Electricity + Control December 2019

CONTROL SYSTEMS, AUTOMATION + SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

Driven by changes in consumer demand, manufacturers are looking for more agile ways to automate their processes. The answer lies with modular-enabled automation which provides the catalyst for integrating the Internet ofThings and Industry 4.0. Gero Lustig, Global Business Manager Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences at ABB explains. Plug and produce modules are transforming automation

at a glance

 In a modular automation setup, the production process comprises a series of individual modules each delivering an application-specific service. Pre-automated intelligent modules are then orchestrated by a modular enabled process control system – a shift away from the typical supervising process control system.  The intelligentmodules can be added, arranged and adapted to the production requirements and the process control system controls the interaction of the modular units.

A s the world evolves at a colossal pace, consumers are demanding new styles of products, bespoke to an individual’s needs and often with same-day delivery. Customised food menus or personalised medicines, down to batch size one, are some examples demanding short production runs or multi-product facilities to operate with small batch sizes.This impacts across many industries, from pharmaceutical, biotech and fine chemicals to food & beverages, textiles, printing & packaging and the marine industry. Meeting these demands with large-scale automation techniques is no longer practical. Such systems are set up for long production runs and take considerable time, effort and expense to change over to a new product type.They lack the speed, flexibility and efficiency demanded by this new world. Modular automation Enter modular automation: a plug and produce concept that provides a flexible and super-efficient way to change production, right down to batch size one. In a modular automation setup, the production comprises a series of individual modules. Each of these modules delivers services that are described in real-life, application-specific terms such as filtering, temperature control, filling and recycling.

Several pre-automated, intelligent modules are then orchestrated by a modular-enabled process control system, such as the ABB Ability TM System 800xA. The services are made available to the orchestration system by interpreting a module type package (MTP) (see below) through ABB’s Modular Orchestration Builder. This is a big shift away from the traditional approach, where modules offer abstract signals, valves or vessels, out of which the user then must create their own services, controlling them by a supervising process control system. Modular automation, therefore, is independent of any process automation technology. Regardless of whether you use a variable speed drive from one manufacturer, a valve from another supplier, and a controller from a third company, everything is described as a service. Module type packages The module layer contains several intelligent units that deliver these services which are described within a module type package (MTP). The MTP is not hardware or software nor an interface. It is, in principle, a document.Today XML (xtended markup language) is used, which is human and machine readable. Thus, the services become available to the superseding automation system. The MTP includes information on the human-machine interface (HMI), communication and supervisory control services. In future more components such as history, diagnostics and archiving will be added. The real disruptive concept brought by modular automation, is that the end-user now has more choice. They are less dependent on the currently installed automation technology and can turn to their original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and demand all modules are equipped with controllers from their preferred supplier. In the past, this might have caused extra effort for the OEM, but

Modular automation introduces a plug and produce concept that provides the flexibility and efficiency for quick- change short-run and customised production – in pharmaceuticals, food and beverages and other industries.

4 Electricity + Control

DECEMBER 2019