Imagine, Define and Discover YOUR Next

Imagine, Define and Discover YOUR Next with Rockwell Automation

HIGHLIGHTS OF AUTOMATION FAIR AT HOMEPerspectives • DX Strategists • Industry Forums • Process Solutions User Group

November 16-20, 2020

A Special Report by the editors of Control

TABLE OF CONTENTSPerspectives

What’s next in industrial automation 3Integrated supply chain eases COVID symptoms 5ARMI sets out to manufacture human organs 6Rockwell Automation and PTC: Stronger together 8Survive and thrive in the post-pandemic future 10Rockwell Automation and Cisco building digital foundations 12

DX StrategistsTransformational successes in face of COVID challenges 13Digital thread enables enterprise continuity 15Ecosystem partners ignite practical transformation 17Rockwell Automation, Microsoft team to simplify your work life 195 ways to speed transformation during COVID-19 21Pandemic spurs demand for digital lifecycle services 23Hybrid twins yield quick and accurate results 25

Industry ForumsCOVID puts life sciences in unique digital position 27Food & beverage panel charts digital transformation path 29Auto industry empowering workers to foster flexibility 31Oil & gas panel tackles energy transition, digital challenges 33OEMs find COVID prompting tech adoption 35Mining practices evolve for COVID and beyond 37

Bold ConverstationsPandemic highlights need for inclusive leadership 39It’s time for courageous conversations in the workplace 41

Process Solutions User GroupPlantPAx 5.0 boasts increased flexibility, simplified engineering 43Transforming pipeline operations on a grand scale 45Kimberly-Clark rebuilds tissue machine despite COVID-19 47PlantPAx 5.0 integrates InnovationSuite capabilities 49ControlLogix graduates to the Ivy League 51Press fire is no match for teamwork and PlantPAx software 52Walk the modern DCS path with PlantPAx 5.0 54Navy overhauls boiler controls with PlantPAx 56

Expo ShowcaseA virtual version of the Rockwell Experience 58

Highlights of Automation Fair 2020

WHAT’S NEXT IN INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATIONBy Paul Studebaker

It’s been a year of challenges “like we’ve never seen before,” said Blake Moret, chairman and CEO, Rock-well Automation, as he kicked off Automation Fair At

Home, a primarily virtual conference created by Rockwell Automation, from the company’s Milwaukee headquarters on November 16. “But it’s also been a year of opportuni-ties to increase resilience, agility and sustainability.” This year’s conference theme is, “Your Next.”

“We’re going to share with you what’s next for Rockwell Automation, and we hope what we’ve learned can help you as you create your own next,” Moret said. “Through-out all this change, our strategy has remained the same: bringing The Connected Enterprise to life, and doing it with 117 years’ experience in solving customer problems.”

For example, Roche needed to transform three facilities to manufacture COVID test kits. Using PharmaSuite MES, Rockwell Automation engineering experts worked shoul-der-to-shoulder with Roche “to help the world recover” from test-kit shortages, Moret said. Rockwell Automation also helped Johnson & Johnson enforce social distancing by using mobile robots to orchestrate a plant floor with safe spaces.

“We do it with great technology, part-ners and acquisitions,” Moret said. “One of my favorites is Kalypso.” Founded in 2004 to accelerate digital transforma-tion, Kalypso believed better software products would improve business results. “As a Rockwell Automation company, it’s accelerating innovation and maximizing productivity,” Moret said.

Rockwell Automation also acquired ASEM in Italy, providing industrial PCs and software to machine build-ers throughout Europe but mainly in Italy and Germany. “We also extended and deepened our PTC partnership with increased orders and new technology,” Moret said.

The company extended and expanded its five-year-old Microsoft partnership with cloud-native solutions to increase the ability to take data and increase productiv-ity through information and insights. RSLogix 5000 and Studio 5000 Logix users can integrate files from different versions, different virtual machines, or from one massive drive. Users can process any files they choose, or all at once if they prefer, to gain time and efficiency (coming in 2021 [rok.auto/ournext]).

“Our partner ecosystem in the best in the industry,” Moret said. “With our technology and domain expertise, no one is better positioned to add value at the convergence of information technology and operations technology (IT/OT) for our customers.”

The result is increased resilience with fewer single points of failure and better traceability, remote operations and

“With our technology and domain expertise, no one is better positioned to add value at the convergence of information technology and operations technology (IT/OT) for our customers.” Blake Moret, chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation, kicked off this year’s Automation Fair At Home.


monitoring, flexibility, motion control, software and sus-tainability. “Sustainability is at the forefront of our mind and those of our customers, including a commitment to a carbon-neutral future, increased energy efficiency, recy-cling and renewables.”

Along with the positive business outcomes and ROI customers expect, “Our promise is to expand human pos-sibility. We take the imaginations of people and combine it with the potential of technology to help the world work better, and to help the world recover.” Moret welcomed session participants to join in the Bold Conversations track this week to learn more about what the company is doing. “It’s a chance for all of us to learn what is next.”

Supply chain and moreThose learnings come in no small part from the effects of the COVID pandemic on the manufacturing supply chain. “Challenging macroeconomic condi-tions require reprioritizing to be resilient, to mitigate against unplanned interruptions,” said Ernest Nicolas, senior vice president, Integrated Supply Chain, Rockwell Automation. Nicolas discusses Rockwell Automation’s learnings and how it is using them to help its custom-ers in detail in companion article, “Integrated supply chain eases COVID symptoms.”

“There’s a great need for software to improve connection and agility,” said Chris Nardecchia, senior vice presi-dent, Software and Control, Rockwell Automation. The Connected Enterprise is a useful tool. and “Rockwell Automation is engaging with customers to create road-maps, regardless of their starting point,” Nardecchia said, “combining control expertise, MES, IoT and augmented reality, from plant to edge to cloud.”

Tessa Myers, vice president, product management at Rockwell Automation, said the connected enterprise depends on customers having a modern infrastructure in place. Myers pointed out significant product introductions including new 5480 and process controllers for high-speed, control and edge, IT and OT integration applications.

To connect, integrate and supervise these controllers, “Our new PlantPAx 5.0 is a significant leap forward, with an open and secure architecture,” Myers said. FactoryTalk remains “a simplified and extensible suite of tools and applications to enable productivity. In early 2021, it will be available as a new, cloud-native SaaS focused on all phases of a project’s lifecycle, using the company’s Micro-soft partnership…a single, trusted data environment.”

In the context of a project lifecycle, design is a team support, so it helps to have a secure, cloud environment with prebuilt objects and defined workflow. At the design stage, a plant engineer starts a digital thread, saving 30% to 50% through startup.

For the plant manager, FactoryTalk InnovationSuite has multiple new capabilities. Edge-to-cloud supports production, safety and maintenance alerts. Users can drill down to see real-time OEE and production metrics, isolate underperforming assets and identify opportuni-ties for improvement. The vice president, operations, can see plant performance across the world. In the past, it’s been hard to get this global view, but now they are able to drive this tool to get the benefits of doing things they couldn’t do before.

Intelligent devices are the foundation of The Con-nected Enterprise, providing function and information to reduce unplanned downtime, improve throughput and productivity, said Fran Wlodarczyk, senior vice president, Intelligent Devices, Rockwell Automation. For example, a tire manufacturer uses a photoelectric device to see a tire coming. The sensor can get dirty and obscured. Now, the manufacturer can get a notification when this is happen-ing so the sensor can be cleaned before it malfunctions.

Technology Showcase and LifecycleIQ Sensing, safety, industrial control, power control, motion control are all available to see in the Products and Tech-nology Showcase in a new space in the Milwaukee headquarters. An E-House area shows motor control devices and power systems, a Plantwide Process Con-trol area includes the new PlantPAX 5.0 system, and the Kinetix/Motion Control area has a new 5100 for small and medium machines. There’s an area for Scalable Multidis-cipline Control Systems, and one for Safety—a critical element in flexible manufacturing—where Rockwell Auto-mation is the largest supplier in the world, offering services, sensors and integrated solutions.

“This year, LifecycleIQ expands how customers can interact with us—faster, smarter, with greater agility from innovation and design to operations and maintenance, analyzing your data to provide proactive insights, with proven, industry-specific experts to work with you,” said Frank Kulaszewicz, senior vice president, Lifecycle Ser-vices. “Rockwell Automation can be your trusted partner to guide you with cybersecurity to keep your physical and digital properties safe.”


https://www.controlglobal.com/industrynews/2020/af-at-home-3/

https://www.controlglobal.com/industrynews/2020/af-at-home-3/

INTEGRATED SUPPLY CHAIN EASES COVID SYMPTOMSBy Paul Studebaker

International supply chains have always been subject to hiccups from issues such as protectionism (tariffs), availability of labor and facilities, exchange rates, taxes

and regulations. Now, a global pandemic threatens their integrity on local as well as transcontinental bases. “We can have a lot of intention to solve manufacturing chal-lenges, but we are also a manufacturer, so we have supply chain insights,” said Ernest Nicolas, senior vice president, Integrated Supply Chain, Rockwell Automation. “We know about ever-evolving industry challenges.”

Nicolas spoke November 16 at the primarily virtual conference from Rockwell Automation, Automation Fair At Home. “With the pandemic, 2020 brings different layers of complexity, from transportation to employees, and unpredictability throughout the market,” he said. “We can’t just focus on agility—on being efficient and lean—we also must make sure we have product available by optimizing our efforts to be more resilient.”

Adding resilience to agility must be done both inside the four walls with digital manufacturing, as well as outside with an “intelligent supply chain,” Nicolas said. Converging information technology and operations technology (IT/OT) can provide the tools but, “We had to take a step back and define how the supply chain can help our company manage uncertainty to sup-port our operations. How can we define a digital strategy to get that balance of agility and resilience? And even if I was given an unlimited budget to buy all the technology, would my organization be ready for it?”

Connected data provides a single source of the truth, and organizational design leads to a culture that can handle it. Areas to address include dynamic fulfillment, self-service and case management—but the ones that need more attention due to the pandemic are demand orchestra-tion, delivery reliability, supply chain design and network optimization. “Think through demand as well as supply planning,” Nicolas said. “Delivery availability now also calls for global trade management.

“These unpack to deliver the desired outcomes,” Nicolas said, including risk mitigation and automated decisions, simplified experiences and customer loyalty, visibility and total cost optimization through integrated decisions. Fac-toryTalk InnovationSuite, powered by PTC, can bring it all together. “Supply chain is a team sport, not done in a silo,” he added.

Demand orchestration can use elements of analytics, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and business data mining to shape demand, design it for the supply chain, optimize inventories at multiple echelons, do real-time planning impact analyses, automate resource scheduling,

“How can we define a digital strategy to get that balance of agility and resilience? And even if I was given an unlimited budget to buy all the technology, would my organization be ready for it?” Ernest Nicolas, senior vice president, Integrated Supply Chain, on ongoing efforts from Rockwell Automation to balance industry’s new requirements.


determine capability-to-promise and automate partner data integration.

Delivery reliability can use the same elements to manage trade document services, self-service third-party certifications, import preclearance, shipment forecast-ing, self-service track-and-trace and modal optimization. “When air freight availability fell and costs rose, we deter-mined where we could pursue a different mode,” Nicolas said. “Now, we use it to position and choose suppliers, and determine where to put new product lines.”

In one case, Rockwell Automation brought 100-C contac-tor production back to Milwaukee, producing 1.4 million per year on a four-second cycle time. The line uses iTrak and MagneMotion for integrated pallet and motion control with no traditional fixturing. FactoryTalk ProductionCen-tre MES to get the right information to the right people at the right time. And a new Operator eMap is coming to help keep track of the physical locations of personnel.

Rockwell Automation has manufactured distributed I/O and small controllers in Singapore since 2006, where it recently automated a very labor-intensive manual assembly line. By using Rockwell Automation safety equipment and its own controllers, the facility improved labor utilization

85%, assembly time 70% and work in progress 30% while increasing quality and reducing waste and rework.

In Poland, an industrial components and Kinetix motion control systems facility now uses augmented reality in its onboarding and training procedures. Digitalized training and hands-free access to training materials has reduced training time by 30%.

Going forward with the integrated supply chain, Rock-well Automation is focusing on technical improvements in documentation and knowledge transfer. “People did not document their experience with dealing with challenges during the recession 10-12 years ago. Now, we can capture and transfer that knowledge,” Nicolas said.

The experience translates broadly to customers. “Rock-well Automation is an ‘essential business,’ so our plants stay open. But despite a drop in demand, we and our suppliers have been challenged. To accommodate social distancing and other COVID requirements, we had to unravel lean manufacturing—we had to reduce capacity and push out lead times,” Nicolas said. “No one expected the pandemic, but our balance of agility and resilience have allowed us to stay ahead of it.”

ARMI SETS OUT TO MANUFACTURE HUMAN ORGANSBy Anna Townshend

Dean Kamen, executive director of the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI), president of Deka Research & Development

Corp., and long-time inventor, entrepreneur and advo-cate for science, is on a new mission to solve the medical industry’s next big problem.

“Your next job is to create all the baseline engineering necessary to create the industry that will start, at scale, manufacturing replacement human tissues—skin, bones, cartilage—and eventually complete organs, like livers and kidneys and lungs,” Kamen said. He was talking to the

audience at the Automation Fair At Home event, specifi-cally the Perspectives Tuesday keynote address, “Define OUR Next Together.” But he was also talking to the many important partners that have joined ARMI to bring this reality to fruition, as well as the many professionals and patients it will affect in the medical field.

“I’m here to tell you why we think that is the next big thing for the whole engineering community,” Kamen said.

He developed ARMI because the problem would require many partners, including the U.S. Department of Defense which started the non-for-profit organization


with a $80-million budget, and technology companies, research institutions, medical schools, scientists and manu-facturers in aerospace, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, automotive and defense.

The science and technology to do this kind of work has been around for decades, yet still no practical applica-tion of the science is being deployed large-scale. “There are many fantastic research institutes already around the country,” Kamen said. “There are a lot of great institutions that already have miracles in petri dishes in labs all over the country. What they don’t have is the expertise, the knowledge, the tools and the experience to take miracles out of the petri dishes and figure out how, at scale, to make safe reliable, high quality human replacement organs.”

Automation will be a key in bringing organ manufactur-ing to scale, and Rockwell Automation is one of the earliest members of ARMI. “When we were given, a couple of years ago, the opportunity to try to bring together the engineer-ing community to create the baseline core technologies to help bring all the science and all of the miracles in all of the petri dishes around the country to scale, we couldn’t turn it down. I called a few people,” Kamen said. Very near the top of the list of people he called to make this unique coalition work was Rockwell Automation CEO and Chairman Blake Moret.

Tissue and organ manufacturing complexThe home of ARMI and Deka Inc. is in Manchester, New

Hampshire, at the old home of the Amoskeag Manufactur-ing Company, which during the reign of water-powered textile manufacturing in New England in the 1800s was the largest industrial manufacturing complex in the world. Kamen moved from New York to New Hampshire and became passionate about rebuilding the property as his new engineering home and manufacturing complex.

When he founded ARMI a few years ago, Kamen told a group of supporters, that this entire property will become

“the birth place of the next great industrial spurt in the world.” The property would be “Carbon Valley for the manufacture of human organs, what Silicon Valley is to the semiconductor industry,” he said.

An industry to reliably produce human replacement organs and deliver them to patients in need would dra-matically change health care treatment and drive down the cost of health care, Kamen said. A large majority of health care is spent on the treatment of chronic condi-tions that don’t have a cure but require endless medicines and procedures. “Regenerative medicine” is a common term in the medical world, but Kamen was quick to point out that the “M” in ARMI, stands for “manufacturing,” not medicine.

“Regenerative medicine, it’s the future. Well, it’s been the future for decades, and the problem is it will continue to be the future until the world of engineering becomes a very visible piece of the equation,” Kamen said.

In his research, he toured medical school and research institutions, where graduate student and researchers pains-takingly nurture petri dishes with no automation, where contamination is widespread and replication is difficult. “Could they do it in a way that it could be so well controlled and well documented that they could go to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and say I want the approval to make this tissue or organ?” Kamen asked. “How are they going to ensure to the FDA that each thing that they made met some particular standard, when the standard doesn’t even exist?”

Government was happy to fund the early research, and industry is always happy to support ventures, once the risk is low and the time frame to get product out to the market is well understood, Kamen added. “But when the industry doesn’t really exist yet,” he said, “and in an environment where we don’t even really know what the regulatory process would look like, there’s been very little

“What they don’t have is the expertise, the knowledge, the tools and the experience to take miracles out of the petri dishes and figure out how, at scale, to make safe reliable, high quality human replacement organs.” Dean Kamen, executive director of the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI), discussed his work in developing an industry to support the large-scale manufacture of human replacement organs.


time and resources spent in the middle.” Kamen decided that middle piece would be what AMRI would solve.

He reached out to companies that had the technologies that he thought could be redirected to this purpose, and many of them joined ARMI. In its third year, the organi-zation has more than 150 members.

“We have to automate every aspect of everything we do, and besides automating it, we have to find ways to sensorize it, put all of the technology that every one of these companies is going to need into a bundled pack-age that they can all use,” Damen said. “The baseline pre-competitive technologies that a whole industry is going to need has to be developed by a whole bunch of different companies.”

ARMI has begun this initial development work at its tissue foundry in Manchester. In an isolated, sterilized environment, they can produce a high-quality 7-cm bone-ligament-bone sample in 42 days. Manufactured replacement tissue and organs can also use genetic mate-rial from its recipient, so organs won’t be rejected and patients won’t need immunosuppressant therapies for the rest of their lives.

“If you start adding all the other costs of taking care of all the other conditions that could be completely elimi-nated, if we can give people replacement organs instead of other therapies, we would change the lives of all these people, and prevent this country from bankrupting itself because of health care costs,” Kamen said.

ROCKWELL AUTOMATION AND PTC: STRONGER TOGETHERBy Mike Bacidore

Every good marriage is built on communication and the ability to complement one another. More than two years ago, Rockwell Automation and

PTC embarked on a journey together that blended the expertise and products of both organizations to create something that was bigger and more desirable than the sum of their parts.

The partnership has flourished, and the honeymoon is still ongoing.

“If you look at what it takes for an industrial manu-facturing company to go through a complete digital transformation, there’s a huge footprint,” explained Jim Heppelmann, president and CEO of PTC. He sat down this week with Chairman and CEO of Rockwell Auto-mation Blake Moret for a virtual conversation during Automation Fair At Home about where their partnership has been and where it’s headed.

“Rockwell has a lot of the ingredients, and you’ve acquired some more,” said Heppelmann. “PTC has a lot of ingredients, and we’ve acquired some more. When you

put them together, it’s a special combination. We’re going to collaborate more at our customers’ sites.”

The first generation of the partnership involved dividing the customers. “You take some, and we take some,” said Heppelmann. “Now, with a lot of customers, we should be working together because our expertise is important. I’m excited about the extension of the partnership. I’m glad to stay married to you for a while longer, so to speak, but I’m also excited about the expansion and some new ways to think about how we work together.”

Rockwell Automation and PTC recently extended the contract between the companies, as well as making some additional acquisitions on their own. “We’ve added addi-tional time to the formal contract,” said Moret. “We’ve added some measures that really make this more of a shared effort in terms of not just sales efforts but of the integration of the technology that we each offer—includ-ing new capabilities added over time.”

