing as a prototyping tool since there is no penalty for design complexity or detail, although most prototypes will require post-production finishing. Using the original CAD models, additive manufacturing systems can fabricate either complex or simple prototypes in one process. Florian Gueldner Beyond prototyping, ARC Analyst Florian Gueldner believes that 3D printing will be the hottest manufacturing trend over the next five to fifteen years due to significant advantages. Not only does it provide efficiency for producing small batches, unlike conventional subtractive machining pro-

9 ARC Insights, Page 9 cesses, as an additive process, 3D printing is extremely resource efficient. 3D printing also provides manufacturers with a practical and cost-effective way to produce ( print ) complicated parts and bring new products from concept to market in far less time than possible with traditional prototyping and manufacturing approaches. Recommendations Greg Gorbach Most of these potentially disruptive technology trends fall within the realm of ARC s new Information-Driven Manufacturing Model. As ARC Vice President Greg Gorbach explained in a recent report, this model presents today s industrial organizations with an interesting dilemma: while industry tends to be conservative and thus risk-averse and typically slow to adopt new technology, Greg hypothesizes that it could actually be far riskier not to implement the new technologies. Why? Because failure to do so could put industrial organizations at a competitive disadvantage versus their peers that do embrace new technologies to be able to implement more agile and effective information-driven manufacturing. Of course the proverbial elephant in the room, in other words, the oftenunspoken issue looming over many of these IT-based enabling technologies is cyber-security. Many of the emerging technologies discussed in this report involve general-purpose hardware and software, plus increased connectivity via either the public internet or other TCP/IP-based technologies. As a result, more effective cyber-security policies, approaches, and technology are becoming more important than ever to protect the security, availability, determinism, and availability of mission-critical industrial applications. The problem is that hackers and cyber criminals are becoming increasingly more sophisticated; creating a tremendous challenge for technology suppliers, technology users, standards organizations, and government agencies. ARC believes that all concerned parties will have to remain vigilant and continue to work together closely, both to identify and mitigate emerging threats and to create more secure automation and IT architectures. For further information or to provide feedback on this Insight, please contact your account manager or the author at pmiller@arcweb.com. ARC Insights are published and copyrighted by ARC Advisory Group. The information is proprietary to ARC and no part may be reproduced without prior permission from ARC.