Mechanical Technology March 2015

Mechanical Technology — March 2015

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Innovative engineering

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nternet connectivity is creating

a host of remote communication

and automation possibilities for

machines, and several labels have

emerged to describe these:

the Internet

of things; the Internet of services; Smart

factories; Smart manufacturing; and the

Industrial Internet

. The term

‘Industry

4.0’

originates from a project in Germany

to promote computerisation in the manu-

facturing industry. It signifies that a fourth

industrial revolution is taking place – the

first being mechanisation using water

and steam power; followed, second, by

the introduction of mass production and

electric power; and third, digital automa-

tion using electronics and IT.

Festo believes that another fundamen-

tal transition is now taking place. The

real world and virtual reality continue

to merge; and modern information and

communications technologies, such as

the Internet and wireless communication,

are being combined with traditional in-

dustrial processes to significantly change

various areas of production. This is the

trend encapsulated by ‘Industry 4.0’.

A common communication

protocol

“The first key feature of Industry 4 is

about machine to machine communica-

tion. This is a fundamental shift and the

starting point of the revolution. Modern

automaton systems all offer data com-

munication protocols such as Profibus,

ProfiNet, Can bus, Open DeviceNet and

a host of others, which are used to enable

two-way communication between con-

trollers and machines being controlled.

Industry 4 enables individual system

devices to communicate with each

other, while whole production systems

and sites communicate with enterprise

management systems (EMSs) and other

production optimisation management

programmes,” begins Schwulst.

A key goal of

Industry 4

is, therefore,

to develop a standard protocol that will

enable all devices and machines from

all suppliers to be interconnected and to

communicate with each other. “Siemens

has its Profibus as a proprietary PLC

language, while Alan Bradley’s equiva-

lent is DeviceNet. This means that, by

The term

‘Industry 4’

originates in Germany and has been

adopted by Festo to signify a holistic production automation

revolution embracing the full suite of modern technologies.

Peter Middleton

talks to Russell Schwulst (left), business

development manager for Festo South Africa, about this

fourth industrial revolution.

Towards Industry 4 and to cater for the increasing demand for customised production solutions, Festo

South Africa has installed a new state-of-the art terminal block assembly facility. Festo valve terminals,

servomotors and stepper motors are all now available with embedded controllers.

Each terminal block is automatically tested

and certificated before leaving the facility.

Industry 4 – towards integrated automation

choosing a PLC supplier or a preferred

communication protocol, one is imme-

diately limited in term of connectivity to

a set of machines and control equipment

that has also adopted that same protocol.

“So the ongoing challenge we have

is to create and agree on a common

communication protocol and/or com-

munications platform that would allow

all components and devices to be ad-

dressed and understood by all controllers,

PLCs, SCADAs, computers, tablets and

cellphones,” Schwulst tells

MechTech

“Industry 4 cannot reach its full

potential for integrated automation with

the mix and match communication pro-

tocols that are currently available. For

pneumatic valves for example, there is an

ISO standard required by all automotive

OEMs for use in their factories. It means

that the manufacturer can physically take

one valve off and fit a competitor valve

to the production line, and both will fit

and work. At component level, every

item is interchangeable, because of ISO

standardisation,” he points out.

“An agreed International standard

has yet to be put in place for the control

communication side and for wireless

communication for Industry 4,” he adds.

Intelligent decentralised control

The networking principle, via a combina-

tion of automation and control protocols,

wireless communication and the Internet,

“could allow devices all over the world

to be connected”, says Schwulst and