Rockwell Automation acquired Kalypso, a PTC part-ner, in May 2020. PTC acquired Onshape Software in


November 2019. Earlier in 2019, Rockwell Automation had acquired Emulate3D, as well.

“Two-and-a-half years ago, you and I stood on the stage together to announce the beginning of the part-nership,” reminisced Moret. “It seems like a lifetime ago. Since then, with respect to our partnership, we had our first order that we were all eagerly looking forward to, and then we had our first sizable rollout. Over the past couple of years, we’ve added industries, so I think we’ve seen significant progress.”

Rockwell Automation has risen to become PTC’s big-gest and most important partner, said Heppelmann. “The partnership’s been great from a PTC perspective. We really have a partnership that works for customers, certainly works well for PTC, and I believe works well for Rockwell Automation,” he explained.

“It’s really a combination of domain expertise and the technology,” said Moret. “We continue to innovate. I know at LiveWorx [PTC’s customer event], you showed some of the interesting ways that Onshape and our Emulate3D simulation tools can work together. We’ll continue to see examples of that, as well as making sure that we have the expertise to ensure we have the great business outcomes—which are the reasons our customers are investing in the technologies in the first place.”

The partnership was originally conceived to be about smart factories or Industry 4.0, explained Heppelmann, but suddenly it grew to more than just making factories smarter. “We’re actually helping customers to design, engineer and plan smarter factories with Onshape and Emulate3D working together,” said Heppelmann. “We’re also thinking a little bit more about the products being made in those factories and connecting the digital thread from engineering upstream to the factory and downstream as well to service and support.”

Expanding the partnership has been accelerated by the acquisitions of Onshape and Kalypso. “They’re critical ingredients to bring that whole digital thread, cradle-to-grave, digital-transformation story to life,” explained Heppelmann.

“We’ve had some great wins against some pretty strong competition with our digital-thread implementation together, and customers are giving us feedback that it really hits the mark and that the open approach really has been successful for them,” said Moret.

“A lot of smart factories’ strategies are really about the assets, the machines and the equipment,” explained Hep-pelmann. “We do that well together. But augmented reality (AR) is like IoT for people. How do you do remote connec-tion and support of the workers at these plants? How do you provide information and get information back from them as they do their work in the real-world environment of the factory? This idea of optimizing for both equipment and for people, that’s very special to our partnership. That’s something we can do much better together than either one of us can do alone.”

Both companies are seeing the general interest and desire to accelerate digital transformation at customers across all industries, explained Moret. “We have seen the need for remote work really affect us,” he said.

The work the two organizations have done together at Pfizer is a great example. “Pfizer is an account that frankly you knew much better than PTC,” admitted Heppelmann. “In our CAD and PLM heritage, we wouldn’t have crossed paths with them that much. But, as you know, we’ve been doing IoT projects, we’ve been doing AR projects and training and supporting factory workers, and we’ve been doing some PLM projects around FDA compliance to help with risk management. It’s a great example of both companies working together to implement a footprint of

“Augmented reality is like IoT for people. This idea of optimizing for both equipment and for people, that’s very special to our partnership. That’s something we can do much better together than either one of us can do alone.” Jim Heppelmann of PTC reminisced with Blake Moret of Rockwell Automation about the past, present and future of their partnership.


solutions that neither one of us would be able to satisfy without the other.”

In the specific case of Pfizer as well as other critical manufacturing processes involved with making food and medicines and potential vaccines, there’s a sense of accom-plishment and goodwill that comes from knowing Rockwell Automation and PTC are contributing to things that are so important for the whole world during the global pan-demic, said Moret. “It’s with that optimism that I’m going into this new chapter with a lot of excitement. As we gear up, it’s the beginning of our fiscal year—yours, too—and it’s going to be a great year for us,” proclaimed Moret.

“We’re certainly looking forward to our fiscal 2021, and we’re very bullish on the market in general,” agreed Heppelmann. “COVID has created many issues, health-wise, but it’s also created a much deeper appreciation for digital technology. It’s become clear to companies how Rockwell Automation and PTC take digital to a whole new level, and it’s starting to show up in demand and in our pipeline. I’m excited about fiscal ’21, and I’m excited about being aligned with Rockwell for three more years, and there are probably many more years beyond that. I can’t wait to get started.”

SURVIVE AND THRIVE IN THE POST-PANDEMIC FUTUREBy Paul Studebaker

“On March 4, I arrived back in the Dallas airport after visiting a customer, having no idea that would be my last business trip of

2020,” said Steve Riordan, global director, CPG (con-sumer packaged goods) & Life Sciences, Kalypso. He and Rein Singfield, manager, Kalypso, co-presented the keynote session “Next in CPG: Survival tactics for the post-pandemic future,” this week at Automa-tion Fair at Home, presented by Rockwell Automation.

Kalypso is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rockwell Automation. Founded in 2004 to accelerate digital transfor-mation, the company offers research, advice and consulting to improve business results.

“Over the next days, it became clear Kalypso would need to develop a view of the pandemic to inform its guidance,” continued Riordan. “We aim at leaders who discover, create, make and sell new products using digi-tal threads to inform and expedite the process. Scenarios can help show us how these digital threads change under the pandemic.”

The company put together a team that developed four scenarios for the future, to provide goals and to offer other

companies “five no-regret moves you can take to prepare your team,” Riordan said. “A scenario is not a prediction, nor is it a disaster recovery plan. It’s a plausible, provoca-tive alternate view that can be regularly consulted and updated over time.”

The first scenario, called Flourishing Communities, is the rosiest. The economy snaps back rapidly due to vac-cines, treatments and new behaviors. Meanwhile, society is supported by governments, and is able to quickly return to consuming, remembering lessons like which companies had helped, and the practicality of working from home.

In the second scenario, Big Brother Is in Control, govern-ments become heavy handed. A short period of optimism is followed by a period of despair as the pandemic returns. Social distancing, strict border control, mass testing and contact tracing last until 2025. Survival instincts cause consumers to be increasingly self-interested and govern-ments to push for countries to be self-sufficient.

Scenario 3, Regenerative Systems, involves a long recov-ery where mass testing and contact tracing result in a decreased number of cases. The public has to share pri-vate information, but takes pride in doing so as a necessity.


By 2025, much of society has emerged, but with a sense of mortality and fragility that tempers consumerism, pro-motes conservative behavior and brings more attention to sustainability.

“The fourth is our darkest scenario, Divisive Terrain,” said co-presenter Rein Singfield, manager, Kalypso. “It includes continuing high global infection and reinfec-tion rates.” Multiple impacts without a chance to recover mean jobs are lost at a rapid rate, and many retail jobs will never return. The economy declines 25% and the wealth gap widens as companies re-shore and automate. Many Millennials and Gen Zs delay or give up dreams of homes and families, and dense cities fade as people move farther apart. Online sales grow, dominated by companies that make them safe, economical and convenient.

“Real life is most likely to be some combination of these four scenarios, varying over time and in different places,” Singfield said, but they suggest common goals for digital roadmaps. “Companies need to be faster, smarter, more virtual and more adaptive,” she said. They can use digital threads to become 40% faster to design closer to changing needs. They can become smarter with advanced analyt-ics and information management, and more virtual with

digital twins for both product and production. Finally, being more adaptive allows them to reconfigure machin-ery and products to meet market demand.

Singfield left attendees with five “no-regret moves” that will help in any scenario. First, “Create data science wiz-ards,” she said. Data science resources will be valuable no matter what happens. Second, she said, “Build precision into product portfolio management.” Use digital threads to focus goals on the right products for the times.

Third, “Make models and simulate first,” Singfield said. “Make and test products before you introduce them, and understand the impact of product decisions before you implement them.” Fourth, “Harness the SHOUT of the consumer,” she said. They’re talking to you through social media and other channels; rack their wants and needs so you can be first and ready to satisfy them.

Finally, “Drive sustainability for both planet and profit,” Singfield said. “It’s in demand by customers and Wall Street.” Many consumers will pay a higher price, and it drives cost out of production with energy and mate-rial savings.

“The fourth is our darkest scenario, Divisive Terrain. It includes continuing high global infection and reinfection rates.” Kalypso’s Rein Singfield outlined a range or post-pandemic scenarios, as well as five “no-regret” strategies for coping now.


ROCKWELL AUTOMATION AND CISCO BUILDING DIGITAL FOUNDATIONSBy Paul Studebaker

Any successful partnership begins with an understanding of how to bring value to custom-ers—bringing The Connected Enterprise to life,

creating a strong foundation, collecting data and turning it into useful information. “Customers are looking for that as a way to increase their resiliency and agility, particularly now, during these times,” said Blake Moret, chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation, in a “Fireside Chat” with Chuck Robbins, chairman and CEO, Cisco, this week at the Automation Fair at Home event. “They’re demanding that we work together on digital transformation plans,” Moret continued. “What are you seeing in terms of cus-tomer requirements?”

“Everything that made our relationship a good idea 13 years ago has been reinforced and accelerated during the past nine months,” said Robbins. Since March, Rockwell Automation, Cisco and customer companies first did their best to get employees functional from home, then tried to reprioritize and think about their futures.

“As the pandemic has continued to stay with us longer than any of us would have hoped, it really has highlighted busi-ness resiliency, and led our customers to think about their priorities and the things they’re focused on,” Robbins said. In many cases, it’s around smarter indus-trial systems, more connected industrial systems—the integration and bringing together of operational technologies (OT)

with classic IT, thinking about security and how they can actually move on some of the transformational projects because they feel like they need to. “The great news is, we have a strong foundation in our partnership, and that allows us to be more effective with our customers,” Rob-bins added.

“The pandemic has intensified the focus on what’s important,” Moret said, “and we’re seeing a high demand for our ability to offer an integrated, simplified solution that really brings together IT and OT, across the lifecycle of a customer’s investment—from design through opera-tion and management. But we know it’s not just about the technology, it’s about the people, it’s organizational.”

Cisco has seen a real convergence over the past few years. “We’ve seen historically within IT where even small fiefdoms – storage and networking, or the voice and IP networking teams – have come together,” Robbins said. “Sometimes when we’re working with them, we say, that’s

“Just bringing more of the IT systems onto the industrial network increases the threat surface – exposes more critical infrastructure, critical capabilities to hackers and malevolent people.” Cisco’s Chuck Robbins joined Blake Moret of Rockwell Automation for a virtual fireside chat about the companies’ longstanding partnership.


not a computer problem, that’s a cultural problem—a cul-tural challenge.”

It can be complex just getting the dynamics resolved—who owns what, who is responsible for what, the operational governance model moving forward, and the kind of cultural shifts that transpire when a company is going through this kind of transformation. “Those are probably more compli-cated than the technology we bring to bear,” Robbins said.

Historically, the conversation is about converging IT and OT, “But, it’s really the consolidation of the other technologies, the services, the organizational structure and as you said, the culture,” Moret said.

“Security, for us, is often the first and last question cus-tomers ask,” Moret added. IT is trying to create defense in depth across the organization, which is very important as security gives the ability to have the confidence to exchange the data.

“Security is one of the first things we worked on together,” Robbins said. “Just bringing more of the IT systems onto the industrial network increases the threat surface—exposes

more critical infrastructure, critical capabilities to hackers and malevolent people. At the same time, a lot of users are remote, and our applications are running on private data centers, using public files, with SaaS applications. The data and traffic flows, the number of people, applications and devices really creates a complex scenario for us to secure.”

The partnership needs to bring resources together to build a holistic solution, the two agreed. “In the future, it’s going to have to be dynamic as we learn in real time what’s going on. For example, an authentication in one part of the plant may not be acceptable in another area,” Robbins said. “A lot of interesting correlations will have to take place.”

Security needs to be a part of a holistic business strategy. “The leadership at our customers is hearing it from their boards, and I’m hearing it from mine,” said Moret. “It’s part of a strategy that considers which partners to bring together, how systems will be implemented, and the ongo-ing management—making the technology and expertise work together in harmony.”

TRANSFORMATIONAL SUCCESSES IN FACE OF COVID CHALLENGESBy Paul Studebaker

Stanley Black & Decker is the number one tool company around the globe, with 13,000 patents, 61,000 employees and nine major distribution cen-

ters. The company has 145 factories, a mixture of legacy, mid-mature and flagship plants.

“PwC has named us its number three top innovator,” said Sudhi Bangalore, CTO, Global Operations, Stanley Black & Decker. Bangalore presented “Stanley Black & Decker: The future of manufacturing,” one of several sto-ries about what companies are doing to succeed despite the pandemic, during the Wednesday Perspectives keynote session this week at Automation Fair at Home.

“Our digitalization program is enterprise-driven, with support from the board and president down. It gets the right attention and funding, and has enterprise-wide goals as

well as a system to deliver on them,” Bangalore said. “We have a mix of large and small partners including Rock-well Automation, Microsoft, Fanuc and Cisco as well as FogHorn Systems and Genesys.”

Stanley Black & Decker opened a new Advanced Man-ufacturing Center of Excellence in 2019 in Hartford, Connecticut, to establish practices and help partners work with us. The location in Hartford also helps local innovation in Connecticut and contributes to the re-indus-trialization of the area, “the larger good,” said Bangalore.

“The Connected Enterprise is a foundational solution,” Bangalore said. It helps them seek out the dull, dirty, dan-gerous tasks and replace them with technology.

The delivery structure includes people with experience in many industries—pharmaceuticals, automotive, etc.—for


cross-pollination. “To make solutions that matter, Center of Excellence members engage with factory folks for ideas from the floor,” said Bangalore. The system uses technol-ogy and process with people at the center. “We upskill and reskill to make manufacturing a career, with a dedicated human resources and training team.”

People come and go, but the company’s digital contin-uous improvement program (DCIP) makes the process real-time and continuous. Algorithms hunt and recognize opportunities, and it allows factory workers to interact with off-site resources, immediately run and see the results of alternatives, and to trap, aggregate and serve improve-ments up to the organization for global implementation.

It works with existing continuous improvement struc-tures, adding artificial intelligence, collaboration and automation, so insights become actions in minutes instead of weeks.

“We all have our own transformations to undergo, small or major,” Bangalore said. “I hope this helps you on your journey.”

Georgia-Pacific takes on skill shortage“Technology drives our plant productivity, but it takes people to make technology run,” said Mike Carroll, vice president, innovation & transformation, Georgia-Pacific. With the Boomer generation retiring, the company’s elec-trical and instrument (E&I) positions are not being filled. “Last year at Automation Fair, Accenture and Rockwell Automation announced a partnership, and I suggested we work on this problem together for us and for others in industry,” Carroll said.

“Rockwell Automation brings depth of technology, Accenture has integration and Georgia-Pacific has pro-duction knowledge, assets and data,” added Pete Frandina, managing director, North America Industry X, Accenture. How can they become less reliant on filling positions?

How can they give the technicians the information and insights they need to be more productive?

“It’s early on, but please think about the applicability to your organization—where you have stranded information, a need and open requisitions, where you need to get more from your people,” said Frandina. “We’re seeing how this will help Georgia-Pacific, and it might help you.”

Southwire seeks actionable informationSouthwire International has collected a lot of data over the years, but has outdated tools to put that data to work. The company has called on Rockwell Automation and Oden Technologies to help. “We’re both working on bringing The Connected Enterprise to life—Rockwell Automation brings technology, we add intelligence that tells you to look here, look now,” said Willem Sundblad, chief executive officer, Oden Technologies. Oden is one of the newest members of the Rockwell Automation partnership system.

“It’s a long journey, not overnight,” said Will Berry, senior vice president, Southwire. “We’re focusing on a strong, scalable foundation and improving the daily experience of employees by removing redundant and non-value-added tasks. We’re engaging our lean process, quality and manufacturing leaders to align them, and working with employees to learn what makes their life frustrating, from writing on paper to learning the next steps in a process.”

Sundblad said, “We’re fitting into their workflow to make the next steps faster, both in infrastructure and culture, to see what part of OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) will move the needle fastest. We need data, but also to analyze and fit the results into the lives of the workers.”

Berry described what’s important in a partner. “First, help us stay on course, to avoid scope creep,” he said. “Second, enhance and expand your products to fit our needs. Third, provide a robust and reliable architecture. Cybersecurity, for example, is important to protect IT and OT.”

“To make solutions that matter, Advanced Manufacturing Center of Excellence members engage with factory folks for ideas from the floor. We upskill and reskill to make manufacturing a career, with a dedicated human resources and training team.” Stanley Black & Decker’s Sudhi Bangalore explained how the company’s Digital Continuous Improvement Program, or DCIP, facilitates advances that scale across the enterprise.


DIGITAL THREAD ENABLES ENTERPRISE CONTINUITYBy Chris McNamara

As an element central to the larger digital trans-formation trend, digital threads are more widely recognized than they are fully understood.

Sujeet Chand, senior vice president and chief technology officer, Rockwell Automation, intends to fix that.

Chand shared this mission during his November 16 Automation Fair At Home presentation, “Digital Thread: From Siloed Data to Enterprise Continuity,” which focused on enabling end users to accelerate their performance and achieve greater sustainability while realizing a truly con-nected enterprise courtesy of a strategically implemented digital thread.

“We often hear about digital threads and digital twins but we don’t often hear about how to use them,” Chand explained while introducing a series of videos that show-cased a functioning factory implementing the approaches he described.

A challenge when looking at different functions across an enterprise, the presenter said, is the variance in machine design and plant operations. Functions are siloed. There are legacy assets relying on legacy software applications in which data is locked up. “But if you connect these together, if you use open standards and virtualization and the cloud, the value can be enormous,” beamed Chand.

Setting up those connections must be strategic.

The old process goes like this: the end user tells the machine builder what type of machine they want. The OEM shows them the prototype, they request updates, and the process begins again. And again. And again.

“But with browser-based computer design, the end users and engineers and OEMs can simultaneously design the machine from different locations,” he explained. “There is real-time collaboration around one element of truth. This is helping groups collaborate.”

The next video focused on the design of the manufac-turing line for Rockwell Automation C-100 contactors, a product complete with 650 available variations that can be manufactured at the company’s Milwaukee facility with zero set-up time between variations. The digital thread is linked to the design and emulation processes, incor-porating insights gleaned from simulated stresses on the manufacturing equipment itself, such as a robot arm. “We can predict when, say, a certain joint will be over stressed. We can do this in real time.”

Working smarter with the right dataChand noted how the digital thread is maximizing

workforce productivity, using the example of a new opera-tor receiving guidance to repair a downed production line courtesy of consultation from an off-site expert using vir-tual reality via a handheld device. “Once you have that

“A digital thread can extract insights and deliver real value.” Rockwell Automation’s Sujeet Chand explained how open standards, virtualization and the cloud can provide continuity throughout a product’s lifecycle.


augmented reality in your system, this becomes a power-ful tool for training. It speeds workforce development.”

He explained the use of smart objects that feed analytics into digital twins to enable greater flexibility and inform larger business outcomes; this approach limits the old problem of overwhelming data scientists with mountains of needless information. The smart approach is to model the data at the source, said Chand, right where it is gener-ated. Properly tagging the data organizes it, which enables that data to be more quickly translated into business value courtesy of a digital thread. “A digital thread can extract insights and deliver real value,” said the VP.

The session closed with Q&A, enabling the audience to pick Chand’s brain.

What role is disruption caused by the COVID pandemic having on digital-thread adoption?

