Belden Sets up a pilot project of Industry 4.0 in collaboration with Otto Bihler Maschinenfabrik
With the solutions of Industrial Ethernet of
The Industry 4.0 will have on the technology of production a similar effect to the that had the three industrial revolutions that preceded it, that turned around the engine of steam, the line of setting and the computer, respectively. However, the majority of the experts coincide in that, unlike the previous, the one of the Industry 4.0 will be a more evolutionary process that revolutionary. The key of the spectacular jump of productivity that foresees obtain will be in the convergence between automation, electronic and YOU. In the processes of production of the future will happen of an approach centralised to a strategy distributed in which the own pieces of work will determine his following location in the line of processing, what will contribute much more dynamism to the flows of production.
For this it will be necessary to have systems ciberfísicos highly specialised that they combine the computer technology with the mechanics and the electronics equipment dealers equipment dealers, and also will do lacking motorways of the information by which can communicate said systems. In a future no very far, each piece of work could have even his own steering IP.
In this context, the Industrial Ethernet will have a central paper. Besides, some areas of the chain of value, at present separated in the majority of the cases, -like procurement, production, logistical and maintenance- will approach much more between yes, what will allow to the companies react with greater flexibility to the demands of the customers.
An example of this is the capacity to supply special products for customers, manufactured in series or in batches of individual production, as it begins to be usual in sectors like the one of the sports footwear. This tendency also is increasingly popular in the area of B2B like way to cover of optimum form the demand of individual customers. All this has carried to Belden and to Otto Bihler Maschinenfabrik to set up a pilot project in Neckartenzlingen in which it can manufacture the last generation of connectors GDM according to own specifications of the customer and so much in series as in individual batches (with colours or different designs, for example, or with special accessories in individual container.
More manufacture, less setting
To be able to change between the production in series and the batches of individual production does fault an extraordinary flexibility. With her in mind, has developed a new strategy of machine that allows to change and mount the tools with celerity. Like the evaluations of feasibility will be already something of the past, the only form that will have the manufacturers to keep the costs controlled will be by means of a process of continuous production. With a speed of manufacture so high, the quality only can guarantee by means of the collected constant and exhaustive of data of measurement and of production. By his part, the modern monitoring of state allows the prompt identification of any potential of improvement.
The wallet of products of Industrial Ethernet of Belden makes possible all this, using solutions of wiring of the program of products Lumberg Automation and technology of network Hirschmann to implement the integral communication of data from the machine until the backbone of corporate network. The components include cables of connection and of data M8 and M12, as well as boxes of entrance/gone out with index of protection IP67, that bear Profinet and Ethernet/IP. With the incorporation of sensors Ethernet, these solutions of wiring enchufables in situ also can use to collect signals of binary devices and link them to the intelligent world through a bus Ethernet. At the same time, these solutions constitute the base of the systems ciberfísicos of the future.
Protection against ciberataques
Also can use switches of the program of products of Hirschmann to connect programmable controllers, that afterwards can visualise through the software of management of Industrial networks HiVision (that in brief also will be able to visualise the units of entrance/gone out). The systems cortafuegos for industrial surroundings of the family Eagle convert the protection against the ciberataques in an integral part of any infrastructure of administration of networks, fulfilling like this an absolute previous requirement of the Industry 4.0.
But, as we already have said before, the world of the automation will not change so much of a day for another, and the changes will produce gradually and to lower scale. The most likely is that the intelligent factories do not generalise to within of more than ten years. Not even it has taken place the timely process of standardisation. That is to say, that still remains enough for doing to facilitate the development of optimum systems and guarantee that the distinct areas of the chain of value converge of the best possible form. The platform Industry 4.0, established by the German industrial associations Bitkom, VDMA and ZVEI, could constitute a suitable frame for this.
Simultaneously, Belden will follow expanding his wallet of products of Industrial Ethernet and will integrate on the fly the norms that go promulgando. The strategy centres in transferring functions of the technology of networks to the area of the sensors and actuators. Belden Already has units of entrance/gone out that present characteristics up to now own of the switches. Also there is proposed to incorporate to the existent range of products of Profinet and Ethernet/IP versions that bear applications of hygiene and of EtherCat. In this sense, Belden wants to be consistent with his paper of partner in all the sector of the mechanical engineering, in which the companies follow using quite a lot of protocols of distinct Ethernet.