“It has gotten many companies talking about resilience, automation productivity and sustainability. The digital thread helps build a more resilient supply chain, particu-larly, for example, in the pharmaceutical industry where many ingredients come from Asia.”

Can these applications of the digital thread be used in environments that rely on relationships with many companies?

“In the ideal world, everyone is a one-stop shop. But in reality we have legacy assets and different applications.

The people working with them don’t want to change that. You’re always going to have multi-vendor environ-ments any time you’re implementing digital thread. And it makes sense to partner with others. No one company can execute digital transformation by themselves. All these different pieces are involved, from supply chain to emu-lation to the automation software. And the digital thread integrates relevant data from all different applications.”

Is Rockwell Automation using the digital thread in its own operations?

“We have implemented multiple digital threads. Consider the engineering products we build based on customers’ specs. A customers can place an order into our ERP system, which automatically generates a work order and work instructions for the manufacturing plant, then schedules the job and even tracks how the product is being built. That all integrates within a digital thread.”

How are customers adopting these approaches? “The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation

for many companies. They have to think differently. No company can do this alone. The digital twin and the digital thread require multiple companies and open architectures to produce solutions. We at Rockwell Automation position ourselves with partners to use the digital thread to provide new business value for our customers.”

ECOSYSTEM PARTNERS IGNITE PRACTICAL TRANSFORMATIONBy Jim Montague

Sometimes you need a little help from your friends, and sometimes you need a lot. Well, turning the promise of digital transformation into actual per-

formance gains is a tall order that definitely needs all hands on deck, so Rockwell Automation and five of its ecosystem partners are collaborating to make digital twin models and digital thread designs into practical tools their customers can easily use to increase workforce productiv-ity and greatly optimize operations.

The five partners include two recently acquired subsid-iaries, professional services firm Kalypso and simulation/emulation software provider Emulate3D, as well as soft-ware developers PTC, ANSYS Inc. and Microsoft. The group proved the proverb “many hands make light work” by jointly presenting “Digital Co-Innovation Brings the Connected Enterprise to Life” on the opening day of Auto-mation Fair at Home, a primarily virtual event hosted by Rockwell Automation. The panel was moderated by Sujeet


Chand, senior vice president and chief technology officer, Rockwell Automation.

In a real-life example of how digital co-innovation can bring The Connected Enterprise to life, the panel dis-cussion was prefaced by a video about the new advanced contactor production line from Rockwell Automation. This application employs innovative controls, an open architecture and co-innovation with partners to accel-erate time-to-value, ensure manufacturability, and establish a strong digital foundation for the contactor product’s lifecycle from design through operations and maintenance.

The contactor line’s design digital thread includes prod-uct design, product lifecycle management (PLM), plant design, emulation, simulation and virtual commissioning, which gives users a single source of truth for all their design and production data. The line’s manufacturing process is optimized by using digital twin models of physical assets to evaluate and adjust designs and production functions, which can reduce commissioning by up to 50%, protect the user’s hardware investment, and achieve overall equip-ment effectiveness goals more quickly.

Rockwell Automation reports these gains are enabled by its Studio 5000 software and Emulate3D software, which can integrate over an open architecture with PTC’s Onshape data-sharing software and Twin Builder by ANSYS software. The contactor line also converges information technology (IT) and operations technology (OT) data sources with Rockwell Automation’s FactoryTalk (FT) Innovation Suite software powered by PTC, which securely delivers control system data to the enterprise level and Microsoft Azure’s cloud-computing platform. These software packages and the contactor line’s carts, robots and other hardware allow it to produce 1.4 million units per year with the ability to make more than 600 unique variations with zero added setup time.

“The key takeaway is that no one company can do digi-tal transformation alone,” said Chand. “When we bring The Connected Enterprise to life, real business value is realized by integrating data horizontally, vertically and across the enterprise. Rockwell Automation is closest to the sources of enormously valuable data that come from industrial applications. The digital thread that brings value in the industrial domain starts and ends with industrial automation, so our role is to orchestrate and accelerate the realization of business value from this data. We do this with innovative software and domain expertise, and by collaborating with world-class software innovators such as our panelists.”

Real-time modeling for optimization Building on the example of the contactor line, the panelists drilled down and explained how they’re developing design digital threads, digital twins, models, simulation, emulation and related solutions that can help other users optimize their operations beyond what’s been possible until now.

“What manufacturers want today is traceability and remote operations. Digital twins and digital threads enable these capabilities, going from products that are as-designed to as-manufactured, as-sold and as-maintained in the lifecycle,” said David Petrucci, business strategy leader for manufacturing industry at Microsoft. “This empow-ers remote operations, provides business resilience, and allows responses to real-time changes. This is the foun-dation of The Connected Enterprise, but it requires true convergence between IT and OT, but no one company can do it on its own. That’s why Microsoft is committed to partnering with Rockwell Automation, PTC and ANSYS to drive accelerated impact and time-to-value.

“With Rockwell and PTC, we bring rapid connectivity and insight on the factory floor, and we work with ANSYS on engineering and design simulation, simulating sensor

“This lets us take physics and simulations that used to be mostly only on the design side, and instead use them to add real-time value in the real world.” ANSYS’ Prith Banerjee credits partnerships with companies like Rockwell Automation and Microsoft as enabling simulation to improve everyday industrial operations.


telemetry on Azure, and leveraging hyper-scale computing. Together our four companies can deliver what no other company can—use-case-specific solutions and predefined manufacturing best practices (MBP) that can drive tre-mendous business value.”

Petrucci reported that Microsoft recently worked with ANSYS’ Twin Builder software to develop a digital twin of an electric car battery at Volkswagen, which increased quality of design, and accelerated time-to-delivery. “The result was a vehicle that in 2018 beat the world record for an electric car climbing Pike’s Peak by almost 2 seconds,” he added.

Cloud boosts computing While many types of CAD, PLM and other software pack-ages have been available for years, the panelists agreed that cloud-computing is enabling manufacturers to make better use of their capabilities.

“While ERP and CRM have already moved to the cloud, engineering was slower to adopt due to concerns about intellectual property (IP) and speed because CAD files can range in size from 2 to 10 gigabytes,” said Kathleen Mitford, EVP and chief strategy officer at PTC. “Onshape cloud-based CAD and product development software that makes it easy to share data with a distributed team and your supply chain.”

Next, this and related cloud-based collaboration tools let ANSYS perform its improved calculations and report the results of its analysis to users. “Our software takes the physics involved in individual production operations,

and solves these situations using finite-element analysis,” explained Prith Bannerjee, CTO at ANSYS. “Previously, users would enter data into CAD tools, but they often were restricted to only solving for single-physics situations. Today, users need to solve for multi-physics situation and material science requirements. This is why we needed to move to faster cloud-computing, and why we’re partnering with Microsoft for our ANSYS Cloud solution.”

Banerjee reported that using Microsoft Azure lets ANSYS and its 3D simulation software perform simula-tions quickly. “This solution is fast enough that we can simulate products and production during actual opera-tions,” he added. “This is what’s moving simulation from traditional analysis to a pervasive model that can enable all stages of the product lifecycle.”

Ian McGregor, global business development manager, Emulate3D, explained that cloud computing can not only helps users experiment and test more sophisticated simu-lations, but it can also run emulation programs that can verify that assigned production parameters are being car-ried out. “In the cloud, users can connect to their models, and quickly spin out the results they need,” he said.

Banerjee concluded, “We’re excited to be working with Rockwell Automation, PTC and Microsoft because it’s allowing us to take physical assets and create two-way communications between the physical and virtual world. This lets us take physics and simulations that used to be mostly only on the design side, and instead use them to add real-time value in the real world. This is the role that simulation can have in digital transformation.”


ROCKWELL AUTOMATION, MICROSOFT TEAM TO SIMPLIFY YOUR WORK LIFEBy Chris McNamara

Technically, the focus of the today’s Automation Fair At Home press conference was the benefit of edge-to-cloud technology being delivered via the

expanding partnership between Rockwell Automation and Microsoft.

But quickly into the discussion between Tessa Myers, Rockwell Automation vice president of product manage-ment, and Sam George, Microsoft corporate vice president for Azure IoT, it became clear that this is more than a partnership between two companies; rather this initiative involves the wider ecosystem of stakeholders, from OEMs to system integrators, from data scientists to factory-floor managers, from software developers to business owners and everybody in between.

Rockwell Automation and Microsoft may be directing this production to optimize operations, but the end users—the customers—are the most important actors.

The backstory: earlier this fall, Rockwell Automation and Microsoft announced a five-year partnership expan-sion to develop integrated, market-ready solutions to help industrial customers improve digital agility through cloud technology. By combining each com-pany’s expertise in the industrial and IT markets, respectively, teams can work together more seamlessly, enabling industrial organizations to save on infra-structure costs, speed time-to-value, and increase productivity.

The goal is to deliver innovative edge-to-cloud-based solutions that connect information between development, operations and maintenance teams through a singular, trusted data environment that enables development teams to digitally prototype, configure and collaborate without investing in costly physical equipment. This unified data environment also enables IT and OT teams to not only securely access and share data models across the organiza-tion, but with their ecosystem of partners as well.

“This partnership provides Rockwell Automation and Microsoft customers with a holistic, simple solution for IIoT development and operations and removes data silos that hinder industrial digital transformation initiatives,” said Rockwell Chairman and CEO Blake Moret at the time the partnership was announced. “By eliminating a core barrier to automation initiatives, industrial organizations establish a digital thread connecting the entire enterprise, which in turn accelerates innovation, maximizes produc-tivity and optimizes operations.”

“We want to alleviate the burden of getting to the right data. We want to free the customer to think about what they can do with the information.” Tessa Myers of Rockwell Automation discussed a range of new software products co-innovated with Microsoft to make industrial practitioners more effective in their work.


During today’s press conference, reps for the two com-panies further detailed this collaboration, the latest in more than two decades of fruitful partnership. “A little over a year ago we decided to engage in a co-innovation challenge,” explained Myers. “We wanted to explore what more we could do, together, to enable digital transforma-tion for our industrial customers.”

The result of that exploration is the creation of Facto-ryTalk as a service offering, a cloud-based solution design to help streamline customers’ tasks in increase productivity. This offering is comprised of three sub-elements:• The Design Hub: Increasing design-time productivity

to reduce time-to-market and mitigate risk. (This ele-ment launches early in 2021.)

• The Operations Hub: Boasting simplified access to real-time data for analytics and cloud-based applica-tions to drive operational efficiency.

• The Maintenance Hub: Focusing on asset manage-ment and predictive maintenance, enabling perfor-mance and workforce productivity.

“We asked ourselves ‘How do we ignite and enable our ecosystem of partners, machine builders, system integra-tors, end users and service providers to help all of industry leverage technology to progress their efforts?’” said Myers.

It’s a lofty challenge. The partners are confident they can accomplish it.

“We see a new computer paradigm across industry,” said George. “Not just IIoT, but a true balance between cloud and edge efforts. We at Microsoft Azure come from the cloud, but not everything belongs there. You have

workloads running on the edge and cloud. There should be a distribution of work between the two.”

This is customer-driven innovation, the two stressed throughout the press conference, emphasizing the moti-vation to simplify, simplify, simplify. Making it easier for OEMs to manage the insertion of smart-devices in their equipment. Making it easier for data scientists to develop insights from the data, rather than wasting time process-ing that information. Making it easier for end-users to configure all of their disparate programs to enable true optimization of all of their efforts.

“A common challenge for customers undergoing digital transformation is the large number of assets within legacy systems, which makes getting at data—consistently—dif-ficult,” said Myers. “We want to alleviate the burden of getting to the right data. We want to free the customer to think about what they can do with the information.”

“Simplifying that journey is an amazing first step,” echoed George. “When customers gain that access, when they understand true efficiencies, that leads to new ques-tions, which leads to improvements, that then leads to new questions.”

These partners are eager and able to provide answers. Summarized Myers, “We have very talented team members working on this collaboration, but we are always guided by customers—the challenges and needs they have. We engage with customers on what things are most impact-ful for them, and that helps guide us in this work. We are leveraging the domain expertise of Rockwell Automation and Microsoft, but we are guided by customers as we move forward on this journey.”


5 WAYS TO SPEED TRANSFORMATION DURING COVID-19Mike Bacidore

Enterprises have increased their adoption of digital manufacturing during the COVID-19 pandemic—and they’re not about to slow down. “We saw a

little bit of a pause as the outbreak hit different parts of the world,” explained Mick Mancuso, director, Connected Enterprise operations, Rockwell Automation, who spoke at a press conference this week during the company’s Automation Fair At Home event. “Now, we’re only seeing acceleration. It is a business imperative now.”

Mancuso originally led the digital transformation for Rockwell Automation operations, and he now shares the expertise of lessons learned with customers to aid them in their journeys. He noted three important trends that are occurring during the pandemic.

First, more companies want to securely connect remote workers. “Turns out, manufacturing was already moving to social distancing,” he explained. “Whether it was IT, operations or engineering people, they wanted to be able to connect back to manufacturing and run manufacturing, even if it was from home. Obviously, we want to do that in a secure way. We also want to be able to see how things are going.”

The second trend is a continuing demand for automation. “There are new assets and new data points coming on-line,” explained Mancuso. “They’re being connected to the enterprise.”

And third is the idea of supply-chain resiliency. “The pandemic showed

some gaps in supply chains,” said Mancuso. “Mean-while, in certain industries, there’s been an uptick in demand. This is why digital transformation has been speeding along.”

Mancuso then shared five recommendations for expediting a digital transformation during the corona-virus pandemic.

1. Get executive sponsorship. “We’re seeing executives get more involved,” said Mancuso. “Maybe before the pandemic there was a groundswell of support for digi-talization, but now it’s important that executives are involved because transformation is really about the company’s culture.” When an executive isn’t involved, the implementation might focus on the technology itself or it might be siloed. “We’re seeing a champion, someone in the C suite, maybe even the CEO, become involved,” he explained.

“Choosing a partner in the space is about speed, speed and speed—you want someone who knows the technology and also knows how to get it done.” Mick Mancuso of Rockwell Automation, shared five ways companies are accelerating digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.


2. Build a cross-functional team. “Companies were moving in this direction before, but there were barriers and siloes,” said Mancuso. “Because of the pandemic, a lot of those barriers have been diminished. Everyone’s been pulling together very quickly to make those digital transformations a reality. IT and OT experts should be on the same team.”

3. Define a plan. “A plan continues to be very important,” explained Mancuso. “What’s different now is that strate-gies need to be carefully thought out, even as companies try to move fast and quickly adapt to this new normal. What are the key business drivers? Change management is a big thing, especially in manufacturing. Having that change-management plan is really important. Mean-while, success will come from adoption by employees.”

4. Secure operational technology environments. “Securing the OT environment is as important as it’s ever been,” stressed Mancuso. “It’s enabling some opportunities for more risk. Whether it’s IT or OT, those cyber-threats continue to exist. It’s still as important as ever to have that secure environment. Usually OT environments have their own networks and different business priori-ties. You can’t afford a network outage because they’re operating 24x7.”

5. Get the right technology and partners. “As we’ve hit this pandemic, having the right technology and partners has been an accelerator for many companies,” said Man-cuso. Previously, there were a lot of internal activities with teams doing some deep analysis. “Now, getting that technology piece right and having the right partners

has become really important,” he explained. “People are looking for future-proof technologies. Having the ability to scale is also really important. We’re looking at platform-based technology to help minimize the inte-gration effort and maximize the scalability. Having an external partner can help to fill in those gaps. Choos-ing a partner in the space is about speed, speed and speed—you want someone who knows the technology and also knows how to get it done.”

Digital transformation, in turn, is enabling increased visibility into operations. “There are ways to get started quickly, say, with an IoT platform. Another way is with the connected worker. Imagine having someone out in the field who isn’t your most experienced person and con-necting to someone with experience through augmented reality.” There’s value in being able to talk back and forth and being able to record this and share that. “We’re seeing a lot more use cases around using augmented-reality tools,” said Mancuso.

“When you’re thinking about how to future-proof your technology, take a platform-based approach,” he contin-ued. “You can find point solutions for anything you want to solve, but holistic platforms can be applied to a variety of use cases—from work instructions or basic analytics to quality monitoring.”

Digital transformation is very important, concluded Mancuso. “As companies were in the very beginning stages of the pandemic, they were wondering if this was going to help them or not,” he said. “They now understand that they’re working in a different environment, and they need to be connected and informed. And we’re helping them to do just that.”


PANDEMIC SPURS DEMAND FOR DIGITAL LIFECYCLE SERVICESBy Anna Townshend

“The global health crisis has forced many plants to focus on staying productive, keeping employees safe and making sure operations are secure,”

said Rachael Conrad, vice president of customer support and maintenance, Rockwell Automation. And many are turning to the lifecycle services organization of Rockwell Automation to help fill in the technology and expertise gaps revealed by the pandemic.

She and Matt Fordenwalt, vice president of systems and solutions business at Rockwell Automation, spoke at a press conference this week during the company’s Automation Fair At Home event. “We’re excited to be here with you today to share a little about our journey during the pan-demic and also to talk about where we’re headed from a perspective of services and solutions for our customer in supporting them,” Conrad said.

“The current environment that we’re in is accelerat-ing people’s digital journey as well as their emphasis on cybersecurity,” added Fordenwalt. “It’s not just one indus-try—and it’s really global.”

Before the pandemic, Rockwell Automation was already focused on helping customers with other pressing industry issues, such as aging operational technology (OT) assets and infrastructure or the workforce skills gap relative to the plant floor. “We’ve been really focused on how we evolve our capa-bilities and our offerings to make sure that we can move up from critical component supplier to our customers to being that trusted partner,” Conrad said. Rockwell

Automation has moved at an accelerated rate to enable its services through digital technology, she said, helping the company’s customers with their digital footprints and connected worker strategies for remote workforces.

Last year, Rockwell Automation launched its Lifecycle Services capabilities to help plants with more than auto-mation. Lifecycle Services offer solutions to customers for designing, building, sustaining or improving opera-tions. Lifecycle Services “is our comprehensive approach to solutions and services, which provides that long-term partnership to our customers that they really need and expect from their automation provider,” Fordenwalt said. This year, Rockwell Automation introduced its new brand, LifecycleIQ Services, which combines digital technolo-gies with domain experts to help companies run faster and smarter at all phases of the lifecycle of the business.

“As we think about our customers and their journey, the pandemic itself has really accelerated their digital trans-formation,” Fordenwalt said. “It’s always been a priority, but the challenge with any digital transformation is strug-gling to get off the ground and make progress.”

“We’ve been really focused on how we evolve our capabilities and our offerings to make sure that we can move up from critical component supplier to our customers to being that trusted partner.” Rachael Conrad and Matt Fordenwalt of Rockwell Automation discussed the increasing scope of the company’s lifecycle services offering.


The acquisition of Kalypso by Rockwell Automation has helped to boost its team of digital experts, who help manu-facturers understand their goals and strategically outline their programs. Kalypso brought a comprehensive set of innovative services and a modern consulting approach. “We’re already seeing results,” Fordenwalt said.

Cybersecurity has long been a rising concern for busi-nesses, but the pandemic and its demand for remote, connected workforces has accelerated security concerns. “The connected world has made cybersecurity a top priority for all of us,” Conrad said. She also noted that finding the right talent to support IT/OT and cybersecurity initiatives is difficult. Many businesses have worked on IT security and risk assessment, Conrad said, but that doesn’t always translate to OT. “Our role is to play the part of tying that together for our customers,” she said.

Future plans include penetration testing in OT environ-ments and threat tuning to focus on the alerts that are the most relevant and the riskiest, Conrad said.

The Rockwell Automation cybersecurity services offering has also been helped by two recent acquisitions— Israel-based Avnet Data Security, LTD, in January and Spain-based Oylo in October.

“Those two companies are helping us scale both our delivery capability around the world, as well as adding new capabilities to our offerings, like incident response, secure remote access and some additional cyber managed services,” Conrad said. “We’ve really been focused on how we deliver cybersecurity services to our customers when we can’t access those plants.” Industrial data centers and virtualization are some of the ways to accomplish that, she added.

In building the new Rockwell Automation cybersecurity capability, the company has focused largely on moderniz-ing its remote support capabilities. New initiatives include a new augmented reality virtual remote assistance tool, a digital work instruction library, and e-learning courses.

Early in the pandemic, Rockwell Automation offered remote support to customers, even if it wasn’t included

in their original packages. For those already with remote support, the company offered new options like Live View virtual remote support. Rockwell Automation also modi-fied delivery approaches for install based evaluations or other types of assessments to do those remotely.

“This year is really unprecedented, but also we’ve seen some good come out of it, in my opinion,” Conrad said. “It’s really forced the need for thinking differently about the way that we work.”

On the solutions side, Rockwell Automation moved much of its large project portfolio for process systems, discrete automation systems or information solutions to remote design sessions, hosting the software in virtual environments.

As an example of a successful digital transformation, Fordenwalt talked about how Rockwell Automation helped Toronto, Canada-based Norbord Inc., which produces engineered, wood-based panels, to maximize production at its facilities. This involved modernizing old PLC technology to the next generation, modern solutions for managing and executing work orders, and overlaying a set of analytics that allow the company to look at assets across their portfolio. He said the proj-ect wouldn’t have been possible without some of the recent acquisitions.

“What they’re been able to do there is really engage and help them develop the overall business case,” Ford-enwalt said. “That includes what it’s going to look like in terms of the financial investment and return on their part. Plus, we’ve built a road map with our consulting practice to really drive it all the way through the lifecycle—from upfront innovation to actually moving into that design phase and now helping them both operate and maintain and improve long term.”

“It’s truly transforming our relationship with our cus-tomers,” Fordenwalt said. “And bringing that full lifecycle approach is creating that intimacy where the customer gets the most value from Rockwell Automation.”


HYBRID TWINS YIELD QUICK AND ACCURATE RESULTSBy Anna Townshend

The current digital twin market is estimated at about $4 billion annually, and, by 2025, it is expected to expand to $26 billion, said Prith Banerjee, chief

technology officer at Ansys. He discussed the challenges and opportunities in this expanding market during his Digital Strategists keynote presentation at this week’s Automation Fair At Home event, presented by Rock-well Automation.

Digital twins based on data analytics require immense amounts of data for accuracy, and, while physics-based sim-ulation models are highly accurate, they take an incredible amount of time to run. New hybrid systems are combin-ing the best of both worlds, for a digital twin that is both quick and exact.

“Many confuse digital twins with a model of a physical asset,” Banerjee said. A digital twin must have three pri-mary elements: a physical asset; a model of the physical asset in a virtual space; and a link for data to flow from the real space to the virtual.

“You have to have all three things to make a digital twin,” he said. “I have an asset. I put some sensors on the asset. I have a model of the asset, and I have a two-way information flow, based on an IoT platform. This is how digital twins work.” The value of digital twins allows industry to increase revenue by providing new businesses, such as energy or mobility as a service. Digital twins also provide value in reducing downtime and

its significant costs. “Digital twins help with both the top line and the bottom line,” Banerjee said.

The early work on digital twins was in the aerospace industry to help with preventive maintenance on jet engines. “In the aircraft industry, people have used models of their aircraft engines, tied with operational data pulled in from the actual flight path, to try to drive better pre-dictive analytics for operations maintenance,” Banerjee said. Digital twins have also been used in the automotive, manufacturing, buildings and infrastructure, and oil and gas industries. In manufacturing, digital twins are used to drive operational equipment efficiency (OEE). “Typi-cally, at the manufacturing plant, the OEE may be 60%. Through the use of digital twins, you can raise that up to maybe 80%, and that transfers to real productivity improve-ment,” Banerjee said.

Digital twins are also used in different phases of a connected operation to design, operate and maintain an asset. When building an asset, a digital twin can act as a design. Once the asset moves into operation, a digi-tal twin models smart production. Finally, as the asset

“With the hybrid architecture, the physics model and simulation data, along with sensor data, feed a model-based decision-support system that drives improved process yield, performance and predictability.” Ansys’ Prith Banerjee explained the evolving technologies that promise to more than quintuple the digital-twin market over the next five years.


is maintained, a digital twin acts to anticipate mainte-nance. Of the expanding digital twin market projected to reach $26 billion by 2025, two-thirds is estimated to focus on assets’ operational phase. About $5.8 billion is estimated for the design phase, and about $2 billion for the analysis and maintenance phase. Today, about 25% of the digital twin industry is focused on manufacturing. By 2025, that number is expected to drop to 15%, as the digital twin market takes off in the automotive and trans-portation sectors.

Data driven vs. physics-based Currently, the majority of industries use data-driven models as the basis for their digital twins, Banerjee said. Data is collected on an asset through sensors, which are con-nected to an IoT platform and collect data under normal conditions. Typically, before failure, equipment will give a signal of some kind; data from the sensor changes, and then the neural network models tag it as an abnormal condition. “The advantage of the data-driven approach is you don’t have to know the physics of the asset,” Banerjee said. “The disadvantage is you need lots of training data to build a data-driven model, and your neural network is only trained on the situations you have seen.”

This is what motivates the need for physics-based mod-eling, where “you physically simulate how an asset could fail in the real world,” he said. When combined with the real-time data, this modeling can become even more accurate, by continually adjusting the model to match the true conditions. “You have a model, and you have two-way information flow between the physical asset and the model, and you make the model much more accurate. This is what makes physics-based digital twins super-accurate,” Banerjee said.

Last year Ansys created its first twin-builder tool using reduced-order models (ROMs), which run much faster than 3D models. Ansys’ newest phase of the twin-builder has a hybrid digital twin architecture, combining data-driven analytics with ROM simulations. “What we have just done this year is to take the data-based analytics with the physics-based approach and come up with a really interesting solution,” Banerjee said.

The next phase of the twin-builder model uses ROMs to simulate extensive 3D modeling, but uses real-time asset performance data from an IoT platform to tweak the results. “This hybrid model is what we now have,” Baner-jee said. “It produces really highly accurate results, and it’s very fast.” With the hybrid architecture, the physics

model and simulation data, along with sensor data, feed a model-based decision-support system that drives improved process yield, performance and predictability for indus-trial operators.

“So, what we have done is taken this combined physics and hybrid model and used it to drive high-value applica-tions, like predictive maintenance,” Banerjee said. Other high-value applications include performance monitoring (identifying inefficient operating conditions); anomaly detection (identifying unexpected behavior and opera-tion); and diagnostics (identifying and pinpointing root cause in a large system).

Partnerships for ecosystem solution Building digital twins in different phases in many different industries is not something Ansys can do alone, Banerjee said, noting many of the company’s important partners involved in open ecosystem solutions. Ansys has partnered with many organizations such as Rockwell Automation, PTC, SAP, Microsoft Azure and more to bring combined solutions to customers.

Ansys is also involved with the Digital Twin Consortium. It is one of seven founding members of the 150-member organization that is building different use cases in different verticals, such as manufacturing, aerospace and defense, oil and gas, and automotive.

“We’re also working with Microsoft on Digital Twin Definition Language (DTDL),” Banerjee added. “When you have a large system like an airplane, it has a fuse-lage and two wings, and you can build a model of the plane based on the fact that you have a subsystem of two wings and a fuselage. Then, you double-click on the wing, and it says the wing has two engines. You double-click on the engine, and it says the engine has 52 blades. You double-click on the blade, and you have a model of that. So essentially, you can build a whole system-level model of the large system, and it can build it out of sub-components, so you can have a digital twin of the whole system, of the subsystem and the sub-subsystems and so on,” Banerjee said.

Customers that have already used this digital twin technology include Volkswagen, which used it to build a speed-record-breaking electric-powered sports car. Verbund Hydro makes large water turbines and uses the technol-ogy to predict the wear of turbines under different loading conditions. And Kaeser Compressor builds digital twin models of its compressors to quickly demonstrate differ-ent scenarios for potential customers.


COVID PUTS LIFE SCIENCES IN UNIQUE DIGITAL POSITIONBy Mike Bacidore

The life sciences industry has seen some of the swift-est technology shifts due to the effects of the COVID pandemic. Being on the front line of developing prod-

ucts to combat the virus puts these organizations in a unique position. Not only do companies have to deal with the new realities of manufacturing in a social-distancing environment, but these same companies are also responsible for producing the equipment and medicines to battle the virus.

Digital transformation has quickly moved to the fore-front to aid these companies in keeping workers safe and expediting product development—not to mention maintaining equipment reliability and streamlining data capture and analytics.

In this week’s Life Sciences Industry Forum at Automa-tion Fair At Home, presented by Rockwell Automation, industry panelists discussed how their organizations are addressing digital transformation amidst a global pandemic.

“We always ask why we are digitalizing something,” said Hooman Hooshiar, director of manufacturing technology at Fresenius Kabi USA. “We are in the middle of our MES (manufacturing execution system) rollout, but we have our sights on some future goals, such as predictive and prescriptive analytics.”

Eliminating the paperwork is also a big advantage of digitalization for highly regulated pharma companies. “We were getting some paperwork three days after the fact,” said Tom Oberbeck, manager, MES, bioMérieux. “We have a need for electronic batch records. We have a need for ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems. We want to get to an area where we’re more predictive.”

It’s possible to fill an entire bookshelf with the paperwork that’s generated for just a few batches in the pharmaceu-tical industry, emphasized Kristen Manchester, senior product manager, MES and sensors, Cytiva. “We’re on our own journey at the same time we’re helping our cus-tomers. From our side, we’re approaching Level 3 of the digital plant maturity model.”

For Cytiva customers, quality and compliance are top priorities. “We are figuring out how to manage those large data sets and how to be able to put tools on top of that to do analytics,” said Manchester. “Of course, there are efficiency benefits in terms of reduced paper. People are trying to use the information that used to just live in these binders upon binders of paper.”

The journey at Thermo Fisher Scientific began years ago with data integrity. “We began looking at all the ways we could reduce risk by taking advantage of the data we had, and could take us from reactive to proactive,” said Chris Binion, director of innovative and immersive tech-nology, Thermo Fisher Scientific. “We wanted not just the reduction, but the replacement of paperwork. We are

“People are trying to use the information that used to just live in these binders upon binders of paper.” Cytiva’s Kristen Manchester explained how digital transformation has increased data visibility at her company during the Automation Fair At Home Life Sciences Industry Forum.


enabling our employees with superpowers: the ability to access data and look at historical trends. We are marching toward Level 3 and moving beyond that in the future.”

At Fresenius Kabi, operating in a regulated environment creates unique challenges. “The compliance aspect is very important,” noted Hooshiar. “When it comes to technical challenges, because of the advantage of not having to vali-date again, virtualization is very important to us. We have the highest level of scrutiny, because we’re in pharma, for good reason. All of this infrastructure in plants that we just built could be a single point of failure from a cyber-security standpoint. How do we achieve cybersecurity in a validated GxP (good practice) environment? We have to deploy special tools. Cyberseucrity needs to have a dif-ferent approach in a pharmaceutical environment than it does in an office environment.”

The technology is changing so fast, said Binion. “But all of this has to be wrapped in cybersecurity,” he explained. “It’s different than it used to be. Auditors are used to looking at things a certain way. We’ve been taking a risk-based approach, looking at how we’re reducing our risks to our products and our patients. We are enabling our people with the ability to make drugs. We are a zero-defect industry. Everything we do maximizes patient safety and product quality.”

Networking different devices can be a challenge, too. “It’s frustrating from our perspective. We also have a lot of systems in place, but not every system is talking to each other,” said Oberbeck. “We have an ERP system, a QMS (quality management system), and MES. They might not be talking to each other.”

The biggest problem is being open to adopt the new technology, explained Hooshiar. “That change manage-ment is sometimes a little challenging,” he said. “We brought the stakeholders in early to the design process. We brought in operators. We bring in the end user of the product.” People are much more open to new tech-nology if they’re introduced to it early in the process, Hooshiar advised.

“The customer needs will drive the outcome,” added Manchester. “In the end, we’ll be delivering a solution that gives them the most impact. Our customers struggle with when to make the investments to put technology in place. There are some concerns to delaying the opening of the facility if you’re putting an MES in place. Will the tools already be out of date? They want to drive down costs and eliminate opportunities for errors. How can we help them grow into it?”

Thermo Fisher Scientific is going deep and then going wide, as Binion explained it. “We spend the first year developing expertise and figuring out the best fit for our company,” he said. “We’ve done kind of like Ikea. We’re building immersive models. If this is your problem, here is the solution, boxed up and ready to go. We’ve looked at how to standardize those solutions and implement them across the Thermo Fischer network. We built a taxonomy for the technology. We look at management and support, and we’ve built a matrix. The main thing that has allowed us to do this is developing use cases. If you want some form of remote tele-presence, what are the expected key performance indicators? Reduced travel and expense, less downtime, fewer employees on the shop floor?”

Everyone knows the world has turned upside down, concluded Binion. “In the early days, we had a backpack prototype with a 360° camera on it, and we used smart phones,” he explained. “We tried just about everything to engage our customers. We had already done some immersive technologies. When COVID hit, we were ready. We were in the process of bringing those to the shop floor. It placed us in a unique opportunity. We were able to pull a robot out of the closet that was six months into deployment and start using it. We were able to react very fast. Everyone needed to be able to connect in new ways. Nothing in the world stayed the same. We had to use immersive technologies to change the way we interact with the world. It has changed our program dramatically. It’s overcoming the fears of adoption and accelerating the digital transformation in our companies.”

The pandemic also changed the healthcare industry, from a business standpoint. “A lot of people have skipped elective surgeries as the pandemic has taken place globally, so we had to switch from products designed for elective sur-geries to products related to COVID,” explained Hooshiar. “Automation and flexibility don’t go hand in hand. MES is the place where we can utilize digitalization and respond to markets more quickly.”

With COVID, only essential personnel could be in facilities, explained Oberbeck. “It got interesting really quickly, as far as who is essential,” he recalled. “It turned on a dime this year. What are we doing? How quickly can we get up to speed?”

Cytiva is rethinking the way it interacts with inter-nal teams and the way it provides support to customers. “How can we support factory acceptance tests in a virtual manner?” Manchester cited as an example. “I really do think it will accelerate acceptance of technologies.”


FOOD & BEVERAGE PANEL CHARTS DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION PATH by Jim Montague

Having too much choice is no blessing because it can freeze decision-making and paralyze much-needed action. So, while all of today’s emerging

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices and software are exciting, they can’t do any good if users don’t know which ones will be the most useful and successful in their individual applications.

These were the issues debated by experts from ADM, Amway and Grupo Bimbo, who joined the “Set the course for digital manufacturing in food and beverage” panel during the Food & Beverage Industry Forum at this week’s Rockwell Automation Fair at Home.

“When we’re talking digital transformation, it depends on which plant you’re talking about,” said Rob Dargie, senior electrical engineer at Amway. “Older plants are usu-ally just at the beginning, while newer plants may already have digitalized tools deployed. We ask users what they need, and they usually say ‘everything.’ So, we first have to define what data they actually need because they don’t need it all, even though it might seem nice to have it.

“Of course, the most desirable outcome is live data that lets users see their processes,” Dargie said. “We’re getting up to speed on this at one of our newest plants, which is deliver-ing live data to servers that used to be recorded on paper.”

Gerald Holt, senior director of global power and control, Grupo Bimbo, added that his company is also getting aggressive about digitalization at its plants, and that the pressure to adopt is streaming down through management. “As always, we’re seeking greater efficiency and quality in

our plants, so that’s going to drive our definition of digi-talization,” said Holt. “One thing we know for sure is it’s going to be an everlasting journey.”

[sub]Down to devices, up to the cloudBecause changes and adjustments due to digitalization

will be ongoing, Gopal Elumalai, manager of solutions architectures and IIoT technologies at ADM, explained that ADM is moving from a traditional, siloed organizational to being more dynamic, demand-driven and collaborative. “Digital transformation isn’t going to stop with industry 4.0. It will be part of industry 5.0 and whatever comes after,” explained Elumalai. “We need to go through our manufacturing facilities, find pain points, and make them the focus of our digital transformation efforts. We know we can start small, but we also know that we need to con-nect lower-level devices.”

At its most basic, digital transformation is about adding microprocessors and Ethernet ports to industrial equipment and related devices, connecting them to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and trying to make them cyber-secure, said Holt. And, once many components have been

“Cross-functional teams with process engineers, IT, reliability staff and others can be a big help with digital transformation.” ADM’s Gopal Elumalai discussed how individuals from different functional organizations can help advance each other’s digital competencies.


Internet-enabled, the next major step is usually signing up for a cloud services subscription.

“We’re all beginning to realize the power that cloud computing can spin up rapidly, especially in enabling causal analytics,” said Holt. “We still need edge devices to collect data, but they and mobile devices can quickly connect to the cloud for deep analyses, and do it without requiring lots of computing equipment onsite.”

First step? Assess and secureTo kick off a digital transformation program, Dargie rec-ommended a thorough inventory and assessment of what hardware and software is already in each plant. “We used to know more about the technologies we had on hand, but much of it’s old and has connectivity issues,” he said. “We also need to assess our devices to learn how they communicate and how we can protect their deterministic pathways because security is essential, too.”

Holt reported that Grupo Bimbo has 180-200 plants with varying automation levels and plenty of legacy devices such as PLC-5 controllers, but more plants will begin to modernize as Wi-Fi matures and as emerging 5G allows more deterministic communications, which will let users configure in the connectivity they need and the security that goes with it. “Cybersecurity is a big concern with all of this because of the potential for damage, so we’re seek-ing multi-tiered security that goes all the way down to the device level,” said Holt. “A couple of the resources we’re using for cybersecurity are the ISA 99 standard and the Converged, Plantwide Ethernet (CPwE) guidelines from Cisco and Rockwell Automation about how to deploy fire-walls and other devices.”

Dargie added that information technology (IT) and operations technology (OT) staffs used to handle cyber-security by staying in their own silos, but this meant they couldn’t learn much from each other. “We have many IT departments, infrastructures and end users at different facilities, so we needed a collaborative team to come together,” he explained. “In general, IT has been dealing with cybersecurity issues for 25 years, so they have a lot of experience that can help users at the OT level, who have just been dealing with cybersecu-rity for 5-10 years.”

Working the workforceBeyond addressing its technical and security aspects, the panelists reported that digital transformation can be greatly enabled or held back by the very same people trying to get it off the ground in their organizations.

“Workforces are a lot different than they were 25 years ago,” said Holt. “Tablet PCs and smart phones are making many people more computer literate as they download apps and make bank payments, even though these tasks can be more of a challenge for more senior personnel, who are often set in their ways. Digital transformation can help more of them adapt. Plus, new blood and younger staffers are good, too, because they’re often more open to new ideas and changes, and blending them into their work as appropriate. That’s why we’re bringing in more recent graduates, but doing it gradually for the best results.”

Because workforce habits and strategies often grow up organically and vary between facilities, Elumalai added that managers and leaders need to develop and commu-nicate a common vision—and do it early—so everyone knows what kind of digital transformation the organiza-tion is trying to achieve.

“Cross-functional teams with process engineers, IT, reliability staff and others can be a big help with digital transformation,” said Elumalai. “Some parts of a team may be in exploration mode, while others already know what they want to accomplish, but including both will help them align their digital transformation goals.”

Elumalai acknowledged that digital transformation comes with some costs, and that its advocates will have to show how a return-on-investment will be achieved, but this will almost certainly be more cost-effective than trying to keep using their legacy technologies. “We can’t keep using legacy equipment forever,” added Elumalai. “Digitalized solutions like cloud computing just have to show in real terms how they can boost returns and scale up. This is all driven by determining what I’m going to do with a digitalized solution, whether it’s letting stake-holders collaborate, enhancing automation and controls, or improving quality. We all want a holistic roadmap for our plants. We just have to determine what digital trans-formation can do for us, and use that knowledge to decide on a common goal.”


AUTO INDUSTRY EMPOWERING WORKERS TO FOSTER FLEXIBILITYBy Mike Bacidore

Just like every other industry, the automotive sector has benefitted from available technology, especially during the global pandemic. In an industry requiring

more and more mixed manufacturing, it’s important to implement technology that creates flexibility and empow-ers operators.

“We’re going to continue to get more technical,” explained Brian Jacobs, director, manufacturing engi-neering, Adient, which builds equipment for the sector. “We’re going to start to see more technologies in the plant that we’re used to in our personal lives. I’m getting noti-fications on my phone that my bank account is low, and my wife has been out shopping. Information is out there. The shop floor is like that. The key to empowering people is getting the right information to the right people at the right time. That means getting information to our shop-floor leaders.”

Jacobs was part of a panel discussion in the Automotive & Tire Industry Forum during Automation Fair At Home, presented by Rockwell Automation. “We’ve seen a lot of fluctuations in our workforce,” said Jacobs. “So we rely on standardization in our systems to pro-vide consistency from person to person. Doing remote equipment runoffs (com-missioning and start-up) has turned out to be very successful because we’re able to have people involved that normally wouldn’t travel.”

Remote runoffs are a technology you wouldn’t have seen in the automotive industry a year ago, said Jason Cleve-land, vice president, engineering, Eagle

Technologies. “But we’ve been forced down that path,” he explained.

Eagle Technologies’ customers run the gamut in terms of their journeys into digital transformation. “Some are trying to accelerate their journeys,” explained Cleveland. “Some are still trying to figure it out. And there’s a group letting other companies figure it out. COVID has forced a lot of companies off dead center and made them accelerate.”

“As a startup, we have a lot of challenges,” proclaimed Michael Boike, director of manufacturing for electric-vehicle-maker Lucid Motors. “We have to design a vehicle, scale the supply chain, scale the organization. One thing I spend a lot of time on with my team is culture and empow-ering the workforce. I’m not just launching a car or a plant; I’m launching a company. I need leaders. I need people who are qualified and willing to take on the challenge of doing something different. Our number one goal is to remove barriers for our employees.”

Technology tools help to build confidence and train an employee better. “We want to make sure every employee is a team member,” emphasized Boike. “They all get

At Navistar International, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are pieces in a complex puzzle that Mark Hernandez is putting together. “How do we use AI and machine learning? How do we get to that level? You need to take the first step,” he explained during the Automotive & Tire Industry Forum at this week’s Automation Fair At Home.


stock options. That creates one big team with one goal moving forward.”

Lucid has recruited individuals from all over the automo-tive industry. From the interview process and onboarding through training, it’s all about empowering employees, not just with confidence, but also with the right information. How do you make the work instructions more visible? “MES (manufacturing executions systems) helps with a portion of it,” said Boike. “Artificial intelligence (AI) is great, too. I want not only a robot to be able to predict when it’s going to fail, but I want it to order its own parts.”

At Navistar International, machine learning and artifi-cial intelligence are pieces in a complex puzzle that Mark Hernandez, senior vice president, global manufacturing and supply chain, is putting together. “How do we use AI and machine learning? How do we get to that level? You need to take the first step,” he explained.

“With Navistar, we’re building a 1-million-square-foot plant in San Antonio, Texas,” said Hernandez. “We’re going to build electric vehicles and diesel on the same assembly line.” Without a dedicated vehicle type, the facility will have the flexibility of being able to react to the market. If diesel or electric takes off or slows, the plant will be able to adapt. Hernandez is counting on a 5-30% efficiency improvement in the new plant.

“When I look at technology and the future of automotive, there’s a lot of stress on people. The first step is to make assemblers’ jobs easier on the assembly line. Also, how do we create faster feedback loops to make better decisions? The third piece is the high level. We have mixed-model manufacturing. We may build a 100-hour vehicle right after a 70-hour vehicle. A lot of people say, ‘Manufacturing 4.0,’ and think predictive maintenance. The real unleash-ing of this is the supply chain. Our supply chains flex every day. How do I predict that and leverage the supply chain?”

The keys are getting information to the operators and helping them do their jobs, explained Cleveland. “One way is with augmented reality (AR), overlaying information

onto your real work environment,” he said. “In our imple-mentation, AR walks the person through procedures on an iPad. You have an opportunity to guide them. That’s one of the up-and-coming technologies on all fronts.”

Digital transformation occurs at different speeds from company to company. But these times have made it neces-sary for organizations to accelerate their digital journeys. Still, there are going to be some obstacles.

“The value is becoming clearer,” said Jacobs. “In the applications we’ve dealt with, we’ve had to rely on technol-ogy. We had equipment built in Europe, and we needed support here in the United States. We were able to use HoloLens from Microsoft to bring people remotely on-site. It was a big help.”

Technology has seen more investment in part because top-level executives are seeing the economic benefits of automation. “If you looked 15-20 years ago, investment in IT infrastructure was difficult to secure,” said Her-nandez. “Today there’s a lot more knowledge base among senior executives, because technology investment is tied to financial results.”

Changing the production system and management system will only get you so far. You have to change the culture, too. “If you don’t do all three well, you’ll fail,” said Hernandez. “Seventy percent of failures are because of culture and mindset.”

Companies are also using simulation to predict how new processes will perform. “The amount of the com-plexity in our materials has grown very high in the past 10 years,” explained Jacobs. “Having technology that helps us understand and manage that complexity is a clear value. We can’t do everything at once, so where is the best value and the right place to start?”

Simulation has already come a long way to help to pre-dict performance during the design phase, and it reduces the testing modes, said Boike. “We’re going to build a fac-tory in less than a year,” he explained. “Simulation saves time by avoiding rework.”


OIL & GAS PANEL TACKLES ENERGY TRANSITION, DIGITAL CHALLENGES by Jim Montague

Digital transformation may be one of the few saving graces that can help oil and gas producers cope with their roller-coaster, rapidly transitioning and

COVID-19-impacted markets. However, as with any big shift, it’s easier said than done.

The Oil & Gas Industry Forum, part of this week’s Automation Fair at Home event, played virtual host to five industry experts to explore these issues and consider possible solutions.

“The pace of transition in the energy industries is accel-erating, but there’s also a lot of demand destruction now, which has a long-term feel that makes it different than previous events,” said Fred Wasden, Shell veteran and managing member at OptilytiX, a consultancy focused on accelerating asset value realization through data analytics and technology implementation for the energy industry. “The second trend is an overwhelming surge of digital technologies by process-industry users, which are being adopted after being risk-tested in other industries. We’re also facing a big challenge in recruiting and retaining staff. It’s an exciting time, but it’s a lot of change all at once.”

Dips inspire refocusing Pal Roach, industry consultant, Oil & Gas, Rockwell Automation, added, “The present situation with COVID-19 is simi-lar to past downturns. Much of the initial 30% dip in demand has been recovered, but we’re still down 5-7%, and most esti-mates are that it will be slow to come

back because so many more people are working at home. At the same time, even though demand for aviation fuel has collapsed, diesel fuel is up because there are so many Amazon and other trucks driving through neighborhoods. Some estimates are that demand will remain down 5-6% for 20 years, and some refineries will have to close. Others indicate the refining industry may grow 20% by 2040, but this will still be only a 1% increase per year.

“This is all impacted by the fact that refining is a unique business, which has little or no influence over the cost of its materials or the products it produces, and also has to deal with many regulations and safety requirements. The challenge is to optimize feedstocks and operations, and seek better performance and maintenance. The ser-vice side of refining took a big hit in 2014 due to pricing pressures on operators, causing some providers to exit the industry and refocus.”

Chetan Desai, vice president of digital technologies at oilfield equipment and services supplier Schlumberger,

“Users can get some quick wins with digitalization, and use them as a foundation for transitioning to a new world.” ExxonMobil’s Dave Hedge argues that the oil and gas industry must adopt digital tools to attract the new generation of technical professionals that will bring the industry forward.


explained that these challenges are causing the com-pany’s upstream and midstream clients to sharpen their focus on portfolio management. “Especially in the past six weeks, we’re seeing supply and demand imbalances, and efficiency and cost concerns, which are leading to an increased focus on total value creation, closer integration with service providers to scale up quality, and delivering greater value to asset operators. They’re also focusing more sharply on existing operations, instead of exploring for new ones on the frontier.”

Need to lead in new directionsTo address these epic challenges, the panelists reported that new levels of leadership will be required across the oil and gas sector. “This really begins with a vision for success that addresses profit and safety, of course, but also acknowledges that greenhouse gas intensity has become a front-and-center metric, too,” said Wasden. “This means many leaders will have to adopt broader visions than they have in the past, and bring their priorities into balance.

“Previously, leaders might talk about ‘people, planet and profit,’ but the focus was still mostly profit,” he continued. “Now, they’re going to have to deliver on all fronts. For-tunately, there are ways for oil and gas leaders and their organizations to do it. For example, just as we use the Waze app to navigate our commutes, we’ve tried equiva-lent software that can help with operating oil and gas fields, and they can deliver some significant benefits. For many leaders, the focus has been less on inventing new applications, and more on adapting existing software to their processes.”

Aligning with digitalizationBecause so many potentially useful technologies are emerg-ing so quickly, Andy Weatherhead, chief technology officer at Sensiam, reported that many of these technologies and their architectures are converging. “For example, cyberse-curity capabilities are getting baked into many products, which is making them pervasive,” he said. “Many applica-tions are becoming increasingly virtualized at the same time that they’re participating in open-source software communities like the Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF), or beginning to use fit-for-purpose sensors or self-organizing wireless components.”

Desai added that one way to organize today’s ever-shifting technology deluge is to ask “to what end?” and concen-trate only on those that can solve specific problems. “The real problems are change management and adoption, and

how to package and deliver solutions to users,” explained Desai. “Digitalization can affect all the pieces in the full, cradle-to-grave lifecycle of many hydrocarbon assets, so we have to focus on the ones that can uplift performance across those lifecycles.”

Roach cautioned these shifts aren’t easy for process applications because they’re so firmly based in physical settings. “Many process assets cost $100 million to $250 million or more, and are so complex that it’s hard to develop digital representations, or build models of them that can indicate when they need support or maintenance,” said Roach. “Digital twins of physical equipment are also costly up front, but once users have them, they can start to follow their physical counterparts for better performance of engineering, maintenance and support tasks. This is likely where most of the benefits will occur.”

Dave Hedge, solution architect at ExxonMobil Infor-mation Technology, reported there are three main phases of digital transformation—initial data collection, taking and learning, and applying it back in the field—and that COVID-19 has accelerated all of these initiatives. “It’s amazing what digital transformation can do, but the ques-tion suddenly became ‘how can we get everyone onboard?’ So, we need to get back to deciding on a common vision about what we need digitalization to do based on extract-ing value from our processes.”

Culture lubricates, invests in transformation The panelists unanimously agreed that a critical ingre-dient of digital transformation is encouraging cultural acceptance by operators, technicians, engineers, manag-ers and other end users.

“The process operations landscape is still all about people,” added Desai. “These staffers are demanding access to digitalized tools and retraining for machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), and their companies will need digital dexterity to make it happen. Leaders will have to ask if their organization are agile enough and open to these changes. We all need to get proficient at using them. It’s no longer enough to just be good: digital technology is needed to attract talent. Users running $20-50 million assets have FitBits on their wrists checking their heart rates, and they want the same tech-nologies for their operations.”

Hedge reported that recent graduates coming into the process industries have skills like Python program-ming, and want to use them to improve process industry


applications, but they still need acceptance from veterans and managers to help the field move forward. “Upstream, midstream and downstream users are looking more closely at the data moving across their companies,” added Hedge. “They want to ‘see the molecules’ moving from produc-tion to customers. All that data, from their premises and platforms, is coming in waves, and digitalization can help organize it.

“This also is why it’s time to invest in digitalization. Fast return in investment is always needed, but users can get some quick wins with digitalization, and use them as a foundation for transitioning to a new world. We just need to make a few initial steps to get started. These are busi-nesses that still need to make money, and digitalization can add to those bottom lines.”

OEMS FIND COVID PROMPTING TECH ADOPTIONBy Mike Bacidore

Manufacturers have been inching their way along an inevitable path toward digital transformation. Two steps forward and one step back seemed to

be the norm when it came to adopting new technologies and assuming the undetermined risks that accompanied them. Still, they persevered, and factories moved toward automated 24/7 operations, slowly implementing one new technology after another, assessing costs and mitigating risks. It’s been a slow evolution.

But the COVID-19 pandemic changed all of that in a hurry. Suddenly, plants needed to remain operational, but without putting humans in direct contact with one another. And organizations quickly discovered that the solution had been right under their noses the whole time.

“I’m constantly amazed by the advancement in tech-nology,” said Billy Goodman, managing director, Cama North America. “We are focused on automating our cus-tomers’ facilities with technologies like online support and the digital twin.”

Goodman was one of the panelists who spoke at today’s OEM Industry Forum during Automation Fair at Home, presented by Rockwell Automation.

Another company represented in the forum panel, Sani-Matic, has been an OEM brand for more than 75 years. “We’ve become adept at adaptation,” said Bryan Downer, VP of sales and marketing, Sani-Matic. “Like everyone else, we’ve had to adapt in this ever-changing year. Our

cloud-based data monitoring software allows our customers to monitor their equipment from any interactive device.”

Customer needs are the same today as they were prior, explained Goodman, but the elephant in the room—main-taining operations during a pandemic—has been a catalyst for transformation. “Our customers need to be running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” he said. “The pandemic has pushed us forward.”

How can automation solve problem? “We need to solve them now, but how do we maintain it?” asked Downer. “Should there be virtual access? A lot of people are scratch-ing their heads trying to figure out how to do it.”

Prior to the pandemic, Cama North America was using the Nike slogan: “Just do it,” said Goodman. “We’ve found that, to date, there have been no issues with cybersecu-rity,” Goodman added. “There was a cost element to it, but, because people can’t get to a factory to troubleshoot or train, there’s also the cost of time and travel. The initial barriers are starting to be perceived as gone, and now we can start moving forward full force.”

Cybersecurity had been an issue, but that’s changed a bit, said Downer. “We see it starting to diminish,” he explained. “One barrier now is the reluctance to embrace change. Often, people are trying to do what they need to for the immediate future without developing a long-term plan.”

Another major hurdle is how to convince customers and make them understand the benefits of using the technology,


said Mika Ide, chief of sales engineering, Hirata. “It is dif-ficult to draw a clear line of what costs will be incurred. We need to make a quick decision. As a system integra-tor, we are focused on the use of 3D models by sales and maintenance engineers,” she explained.

“For a lot of OEMs, we’ve had to educate the customer,” added Downer. “We’re not experts on everything either. We rely on partners like Rockwell Automation. Education is a big piece of this.”

That education used to be explaining what the equip-ment is and how it works on the line, explained Goodman. “Now it’s how to maintain the equipment. That follow-up in training and reducing the skill gap on implementation is huge.”

Downer agreed on the importance of training for the future. “Several months ago, we took our entire customer journey map and looked at the touch points, from engaging them all the way through the lifecycle,” explained Downer. “There’s more we can do now, as we have connectivity to the system. We can provide them with on-demand train-ing and virtual technical support.”

Cama North America is using the digital twin to show how a machine will function. “We’re also finding that there’s an alleviation of risk because we can test speeds and cycles through the digital twin,” he explained.

Cloud data is another helpful piece of technology. “It allows our customers to audit cleaning cycles, look at his-tory and meet requirements of the federal government across multiple plants,” explained Downer.

Cama North America can now do a trend analysis for moving parts. “Before this, you’d look for metal shavings or touch for heat,” explained Goodman. “Now, you can look at the history, and that can allow you to avoid an e-stop. And you don’t have to send a person there—you can see it remotely.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many surprises. “The biggest surprise is how quickly our customers have found ways to maintain adequate security to allow con-nectivity,” said Downer. “A year ago, it would have been impossible to find a quick implementation of remote con-nectivity. When you couldn’t get people in the plant, they had to find out ways to make it work.”

“Because people can’t get to a factory to troubleshoot or train, there’s also the cost of time and travel. The initial barriers are starting to be perceived as gone, and now we can start moving forward full force.” Cama North America’s Billy Goodman explains how technology has kept plants operational during the global pandemic during the OEM Industry Forum at this week’s Automation Fair at Home, presented by Rockwell Automation.


MINING PRACTICES EVOLVE FOR COVID AND BEYONDPaul Studebaker

The Mining Industry Forum this week at the Auto-mation Fair at Home focused a panel of industry and mining experts on technologies and trends

driving changes, particularly in response to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. Moderated by Michael Klein, director, marketing strategy at Rockwell Automation, the panelists were Carl Weatherell, executive director and CEO, Canada Mining Innovation Council (CMIC); Phil Nelson, principal engineer, XPS Expert Process Solutions; Daniel Riquelme, manager, control systems, BHP; and John Woods, global director, Kalypso.

Asked about their visions of the post-COVID business environment, Riquelme said the pandemic has touched every part of the industry. “It’s amazing how fast we’ve moved, but it’s still exposed our fragility,” Raquelme said. “Now mining is in a recovery phase, and we have the opportunity to return better and stronger, more sustainable, using more renewable energy and better water manage-ment to improve living standards.” He also mentioned the new role of remote operations, “a new environment for service providers,” he said. “There’s no going back.”

COVID-19 has accelerated opportuni-ties, and given new ones that wouldn’t have been considered in the past, includ-ing “big gains in remote work,” said Nelson. “We’re a globally diverse orga-nization with more remote collaboration, more opportunities but we need new protocols to do it safely, and to do the highest quality work.” Automation is seen as a major cost driver.

“As an innovation organization, we see miners and suppliers reexamining their

businesses to create buffers,” said Weatherell. Innovation and its effect on the bottom line is far more important and more critical now. Miners are looking hard at accelerating new technologies such as continuous, mechanical cutting and core sorting. “We need to build new and different relationships between companies and suppliers—coope-tition,” he added. “We can’t solve these issues ourselves.”

Mining’s connection to the environment—and people’s perception of that relationship—is also critically important. “We need to show our custodial expertise as responsible stewards of the earth’s resources,” Woods said.

Digital transformation projectsIn mining as in other industries, digital transformation is a hot topic. “I have two example projects from mining,” said Nelson. “I tell one of our site directors he can say he’s been doing machine learning since 2005, when they started monitoring machines to determine when to have shutdowns.”

The second is a model-predictive control application. “It’s an old application with a new spin,” Nelson said.

“The concept of connected maintenance requires connection to remote management and real-time data management. And cybersecurity has a long way to go.” BHP’s Daniel Riquelme was among several mining professionals who discussed the state of digital transformation in the mining industry.


“We can embed it in the control system instead of run-ning it standalone.” The application “talks” to technicians in their own terms, so it has become simple, widespread and available.

It’s good to keep it simple to encourage adoption. “Digi-tal transformation is about how work is done, and how you use tools to enable work,” said Woods. “At the coal face, how are you helping people do the job better and safer, and adding value?”

For example, Kalypso put an IoT platform in for better short-interval control management at an exploratory drill-ing business. “We focused on two things at the outset: making sure there’s a clear articulation of the business value—in this case, how are we drilling more productively by applying what we’re doing?” Woods said. The second was to use the IoT platform for continuous improvement (CI)—for root-cause analysis and data extraction. “We worked very closely with the CI team to enable them to use the information to run lean six sigma, making it very real and getting change to happen,” Woods said.

Still need people in the field?There’s a great opportunity to allow technicians to be more efficient and to standardize work with digitalization by doing training and asset management with real-time data, to be ready to react. It raises the need to connect and aggre-gate information, with good data sensors across the plant, remote support, augmented reality and smart wearables.

“The concept of connected maintenance requires connection to remote management and real-time data management,” said Riquelme. “And cybersecurity has a long way to go.”

Nelson said they still see the need for more instrumen-tation, more communication and better tools for analysis “so we can get to things and fix them just before they need it,” he said. “That way, we can get the confidence to not do the other things that don’t need to be done.”

Information tools can make technicians more efficient in other ways, as well. “I saw a tool that works like Google Maps in the plant to direct the technician to the location of an instrument, and let him know if he’s going to need a lift,” Nelson added.

Integration and the supply chainSome would say the supply chain is holistically integrated. “I say no,” said Weatherell, “but the building blocks are there. In the future, simulation of the business, taking scenarios into account and seeing what will happen, will come. Do we have the data? Some. Do we share the data? Some. Do we understand and use the data we have? Some.

“If we want to get there, it’s not a solo act. Mining com-panies and suppliers should collaborate more, and draw in other industries—aerospace, construction with its bills of materials (BIMs). Gaming industry modeling and simula-tion engines are very powerful.”

Industry has digital twins and digital threads from plan-ning through support. “Can we use that to simulate?” asked Woods. “The technology is there in components, but it’s not integrated yet.”

For planning, you have the data, “But what do you do with it?” Woods asked. “It takes judgment, anticipating changes in human behavior and tastes. More vodka, or more gin? Make an entrepreneurial decision, and bet on it.”

Weatherell added, “Innovation happens at the speed of trust, not the speed of tech.”


PANDEMIC HIGHLIGHTS NEED FOR INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP By Anna Townshend

“Throughout the pandemic, issues related to equity, diversity and inclusion have been ampli-fied,” said Madison Anderson, diversity and

inclusion program manager at Rockwell Automation. At this week’s Automation Fair At Home event, she led a discussion on this topic and others with her colleagues, Rachael Conrad, vice president and general manager, Customer Support & Maintenance,

Rockwell Automation; Eric Chalengeas, regional sales director, EMEA South Region, Rockwell Automation; and Gustavo Zecharies, regional vice president, Latin America, Rockwell Automation. The session “Inclusive Leadership During the Time of the Pandemic” explored how the pan-demic has changed the way we work, the new challenges of being an inclusive leader in changing times, and what Rockwell Automation leaders have learned along the way.

The challenges during the pandemic have also changed for leaders as the situation progressed—from safety to remaining productive to the long-term implications. In the beginning, “What I really thought about is ‘I’m not in this alone,’” Conrad said. “There is no playbook, so we have to figure out how to act and how to work. We acted fast but not impulsively. We had contingency plans for contingency plans, so really thinking about resiliency. I think we acknowledged what we couldn’t control

and found new ways to connect and work and recognize great work, too.”

“From a business perspective, one thing that was wor-risome in the midst of the first days of this pandemic was our ability to react,” Zecharies said. “Looking back, I think it will be one of the things we remember and are proud of: how agile the company has been to adopt these news ways of working.”

Remote working situations have only magnified the need for inclusive leadership and fostering new environments where workers can be productive and connect with their coworkers in different ways. “We know companies and organizations can’t add diversity to the mix of a team and expect that people will automatically collaborate, connect, resolve conflicts or innovate as a cohesive unit,” Anderson said, and asked the panelists to highlight key attributes or behaviors of inclusive leadership that have helped them.

Chalengeas highlighted humility. “I’ve learned to lead with humility. For me that meansI don’t know everything. I need to ask questions. I need to gather feedback, to be

“Throughout the pandemic, issues related to equity, diversity and inclusion have been amplified.” Madison Anderson, diversity and inclusion program manager at Rockwell Automation, moderated a panel discussion on how the pandemic has changed the way we work, the new challenges of being an inclusive leader in changing times, and what Rockwell Automation leaders have learned along the way.


empathetic,” he said. “It’s only by pausing, by listening to concerns that we can see the overall picture of the reality around us, because we see it from a very biased point of view.”

Conrad highlighted an important difference between equality and equity. “One of the early learnings I had in my own leadership path was recognizing that equality and equity are not the same,” she said. While it’s not necessar-ily wrong to want to treat everyone equally, equity is the important part for leaders, she said.

Inclusive leaders also need to be aware of biases and understand how their own perceptions might frame their reality, the reality of others or of work situations. COVID-19 has forced some into difficult work-from-home situations, and many leaders should and are recognizing those dif-ficulties. Zecharies also sees some positive changes in attitudes about remote work in general. Previous to the pandemic, it might have been harder for remote work-ers to have the same presence as those in the office. “For those in remote situations, it’s difficult to have the same impact, whenever decisions are made or when presenta-tions are made, whatever things are discussed,” Zecharies said. “That made it difficult to have an inclusive environ-ment.” Now, the requirements of working remotely have leveled that playing field a bit. “Being in an office is not that material anymore, and we have an opportunity right now for everyone to bring their voice pretty much to the same level. It may be weird, but I feel this has actually brought a more inclusive environment.”

The pandemic has also given a louder voice to equity and diversity in the workplace and beyond. Zecharies said recently more companies are examining social issues, diversity in their workplace and worldwide, and their own biases about productivity and work/life balance. He said that seeing senior leaders speak out publicly about the nationwide social issues and unrest, to say “we condemn this situation, we are promoting space where everybody can do their best work, and that kind of behavior we don’t want to happen inside the walls of Rockwell Automation” was an important shift for the corporation in its “role as moral compass.”

Also, if productivity sometimes translated as doing more with less before COVID-19, because of the challenges faced through the pandemic, “the concept of personal productivity, as opposed to corporate, is gaining traction. People are much more sensitive to the way we’re spending time,” said Zecharies. Now that vast workforces are at home working productively remotely, their level of tolerance for the office culture may have changed. “This is something we should recognize,” Zecharies said. The generations of people and the talent that Rockwell Automation wants to attract past this pandemic situation may be sensitive about their time at home and work/life personal balance. “As a company that is based on keeping and acquiring the best talent available, we ought to be very vigilant about this area too,” Zecharies said.


IT’S TIME FOR COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS IN THE WORKPLACEby Anna Townshend

More than ever inclusivity is needed in workplaces. This includes having difficult conversations when divisive and often polarizing current events or

topics have made it even more challenging. “We know that to be successful we need to work effectively in a cultur-ally diverse environment and that starts by encouraging listening, learning and respect,” said Michele Matthai, director of culture of inclusion and diversity at Rockwell Automation, during the opening of the panel discussion she led on “Inclusive Workplaces in a Divisive World.”

She was joined by Rockwell Automation colleagues Gary Ballesteros, chief compliance officer; John Lohm-ann, regional OEM sales director, central region; and Olivia Leak, account manager; to discuss what they have learned in navigating difficult conversations, breaking down barriers and building a more inclusive environment for everyone.

The panelists first addressed what had changed for them on this topic during 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, social unrest and an election year.

“I find myself right at the intersection of three of our most polarizing biases. I’m young, I’m black and I’m also a woman,” Leak said. At the beginning, the social injustice movement was sometimes dif-ficult for her to navigate. While she received an outpouring from cowork-ers and friends reaching out to ask how they could better support her as a black

woman, “I went through ebbs and flows of emotion,” she said, and it took time for her to process the movement and what she needed. “What we saw this summer wasn’t unique to 2020; it really was an ongoing problem, some-thing that we’ve seen consistently,” Leak said. She wanted to respond to colleagues but didn’t know what to ask of them. After some reflection, she was able by the end of the summer to better articulate her thoughts to the teams that supported her. She identified key obstacles that she had experienced because of her diverse background and asked for more support in specific areas. “That really helped me navigate this new environment that’s now influenced my culture,” Leak said.

Ballesteros always considered himself a good person, who treated everyone equally, regardless of sex or race, but this year made him realize he needed to do more. “It’s not good enough individually to be a good person. I feel like what this summer opened my eyes to is that for those of us who have some privilege in society and who are

“Finding those spaces to be curious, finding those spaces to demonstrate humility and grace and compassion toward the other person, I think that creates a bridge.” Rockwell Automation’s Olivia Leak believes difficult conversations on divisive topics can build mutual trust when approached with authenticity from both sides.


viewed as leaders, we have to go out and lead. This has to be something that is actively embraced,” Ballesteros said.

Are there topics or discussions that aren’t suited for the workplace? The panelists resoundingly said no. “We spend an awful lot of time at work. We put a lot of time and energy and effort into it, and it doesn’t feel right to me that we would divorce major societal impacts from our work lives. Life is just not that nicely siloed,” Ballesteros says. “I sincerely believe and I’ve seen many instances of it, where diversity of thought leads to better decision-making.”

Lohmann used to think you should never talk about politics at work, and that has changed for him recently. “For me it feels like the volume has just turned up in every way. Part of my concern with the volume up so much is, I think, a lot of people can no longer see some of the progress we are making,” Lohmann said. He believes those tough conversations and difficult topics need to come to the forefront, and he recommends approach-ing them by considering the human side of issues, not just the politics, and be wary of media that’s pushing more division. “It does feel like divisiveness is only get-ting stronger and happening to us more,” he said. While no topic should be off limits, “I do think perhaps pace matters,” Lohmann said. If the team is new to difficult conversations, don’t start with the most difficult topics. Build some trust on the team first.

Leak said that before discussing difficult topics at work, she takes time to consider the relationship at hand. The degree to which she’s willing to engage in a divisive topic is “based on the value that I place on the relationship and how I think it will benefit a future project or future oppor-tunity or a future way to connect with that person,” Leak said. By jumping into conversations without pre-checking herself and evaluating those factors, she has felt pulled into

one-sided conversations. “Those conversations for me are extremely exhausting and they break the trust between myself and the other individual, and they don’t do any-thing for the working relationship,” Leak said. “If I know there’s some opportunity to find some common ground, if I know that it will benefit decision-making or collabo-ration or the good activities and actions that we want to cultivate within our organization, I’m absolutely willing.”

While it is important to lean into these difficult conver-sations, it can be intimidating. The panelists talked about basic principles and behaviors to help make those conversa-tions easier. “A key thing is listening first,” Leak said. “You can tell when someone is just there to be heard.” Express-ing gratitude, humility and grace and acknowledging the courage that it takes to come to a difficult conversation or divisive topic can go a long way. “My advice is always start with the intent and make sure your intent is for the right reasons,” Leak said. “There will be moments when there’s some misalignment, but again, finding those spaces to be curious, finding those spaces to demonstrate humil-ity and grace and compassion toward the other person, I think that creates a bridge.”

Lohmann said “assuming positive intent” is beneficial to all involved in these types of discussions. “I really like this idea that inclusion is a journey and every single person is going to have a different journey,” Lohmann said. When he started these conversations more than 10 years ago, the idea that he needed to be perfect at it ultimately stopped him from pursuing those discussions with the type of honesty and fervor they needed.

Ballesteros’ best advice for how to have courageous con-versations: “You have them, period. That’s it. That’s the first big step. You have to work up the courage to actually have them.”


PLANTPAX 5.0 BOASTS INCREASED FLEXIBILITY, SIMPLIFIED ENGINEERINGby Jim Montague

After a decade of making headway and gaining an increasing presence in the process control arena, you might think the developers, users and sup-

porters of the PlantPAx modern distributed control system (DCS) would take a breather. But you’d be wrong.

Just over a month ago, they commemorated its first decade with PlantPAx Release 5.0, which features improve-ments in scalability—from skids to large operations—as well as provides easier plantwide information access for data-driven decision-making across facilities and enter-prises. It’s also added new controllers and workflows that streamline projects and reduce engineering effort.

“Rockwell Automation’s overall goal is to enable The Connected Enterprise for its customers, so they can achieve digital transformations and take advantage of new tech-nologies, and that’s what PlantPAx really embodies,” said Blair Wilson, global marketing manager for PlantPAx at Rockwell Automation. Wilson presented “Overview of the new PlantPAx 5.0 system: What’s new and what’s next” this week at the Process Solutions User Group conference, held as part of the company’s Automation Fair at Home event.

“PlantPAx and its modern DCS approach has four main pillars: plant-wide, scalable and modular, secure and flexible. Plantwide means a common-core technology that can transition intuitively and effortlessly between different plant areas. Scalable means it can be applied in simple or complex applications, while its modularity allows customers to grow.

Secure means that, even as we go through digital trans-formation to achieve The Connected Enterprise, it’s still important to be able to push information throughout your facility and the organization in a secure manner, and PlantPAx supports that. Flexibility in delivery and support is based on the dual path our customers have: our army of system integrators, who are fantastic to work with, and are experts in a variety of industries, and our extensive team of subject matter experts who can deliver and support our customers.”

To help users design, build and improve a control system over its lifecycle, Wilson reported that PlantPAx’s root goals are to make it easy to design, configure and integrate, save engineering costs and reduce commissioning hassles. In the design lifecycle phase, PlantPAx accomplishes this by providing:• Characterized systems and validated architectures for

optimal performance of the DCS servers, controllers and required memory;

“Rockwell Automation’s overall goal is to enable The Connected Enterprise for its customers, so they can achieve digital transformations and take advantage of new technologies.” Rockwell Automation’s Blair Wilson described the considerable advances inherent in the company’s PlantPAx 5.0 release.


• Speed and ease of programming and system config-uration, including preconfigured templates and pro-cess libraries;

• Premier integration of its common-core technology with motor control and field instrumentation; and

• Ease of integrating primary processes with other OEMs, including no need for data remapping.

• In the sustain lifecycle phase, PlantPAx improves oper-ations, empowers operators, and reduces training costs by providing:

• Graphics that are focused on simplicity and situa-tional awareness,

• Real-time display of process variables, alarms and trends;

• Multi-lingual support for multiple user modes;• Integrated reporting tools to convert data into usable

information in real-time;• Trends with optimized display of event information

with real-time and historical data about it; • Effective alarm management that directs an operator’s

attention to required tasks; and • Improved maintenance with high availability of serv-

ers, controls and networks, out-of-the-box diagnostics for system issues, seamless visibility of devices for asset management, and “breadcrumbs” that highlight mod-ules in abnormal state to quickly learn what’s been changed and needs attention.

“The breadcrumb system in our faceplate library lets operators intuitively and quickly track down the root causes of an issue,” explained Wilson. “However, scaling also means improving over the lifecycle of a facility, especially as users bring in added equipment and increased complexity.”

5.0 to conquer batch, hybrid, heavy industriesBecause its essential mission has always been putting together trusted hardware and software for consistent outcomes, PlantPAx 5.0 is surpassing itself to become purpose-built for plantwide control of batch, hybrid and heavy-industry applications. In all these new settings, Wilson reported its five core tenets are: reduced footprint, consistent delivery for customers, streamlined workflows, guided cybersecurity and enabled analytics.

“PlantPAx 5.0 can serve larger and more complex opera-tions securely with reduced footprint due to simplified architectures, new purpose-built controllers, embedded process objects, automatic hardware diagnostics, IEC

62443-3-3 cybersecurity certification, improved HART integration, and improved support for validated industries.”

The two new ControlLogix and CompactLogix con-trollers streamline their former control environment by now deploying several features natively, such as embed-ding instructions and task modeling to minimize project design time. Benefits include out-of-the-box settings and instructions that follow PlantPAx guidelines, ControlLogix controller performance profiles, and intuitive workflows that eliminate unneeded rework, and simplify design and deployment efforts.

“We also transitioned the process objects library to be the embedded process instructions in the controller,” added Wilson. “These instructions have a reduced foot-print because they’re native to the controller, and are no longer added after the fact. They also use a graphical user interface (GUI) to configure and troubleshoot the instruc-tions, which makes doing this easier and quicker than it has been before. This will also make these instructions more consistent, whether they’re delivered by your system integrator down the road, from Rockwell Automation’s solutions business, or from somewhere overseas. The GUI also streamlines workflows by embedding instructions within the HMI.”

Easier alarms, libraries—and HART In addition, PlantPAx 5.0 further streamlines tasks for users by providing Select and Go alarms as part of its instructions. This will:• Allow simple alarm configuration and setup;• Use one environment to deploy alarms when creating

control elements using Logix Designer software;• Provide one location for adding and configur-

ing alarms;• Use one click to add an alarm from an ob-

ject’s definition;• Provide predefined alarms for every object; and let us-

ers enable alarms for each instance.

“This lets users go in, turn on the alarms they want, and that’s it,” said Wilson. “This lets them move on to more complex or more value-added tasks.”

Similar to its easier and embedded instructions, Wilson reported that PlantPAx has added dual library support. “We’re continuing to support PlantPAx 4.0 and 4.1 librar-ies,” he explained. “These libraries have the same look as feel as the new library, so users can take a phased migration


approach, which will help when they bring new functions into their facilities.

“PlantPAx will also show dashboards of process instruc-tions per task to optimize visibility and task balancing. It can be used with an embedded webpage that shows CPU utilization and avoids task overlaps. This will allow more consistent performance and task loading during project creation, and make it easier to identify how many control strategies are running. We’re also offering automatic cre-ation of consistent task models in Logix Designer software.”

Likewise, PlantPAx 5.0 will provide highly integrated HART functions. These will let users:

• Add and replace HART devices online;• Show HART signals and connection status, indicated

in a Logix Design I/O tree in Studio 5000 software;• Display integrated device diagnostics via profile; and• Allow connection type selection in PlantPAx.

“The benefits of these HART capabilities will allow more intuitive integration and the inclusion of device diagnostics in PlantPAx’s data type connection, and will give users an out-of-the-box faceplate for rendering HART content,” added Wilson.

TRANSFORMING PIPELINE OPERATIONS ON A GRAND SCALEBy Chris McNamara

As one of the largest independent liquid petroleum pipeline operators in the world, with 6,000 miles of pipeline, 115 terminals and 118-million-barrel

tank capacity, Buckeye Partners knew their digital trans-formation was going to be complicated. And they knew it was necessary to stay competitive.

“We were struggling with the technology used to support terminal automation,” explained Angel Matos, Buckeye Partners’ senior manager of terminal automation appli-cations, during his Automation Fair At Home case-study presentation. Matos, who oversees project planning and execution across all of his company’s oil-and-gas distri-bution terminals, explained how his team was reliant on systems that, quite frankly, were not intended for the modern scope of automation.

So they set goals. The senior manager and his team wanted to quicken IT/OT convergence across their facili-ties. They wanted to ensure longevity of the tools and systems they implemented (always a challenge in harsh environments). They wanted fewer moving parts and more-functional industrial computers at their disposal.

Central to the project was a shift to predictive main-tenance—collecting data at the edge, integrating with

hybrid cloud operations, and using real-time analytics and machine-learning models. The efficiency goals they envisioned would hinge on strategic platform monitoring/protection. Some of the IT and OT workloads would be automated, freeing up personnel to tackle more important tasks. The system would have to be scalable for additional applications down the road, and be able to fully integrate with the larger terminal operations.

No sweat, right? To accomplish these goals the Buckeye team envisioned

a pilot program at their South Texas Gateway Terminal. They sought out hardware and software solutions that would optimize disaster-recovery efforts, and make OT more manageable. They needed a way to corral the 36 different applications they manage. They wanted a better system to roll out upgrades. (“We had a lot of flavors of PCs,” joked Matos.) And they demanded systems that offered 24/7 service and support programs.

Then Matos and his colleagues went shopping. They met with vendors. They attended conferences to collect insights from peers and competitors and solution providers.

The solutions they ultimately selected and implemented matched the complexity of the project. Matos explained


how control systems and software from Rockwell Auto-mation, together with fault-tolerant computing platforms from Stratus Technologies, proved central to the campaign. These included PlantPAx DCS (with virtualization) and ControlLogix systems, together with FactoryTalk Vantage-Point EMI and ThinManager software from Rockwell Automation complemented by ftServer and ztC Edge fault-tolerant computers from Stratus.

“This was all about the end-user experience,” he said. “We wanted to make sure they were receptive and com-fortable with these decisions.”

The project was not without its challenges, of course. First, there was a reluctance to change among many stakeholders. “It can be difficult for the human mind to adapt as quickly as the technology,” admitted Matos with a tone that indicated how challenging this was to over-come. There were stumbles with maintaining synergy

among project-management teams and the IT/OT crews, likewise with the systems integrators and end users. Com-plexity with the network-design process required regular, lengthy meetings. And, frankly, the IT and OT sides came to the project with different goals. “Each discipline has to understand the other’s desires. And we have to serve up a solution that can marry both of those.”

Still, the pilot project was a success. A big success, validated by the fact that, as Matos explained, Buckeye Partners is now on the journey to a complete rollout of similar projects across their installed base.

“This is the only way to achieve a significant increases in efficiencies,” he stressed. “Our response times are quicker. In the event of a failure we know what to do. We have good integration across our systems. We are planning for more digital-transformation efforts.”

“This is the only way to achieve significant increases in efficiencies.” Buckeye Partners’ Angel Matos detailed the complex system of solutions implemented as part of the pipeline operator’s digital transformation.


KIMBERLY-CLARK REBUILDS TISSUE MACHINE DESPITE COVID-19by Jim Montague

The show must go on, especially when you’re making toilet paper and facial tissue. It’s well known that consumers everywhere have needed more paper

tissue during the COVID-19 pandemic because they’re working and staying home much more. However, if you’re a manufacturer like Kimberly-Clark, and you were already rebuilding an old tissue machine to meet increased demand, how do you overcome an ironic, Catch-22, twist of fate like the pandemic halting your rebuild of that very same machine?

Kimberly-Clark operates several U.S. mills, but it had a machine that had to be rebuilt at its plant in Mobile, Ala. It was installed in 1965, and had reached the end of this useful lifecycle. It had GE drives controlling its large motors, and a Honeywell TDC 2000 distributed control system (DCS) and Modicon Quantum programmable logic controllers (PLCs) for its distributed I/O points.

“All of these systems were obsolete, and they’d just limped along for a long time,” said Gabriel Pacheco, electrical engineer and project lead, Kimberly-Clark Professional. “It was hard to find replacement parts and the technical knowledge for maintenance.”

Pacheco presented his team’s expe-rience in “Delivering a new tissue machine in a COVID-19 world” this week at the Process Solutions User Group virtual event held as part of Rockwell Automation Fair at Home.

Rebuild benefits and logisticsTissue machines typically include a wet end, where the pulp goes through different paths, and a dry end, where the tissue paper is rolled up. The new machine was designed to provide a unified view and control of components from multiple OEMs.

Pacheco reported that Kimberly-Clark’s project would have many other advantages, including a common, inte-grated drive-control platform and safety controls, which would improve reliability and uptime, and reduce the costs of running the drives.

“It also gives us broader access to maintenance resources, including remote support, which will also reduce support and licensing costs,” said Pacheco. “This was not just an upgrade; it was a complete rebuild. We took the old machine and its drives down, and put in all-new drives and controls. There were some challenges to doing this, such as the location of the old tissue machine in the middle of other machines. This meant we had to reroute many other connections at the same time, so we could keep those other machines running.”

“We planned to check out the new equipment in March 2020, with people coming from different parts of the U.S. and other countries. COVID-19 changed all that.” Kimberly-Clark’s Gabriel Pacheco described how his team—and their suppliers—overcame pandemic travel restrictions to start up a fully rebuilt tissue machine.


Pacheco added that his team also wanted to make the new machine’s systems and drives easier to use for their operators, and coordinate the new drives on the main machine with many existing, smaller drives on support equipment. Another significant challenge was that Kim-berly-Clark’s team at the Mobile plant had to collaborate on the rebuild with OEMs from Italy, Sweden, Finland and Canada, as well as with drives and DCS groups from Rockwell Automation.

Phases and primary components The main phases of the tissue machine rebuild project included demolishing old equipment, including its burner house and basement levels, and then building new structural sections to support its new mechanical and electrical systems. After that, construction and engineering checkouts would be followed by a process control check out before startup.

“We also had to replace unit substations to provide power to the main drive. One unit sub is on the wet end, one is for the dry-end drives, and a third powers the new electrical room,” explained Pacheco. “We also replaced nine drives with Rockwell Automation PowerFlex 755 drives that were split between the wet and dry ends, and added a couple of HMIs (human-machine interfaces) that were integrated with the main DCS system. The previous TDC 2000 controls were replaced by Rockwell Automation ControlLogix V.30 controllers with its PlantPAx Process Library. We’re also using Rockwell Automation FactoryTalk View and FactoryTalk Historian software as well as thin clients.”

Pacheco added that kitchen-rail safety functions on the new machine are also handled by ControlLogix and new safety relays, which are integrated into the overall DCS system. Likewise, the old burner management system (BMS) that had Honeywell and Modicon con-trols were replaced by a new burner room and BMS with a safety PLC and HMI that are also integrated into the new DCS. Split between the wet and dry ends, this new BMS includes servers for data collection, FactoryTalk Historian, thin clients, scanners and HMIs. They’re all networked on one of the plant’s two networks for criti-cal or non-critical communications, which also link up other racks, drives, unit substations and routing devices.

Push back against the pandemicPacheco reported that the tissue machine rebuild was authorized in January 2018, started its shutdown and demo-lition in September 2019, and was scheduled to start up in April 2020. However, as with so many other endeavors, it was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The old machine produced its last roll of tissue in September 2019, demolition and construction lasted six months, and we planned to check out new equipment in March 2020 with people coming from different parts of the U.S. and other countries. COVID-19 changed all that, and we had to come up with a new timeline,” said Pacheco. “We had to implement social distancing for the equipment checkout and startup crews onsite. Then, on April 3, we had a COVID-19 case reported in another area of the mill, and all of our machine suppliers had to go back home. This made it seem like our original April 13 startup wasn’t going to happen.”

Despite this apparently crippling setback, Pacheco reported that his team and their supplier partners figured out how to set up remote support, which would allow everyone to see the machine’s components and continue their efforts. “We installed cameras, wireless access points and cellular hotspots, and added iPads and other tablet PCs with headset tie-ins, so onsite people could get tech-nical help,” explained Pacheco. “We even tested gaming headsets, and found the most useful one for us was a 3M headset with Bluetooth that could be inserted into ear-muffs, which canceled out noise from the machine, and allowed users to hear remote people clearly.”

Pacheco added that the checkout/startup crews and their remote colleagues also used PTC’s Vuforia augmented reality software to illustrate points on captured images, and also collaborated by using Skype and Microsoft Teams video conferencing services.

“The cameras on the tablets and support tools let all the different participants from Kimberly-Clark, our OEMs, Rockwell Automation and others see what was going on and share with one another,” said Pacheco. “We com-pleted commissioning on April 20, and on May 9, we were making paper again.”


PLANTPAX 5.0 INTEGRATES INNOVATIONSUITE CAPABILITIESMike Bacidore

The release of PlantPAx 5.0 distributed control system (DCS) by Rockwell Automation integrates its Fac-toryTalk InnovationSuite, enabling DCS users to

bring live and historical data to life within dashboards, process templates within PTC and advanced analytical capability offerings. Further, PlantPAx 5.0 data can now be tapped from within Vuforia, the PTC augmented reality (AR) environment, allowing the visualization of action-able faults and analytics.

Armand Craig, PlantPAx system architect, explained the features and applications of the new release during an Automation Fair at Home presentation.

The Gartner Analytic Ascendancy Model describes four levels of analytics, starting with descriptive analytics, which provide detailed information on runtime events, explained Craig. “Next is diagnostic analytics, which can assist users in the question: Why did this event happen?” he said. “As analytical applications become more advanced, we enable predictive analytics, which provide insights into what will happen in the future. Lastly, prescriptive analytics provide suggestions on what actions should be taken, along with closed-loop analytical functions.”

Where the FactoryTalk Innovation-Suite differentiates itself from traditional big-data analytics platforms is in Rock-well Automation’s process expertise and scalable analytics offering, providing ana-lytics from the device level all the way up to the enterprise level, explained Craig.

The FactoryTalk InnovationSuite is powered by both Rockwell and PTC, and features IIoT purpose-built solutions,

augmented-reality experiences, edge-computing capabili-ties plus and machine-learning and artificial-intelligence delivery and services.

“As your business begins its digital transformation, the first step is to wrap your process with operational intel-ligence via descriptive analytics within the device and controls levels,” explained Craig. “Next is to extend your capabilities with augmented-reality-enabled operations, along with predictive analytics. Lastly, transform your operations with prescriptive analytical capabilities that provide performance benchmarking, synchronized opera-tion and process optimizations.”

The PlantPAx 5.0 system tools and solutions, including rapid code development, process system estimator, process object library migration tools, alarm builder and DCS migration, are designed to be used throughout the life-cycle of a project, from the quoting and planning phases to maintenance and optimization.

“We provide reference architectures that enable edge-to-enterprise analytical capabilities from the FactoryTalk InnovationSuite,” said Craig. “We provide redundant,

“Simply scan the ThingMark associated with the process strategy. Then it will enable this live augmented-reality overlay over your plant’s equipment.” Rockwell Automation’s Armand Craig explained how FactoryTalk InnovationSuite capabilities are now enabled with the company’s PlantPAx 5.0 DCS.


resilient and simplex reference architectures that are char-acterized and documented to ensure repeatability.”

Documentation is also provided to ensure the DCS is sized, configured and maintained properly. “In PlantPAx 5.0, we’re offering new process-focused controllers in both 1756 and CompactLogix form factors,” said Craig. “The new process-focused controllers offer instructions native to the controller, requiring no importation. This simpli-fies lifecycle management for the end users.”

Highlights of the PlantPAx 5.0 library include standard repeatable controls; new SAMA diagram interface, which provides a pictorial representation of running process code; available process strategies, including I/O process-ing, device control and regulatory control; and tag-based alarms and diagnostics. “These alarms and diagnostics provide information to enabled advanced analytical capa-bilities,” explained Craig.

DCS diagnosticsIn this latest PlantPAx release, automatic diagnostics are provided to the DCS by subscribing to the controller via the FactoryTalk link shortcut. “No additional programming is required,” said Craig. “Users can view these diagnostics via a FactoryTalk diagnostics summary screen, which is similar to the traditional alarm summary. By enabling the diagnostics’ historical functionality, the information provided can assist in root-cause-analysis investigations. Automatic diagnos-tics can also help users achieve lower mean time to repair through quick and easy delivery of diagnostic information.”

FactoryTalk Analytics for Devices is an edge appliance that provides system- and device-level diagnostics. It can perform analysis on device data, and it notifies users when devices change health state. In addition to the base fea-tures, process-specific use cases include enhanced process controller support, Endress+Hauser device support and robust diagnostic information.

“This device actually lives on the plant floor and is simple to set up and utilize,” said Craig. “Simply complete the initial setup to enable the device on the process network, configure the desired device range and then view the diagnostics through the Web browser or the dashboard that this device provides.”

ThingWorx and Vuforia“PlantPAx 5.0 will provide users with ThingWorx-devel-oped PlantPAx alarm and event dashboards,” added Craig. “These dashboards provide the ability to investigate alarms by area, priority and other critical alarming criteria. We

also will be providing advanced alarm analysis dashboards, which include insights into fleeting, chattering and stale alarms. Simply import and configure the connection to your SQL database, and then the alarm and event dash-boards can provide insights.”

ThingWorx Process Strategy templates enable prebuilt process-strategy experiences for Vuforia. “These experiences provide running data, alarming data, maintenance informa-tion, historical data and event data via an augmented-reality interface,” explained Craig. “Simply scan the ThingMark associated with the process strategy. Then it will enable this live augmented-reality overlay over your plant’s equipment to provide detailed information from the DCS similar to our faceplate functionality that we have within FactoryTalk View within this augmented-reality format.”

The Thing Templates and Vuforia experiences are available to import from the process library download. “Simply import, and then tie the data points within that experience back to the process strategy Thing that exists within ThingWorx,” said Craig.

Predictive modeling at the edgeFactoryTalk Analytics LogixAI is a 1756 module that provides predictive modeling at the edge. “This module empowers controls engineers without the need of a data-science expert,” explained Craig. “The process to utilize this module includes the user configuring the module to investigate the data of interest. The user then identifies when to have LogixAI train the model to the informa-tion that it is being provided. LogixAI then monitors and models that information in correlation with the variable of interest. ” The user integrates the predictions to improve control within the plant.

Some use cases of LogixAI include soft sensor applica-tions and required PID tuning notifications to ensure the user has confidence in their PID loops.

Pavilion8 and PlantPAx MPC provide closed-loop pre-scriptive analytics, which drive 24x7 performance of the process. Some highlights of Pavilion8 include model-based advanced, dynamic control, which drives stable performance; integrated model-predictive-control cal-culation; soft sensor visualization and reporting; smart toolsets for user support; and a robust, rapid, reliable runtime environment.

“PlantPAx MPC is model predictive control (MPC) at the edge and in the ControlLogix rack, providing new opportunities to improve process equipment performance and tackle challenging control problems,” explained Craig.


CONTROLLOGIX GRADUATES TO THE IVY LEAGUEby Jim Montague

It’s always admirable that process control systems can serve, often without recognition, for year after year. However, after two or three decades, there’s no shame

that even the most stalwart system likely needs to be reexamined, upgraded, revamped or replaced. The only justifiable regret would be not making the transition to a new control system as simple and effective as possible. Fortunately, accomplishing these migrations is getting to be far easier than it was in even the recent past.

For instance, Grant Selking, engineering manager at system integrator Thermo Systems, reported that his team recently replaced legacy Modicon controls managing the chilled water plant at an Ivy League university with Con-trolLogix programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and support components and software from Rockwell Automa-tion. The application consists of four chillers with room for a fifth and 250 I/O points designed and implemented in 1998. The six-month project began in fall 2019 and was completed this past spring.

“The university had ControlLogix in other buildings on campus, so they decided to go with Rockwell Automa-tion again,” says Selking. “The existing HMI (human-machine interface) graph-ics package and associated licensing were leveraged, but all servers and worksta-tions were replaced. The existing OSIsoft PI historian server was reused with new interfaces installed on the HMI servers.”

Selking presented “Ivy league school upgrades legacy system to Allen-Bradley for improved reliability, optimization and scalability,” this week during the Process

Solutions User Group meeting this week at the Automa-tion Fair at Home event.

Document and implement Beyond upgrading to current PLC technology, updating and standardizing HMI graphics, and replacing HMI servers and workstations, Selking said the university also wanted to survey its network and fully document its new control system’s specifications and process/alarm setpoints. This would allow new staff to train on and learn to use the control system while replacement components and software would also be easier to verify and maintain.

“Along with this retrofit, a whole new set of control panel drawings were provided with detailed wiring diagrams, so everything was also documented and labeled about what was wired where,” said Selking. “We also upgraded from legacy network product to a new Rockwell Automation Stratix 5700 switch.

Selking reported the first month of the project consisted of going through the facility’s existing control panels, and identifying and documenting all of its cables to develop

“Using current controls technology means expertise, added support and spare parts are more readily available.” Thermo Systems’ Grant Selking discussed a recent chilled water system upgrade at an Ivy League university campus.


the new control panel drawings and software specifica-tions. “We also documented existing digital sequences and logic, so they could be replicated,” added Selking. “This also let us identify pain points, so they could be fixed in the future.”

The second and third months involved procurement and programming, fabricating some components, developing the PLCs and HMIs, factory acceptance testing (FAT), and performing other parts of the implementation plan. The fourth month consisted of ripping and replacing hardware, which was followed by a two-month testing and commis-sion period. A second on-campus plant provided chilled water during the outage.

“This last stage included loop checks, functional checks and a burn-in period,” added Selking. “We were going to wrap up in spring with an operations startup, but then COVID-19 put us on pause like everyone, and we had to come back a couple months later for fine tuning.”

Squeezing in modern controlsSelking reported that one difficult aspect of the chiller control revamp project was that its components were all in one small area in a basement. “This was a challenge because they could only be accessed by one person at a

time. One electrician had to do all the terminations and re-terminate all the cables,” said Selking. “Also, because the controls were in a basement, all the components had to be broken down, carried down two flights of stairs, and rebuilt and rewired in the panel onsite.

“We also encountered some uncommented PLC pro-grams, and many undocumented cables, which created some conflicts in the panel drawing,” explained Selking. “So we just went through everything with the client, and eventually tracked everything down. One of the main ben-efits of this process is they gained the full panel drawings and software sequences with explanations that they wanted.”

Other advantages of the new control system included its use of updated EtherNet/IP network communications protocol, as well as one ControlLogix rack and three I/O racks, with space for a fourth if needed in the future.

“Using current technology like this also means expertise is available, and so it’s easier to get to the most efficient state,” said Selking. “We also implemented one Studio 5000 software platform. This means added support and spare parts are more readily available, or can be shared with similar applications on campus, which reduces risk. We also put these controls into one dedicated cabinet, which also avoids the risk of unauthorized access.”

PRESS FIRE IS NO MATCH FOR TEAMWORK AND PLANTPAX SOFTWARE by Jim Montague

What’s the true value of flexible, modular, easily transportable distributed control system (DCS) software? Oh sure, it might streamline the aver-

age migration project, but what’s it worth if it can help a manufacturer rebuild from a devastating fire, and get a major production line up and running two or three times faster than would’ve been possible without that software? What’s the price of a gain that huge? Priceless might be a good word.

Well, that’s just the scenario that went down on a press and forming line at Plummer Forest Products in Post Falls, Idaho, in March 2019, when a bearing failed on an exhaust fan, dropping sparks on the hot stacker and loader in-feed equipment. This triggered several small explosions, and then a large explosion and fire, which severely damaged the production line, gutted its operations booth and con-trols, and burned a hole through the roof of the building.


The plant was quickly evacuated as the fire spread, and thankfully no one was injured. However, as is the case with most fires, there was even more damage from the water used to put it out. The facility’s 200 sprinkler heads ran for five hours, and water damaged its motor control centers (MCCs), primary controller rack, and remote systems consoles that were left with internal components floating in water.

[sub]Regroup, rebuild, rewire With the company and its employees and their 70 fami-

lies depending on a quick return to production, Plummer and its two system integrators, Advanced Electrical Tech-nologies (AET) and Global Process Automation (GPA), quickly set to work, along with everyone else at the com-pany. The team presented their story, “Devastating fire means rapid rebuild with Plant PAx DCS in record time” this week in the Process Solutions User Group conference track during Automation Fair At Home.

Together, they reported going from starting to rebuild to sending identical finished product out the door in just three months. The rebuild included the plant’s electrical systems, and the PlantPAx DCS from Rockwell Auto-mation made it possible for their recovery to happen so quickly. The rebuild and electrical work started in June, one-shift production resumed in the first week of Septem-ber, and the plant was back up to full, 24/7 production in November 2019.

“Our job was the keep the consoles as close as possible to what they were before, so they’d be familiar to the opera-tors, let them go back to work, pick up where they left off, and resume production as fast as possible. We salvaged, rebuilt and repainted the consoles, and added PlantPAx,

too,” said Adam Hamer, automation manager at AET. “One capability that helped right away was the Integrated Architecture Builder (IAB) software tool in PlantPAx, which integrated with Plummer’s existing system, and let us rebuild its network topology much faster.”

IAB was also useful because, while plenty of fire-dam-aged wire had to be replaced, AET and GPA were able to reuse a significant amount of in-place cables. “We lived close to our scrum whiteboard and P&ID drawings for quite awhile, but we also found that we didn’t have to replace some legacy stuff, such as the Profibus modules that talk to the Siemens I/O points. We were able to use pre-wired 1492-IFM modules and cables, which helped us wire the controller cabinets quickly.”

[sub]Recreating the look Robert Anderson, account manager at Plummer,

reported that one task in reconstructing the press line’s human-machine interface (HMI) system was converting scripts in the previously used Wonderware software to Fac-toryTalk View SE in PlantPAx. It also migrated from its former Honeywell Measurex recipe management system to PlantPAx’s RecipePro.

“We were able to use the PlantPAx add-on instructions and available faceplates to give us a common look and feel. We were also able to cut and paste instructions, which let us set up I/O and motors faster, and use FactoryTalk View SE to quickly duplicate our previous HMI graphics,” said Anderson. “We also got immediate feedback from our operators about what was working or what needed to be fixed, and all of this input had a huge impact on our ability to recover so quickly. In fact, after startup and just three runs, we were producing sellable product.”

The aftermath of a forming press fire at Idaho-based Plummer Forest Products presented a grim picture, but with help from all of its employees, two system integrators and PlantPAx DCS, the particle board manufacturer was rebuilt and shipping product again in just three months.


Anderson added that the 1,625-ton forming press typi-cally produces 25-layer sheets, with about half going to retailers for sale as underlayment products, and half going to industrial manufacturers after receiving additional lami-nations. “We also had get the line’s motors and servos up and running again, and integrated them and two Power-Flex 700S drives with the PlantPAx DCS. All together, we had 2,500 to 3,000 I/O,” added Anderson.

“We weren’t glad about the fire, of course, but we were happy with how everyone pitched in, and that we worked so well together so well with AET and GPA,” Anderson said. “Everyone understood and worked to meet our fast timeline. PlantPAx worked great, too—we’re planning to use it in other operations across our plant to help optimize the products we make every day.”

WALK THE MODERN DCS PATH WITH PLANTPAX 5.0 by Jim Montague

There are more than a few old distributed control systems (DCS) out there, with dedicated hardware and inflexible software, which make them hard to

adjust, reprogram or upgrade as the needs of their pro-cesses have changed. Many users yearn for the flexibility that will improve their optimization and performance, but given former constraints, the way forward can often be hard to imagine let alone traverse.

To help potential users modernize their aging systems, Chris King, PlantPAx migration business development manager at Rockwell Automation, reported there are many tools, tips and strategies to convert from legacy DCSs to PlantPAx 5.0.

“The typically accepted number is there’s $65 bil-lion worth of installed DCSs that are near end of life, including many that are 25 years old,” said King. “Also, many of the experts that worked with these systems have retired, and are brought back as contract labor, which increases risk. These challenges are consistent. Aging systems increase the risk of downtime and lost production, so we’re looking for the best ways to work with users to modernize their systems.”

King presented “Modernization and migrations from legacy DCS platforms to Plant PAx 5.0” this week in the Process Solutions User Group track with the Automation Fair At Home event, presented by Rockwell Automation.

“The main question for many users is whether their DCS is obsolete. Many users say they’re keeping running with good maintenance practices, so it’s not obsolete. However, once parts start failing, many start failing around the same time, and it may be impossible to replace so many at the same time in a hot-cutover fashion, especially if there’s been a loss of competent, in-house expertise.”

Barriers and driversKing reported that typical barriers to modernization include still-functioning legacy systems, financial justifi-cation challenges, perceived risks of conversion, possible downtime and lost production, and technical complica-tions requiring outside assistance. “We ask users who say their systems are still working about the hidden costs of keeping them working, such as unplanned downtime, and make sure we can explain the benefits of making a change. Users often associate change with risk, but we believe a little ‘well-planned downtime’ is worth it if it can eliminate future risks and larger costs.”

Conversely, King reported factors that inspire users to finally seek modernization include system faults and failures, resources lost due to retirements, inadequate documentation, added support costs, system limitations, and the chance to employ new standards and technolo-gies. Similarly, possible benefits and justifications for


DCS modernization include increased production with better automation, improved quality or efficiency, better regulatory compliance, reduced labor costs, fewer operat-ing risks, reduced legacy support costs, and the chance to improve production agility.

Modernization defined and pursuedKing explained that DCS modernization is a wide-ranging process to convert obsolete legacy controls to a modern platform, but it’s also an opportunity to improve plant operation. This means modernization requires a good design, and must be part of a process application’s overall lifecycle that must be sustained after initial construction.

“Modernization is a process, not a one-time, one-shot project,” said King. “Modernization improves both the legacy system and the process. Replacing an old DCS with the same controls doesn’t provide any return on invest-ment. However, modernization projects are complicated, and people simply don’t know what they don’t know, so it’s important to get help from an organization like Rockwell Automation that does modernizations every day.”

Once a user decides to pursue modernization, King stated that a typical project begins with a front-end load-ing (FEL) process that defines its scope and planned steps, including cost estimates and scheduling. The three typi-cal FEL steps are:• Aligning automation opportunities with business

needs and goals;• Determining preferred program options and obtaining

capital funding; and• Finalizing scope, cost and schedule for the automa-

tion project.

FEL goals usually include financial justifications, reli-able preliminary engineering, execution planning and the evaluation of risks associated with all of the above,

said King. “We also believe early-engagement FELs are important because costs are lower and the ability to change outcomes is greater. We want to make sure projects aren’t undercut by skimping on planning and budgeting.”

Once justification and planning are done, King reported the two main conversion strategies are rip-and-replace or phased. “Rip-and-replace is generally riskier, more costly upfront, and likely requires an extended shutdown, so the preferred approach is usually phased because it doesn’t require shutdown and is less risky, even though it may take longer and cost more later,” he said. “We believe the five best practices for reducing the risks and easing concerns about modernization are: early planning, engaging experts, establishing standards, execution discipline and expected innovation—so the old system won’t simply be replicated.”

Phased migration toolsKing reported that Rockwell Automation offers many solu-tions for assisting with and performing phased migrations. These include conversion services, database conversion tools, OPC server software, custom cabling, engineered interfaces and I/O scanner modules.

King added that Rockwell Automation can help users convert from many well-known DCS systems, and its Service and Solutions Business (SSB) has also developed tool-assisted migration services. These include legacy-system exports, crawler and application code managers for automated and manual conversion, and reviews of legacy logic, graphics and configurations to normalize platforms. Extracted data is moved into Studio 500 software, where it can be converted into a PlantPAx application.

“Porting over configurations and other data is useful because it means users don’t have to rewrite or remap what they’ve done before,” added King. “This is just another of the many ways that PlantPAx creates lifecycle advan-tages for users.”

“Aging systems increase the risk of downtime and lost production, so we’re looking for the best ways to work with users to modernize their systems.” Rockwell Automation’s Chris King explained the range of tools and services available to smoothly bring end users’ intellectual property forward to a modern, flexible DCS platform.


NAVY OVERHAULS BOILER CONTROLS WITH PLANTPAXPaul Studebaker

When U.S. Naval Base Kitsap planned to migrate its steam plant from an obsolete Westinghouse WDPF distributed control system (DCS) to

PlantPAx, Rockwell Automation and integrator Systems Interface partnered to design and deliver a modern system with integrated burner management and combustion control systems. Extensive up-front migration and accep-tance-test planning for all hardware, software and control strategies allowed project execution during ongoing opera-tions, with no loss of steam availability.

Naval Base Kitsap, near Bremerton on Puget Sound, has three 140,000-lb/hr dual-fuel boilers with two burn-ers each to provide redundancy and a seasonably variable steam supply. “As designed and commissioned in August, 1989, the WDPF DCS with Coen burner control was very specific to boiler control,” said Craig Beesley, engineering manager, Systems Interface Inc., in his Process Solutions User Group co-presentation with Matt Baker, manager, strategy and marketing, Systems Interface, this week at the Automation Fair at Home.

Other controller-based systems have since became user-configurable, so the Navy had trouble finding support for both the control and burner systems. “Feedwater, diesel fuel and condensate I/O were intertwined with boiler I/O, making it hard to trouble-shoot and repair without an unplanned shutdown,” Beesley said. “Shutdowns interrupted steam to all base operations, including space heating.”

The Navy had since standardized on Allen-Bradley equipment for consistency and serviceability, so it sought a Rockwell Automation solution. The team included Absher Construction, Puyallup, Washington as the general contractor; the Rockwell Automation Industrial Combus-tion and Steam Generation (ICSG) team for burner and combustion control expertise; and Systems Interface as system integrator. Systems Interface has been a Rockwell Automation partner for many years for control systems, and has also become a partner for drives and process control.

Along with replacing the WDPF, the new system was to provide a better controlled fuel burn, particularly on diesel fuel, to increase efficiency and reduce odor com-plaints. This was done in part by converting the fixed-speed burner fans to variable-speed using Allen-Bradley Power-Flex 750-Series drives. The PlantPAx system was also to separate all auxiliary systems to ease troubleshooting, with the separated systems integrated in a single control room.

“The first step was to document every aspect of the existing system. Did it exist? Was it being used? Where is it located?” Beesley said.

“The original control room had one computer per boiler, and operators moved from computer to computer to control the boilers. Now, the room has 15 screens that are separate clients, so any monitor can be used for any system in the plant.” Systems Interface’s Craig Beesley explained the increased operational flexibility offered by the new PlantPAx system at U.S. Naval Base Kitsap.


To maintain steam, the Navy required that one boiler always be available, and a second on standby. “So, the plan was to cut one boiler at a time over to the new system, sur-gically removing auxiliary systems while not interrupting steam flow,” Beesley said. The procedure was extensively discussed, planned, coordinated and documented, and was done one loop at a time, unwiring from the old system, wiring to the new system and recommissioning. To main-tain control, signals had to be duplicated and sent to the plant master system for the feedwater, motor cooling, reverse osmosis and other systems.

The PlantPAx system has redundant processors for imme-diate failover. Human-machine interfaces (HMIs) with FactoryTalk View SE clients in each plant allow local boiler control. Burner management and combustion control are on separate systems with a redundant ring topology and fiber to the PlantPAx server in the central control room.

Federal regulations require dual fuels, but the old DCS could not run both fuels on the same boiler by running diesel on one burner and natural gas on the other. This is easily done with the new system.

“The original control room had one computer per boiler, and operators moved from computer to computer to control the boilers,” Beesley said. “Now, the room has 15 screens that are separate clients, so any monitor can be used for any system in the plant.”

The Rockwell Automation ICSG team and Systems Interface worked closely on the boiler HMIs and screens in the control room, and dialed in the design and function of the faceplates of the boiler management and combustion control systems. System training was performed on each part of the system as it came online. “Operations had to

use both the old and new systems together so by the time we switched over the third boiler, operators were familiar with the new system,” Beesley said. “`They also received a week of comprehensive training at the end of the project.”

The first boiler to be refitted was No. 3, as it had no economizer, and was done in the fall of 2017. No. 2 boiler was delayed until the spring of 2019, for unrelated reasons, and No. 1 followed in the fall of 2019. Each boiler took five to six weeks to complete.

“The Rockwell Automation ICSG partnership is a best-in-class strategy,” said Baker. “We’re a systems inte-grator—Rockwell Automation has been doing burner management for a long time, we have not. They know the standards and regulations—FM, NFPA, etc.”

According to Baker and the Navy, keys to success included working closely with Rockwell Automation, the consulting engineers, and the general contractor, with a close collaborative relationship between Rockwell Auto-mation and Systems Interface. Success also was assured by a common software, look and feel; a lot of time on the base for commissioning; and the fact that it was an iterative project. “Lessons learned on the first and second boilers were used on the second and third,” Baker said. It helped that training was performed along the way.

The Navy specified Rockwell Automation for familiar-ity and to ease internal support, and now, “The Navy is able to support the system, which they couldn’t do with the Westinghouse DCS,” Baker said. “The old system was too tightly coupled – comingled. Now it’s integrated but separated enough to do maintenance and troubleshooting without bringing the boilers down.”


A VIRTUAL VERSION OF THE ROCKWELL EXPERIENCEBy Chris McNamara

There are challenges in pivoting from a traditional in-person event, like Rockwell Automation’s annual Automation Fair has been for the past 29 years, to

a digital event. But the pivot also presents opportunities—case-in-point: the new Rockwell Automation Experience, which boasts three virtual representations of actual facili-ties within Rockwell’s Milwaukee, Wisconsin headquarters that enable Automation Fair At Home attendees to experi-ence and explore all from the comfort of their home office.

“All three of these spaces are actual, physical facilities in our Milwaukee headquarters, now turned into virtual spaces through 3D technology,” explained, Rockwell Com-mercial Program Manager Nicole Bulanda, who invites Automation Fair attendees to “walk” through the spaces, click on hot spots for deeper dives into solutions, and pose questions—live—to Rockwell experts. “In that respect it’s the same as if you were on the tradeshow floor at our event,” she said. “We want to give attendees the same experience as they would have in person.”

Bulanda and her Rockwell colleagues invite you to come take a tour…right from your home office…no need to change out of your sweatpants.

Digital Engineering HallThe Rockwell team notes that visitors to this virtual area will learn about design tools to help advance designing, operating and maintaining your digital environment. The area includes:• End-to-end demonstrations of a digi-

tal engineering project • A representation of a digital engineer-

ing ecosystem

• Guidance to “Do It Better Digitally” • Tutorials on how to improve your “view” of indus-

trial computers • A dive into Rockwell’s augmented-reality services

“Here you’ll find high-level messaging about how we help companies plan for their digital transformations,” said Bulanda, who herself pops up (virtually) within this space to assist visitors in investigating innovations and clicking on the Ask The Expert buttons to directly connect with thought-leaders. (Between noon and 1 pm and 3-5 pm CT each day this week, technical experts are available to provide detailed answers to questions attendees might have about solutions for their own facilities.) Tour the Digital Engineering Hall

Digital Thread ExperienceThe Rockwell team invites visitors at this area to tour an end-to-end Connected Enterprise system and see offer-ings from Rockwell Automation and its PartnerNetwork ecosystem. During this tour, visitors can view solutions in

This “robot integration” stop on the Digital Thread Experience is only one of the robust, interactive displays at Automation Fair At Home that also features on-demand Zoom conversations with Rockwell Automation subject matter experts.


https://www.rockwellautomation.com/en-us/company/events/in-person-events/automation-fair/digital-engineering-hall-at-automation-fair-at-home.html

action and discover how to accelerate their digital trans-formations. This area also includes:

• Guidance on accelerating time-to-value with the digi-tal twin

• Ways to increase flexibility with iTRAK Intelli-gent Technology

• Tips for raising production rates with MagneMover LITE and maximizing productivity with ro-bot integration

• Instruction on improving operational insights with FactoryTalk InnovationSuite and optimizing systems with digitally-enabled Lifecycle Services

“This is our end-to-end digital thread story,” explained Bulanda, who notes that this is her favorite station within the Rockwell Experience, since it focuses on an actual working production line within the Rockwell head-quarters, detailing each component, including the cobot (affectionately known as Kevin) that sorts orders. “This area is teeming with content,” she said, highlighting the how-to videos, product PDFs and other resources visitors can access here. Tour the Digital Thread Experience

Product & Technology ShowcaseThe Rockwell team invites attendees to see how they deliver The Connected Enterprise from smart devices to smart systems and provide smart operations that deliver the foundation to demonstrate industry key plays. This area also includes:• Advice on empowering digital operations and using

PlantPAX 5.0 DCS, Lifecycle Services, Integrated Packaged Power and scalable control systems

• Guidance on designing and managing your automa-tion system

• Tips on smart sensing and safety, motor control and industrial control

This segment of the Rockwell Experience “puts it all together,” according to Bulanda. “It’s the nuts and bolts…the things that bring The Connected Enterprise to life. These are things you’d traditionally see at our booth at Automation Fair but it might actually be better in this format because, with things that are highly theoretical, such as data analytics, in this virtual format you can better understand how it can work at your facility. You can really visualize the value for you here.”Tour the Product and Technology Showcase

Virtual for now & after the return to normalWhile these virtual experiences were launched in con-junction with this week’s Rockwell Automation Fair At Home event, they will continue to be available throughout the coming year, even after the actual brick-and-mortar versions of the facilities return to hosting live, in-person tours at Rockwell headquarters.

And while the Rockwell Experience was built solely for users, Bulanda admitted that it scratches an itch for her and her colleagues. “We really miss having conversations with customers. I miss seeing humans in my booth,” she said. “This enables us to do that.”

Attendance for Rockwell Automation At Home has far surpassed organizers’ expectations; more than 35,000 global registrants are attending this week. The Rockwell Experience virtual facilities welcome each one of them…from wherever they may be…and sweatpants are just fine.


https://www.rockwellautomation.com/en-us/company/events/in-person-events/automation-fair/digital-thread-experience-at-automation-fair-at-home.html

https://www.rockwellautomation.com/en-us/company/events/in-person-events/automation-fair/product-and-technology-showcase-at-automation-fair-at-home.html

Imagine, Define and Discover YOUR Next

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