IT in Manufacturing


Rockwell Automation drives digital transformation

January 2019 IT in Manufacturing

Rockwell Automation and PTC have launched FactoryTalk InnovationSuite, powered by PTC, a software suite that enables companies to optimise their industrial operations and enhance productivity by providing decision-makers with improved data and insights. The new suite delivers complete visibility of operations and systems status from one source of information inside the organisation. The collaborative offering is the first to integrate technologies from both companies following the strategic partnership announcement in June.

InnovationSuite improves connectivity to operational technology (OT) devices on the plant floor, natively supporting the rapid, scalable, and secure connection of the most commonly used industrial equipment. Combined with data from information technology (IT) applications and systems, decision-makers can now gain a complete digital representation of their industrial equipment, lines and facilities, from anywhere in the enterprise.

Differentiated industry solutions

“Our offering is unique in its ability to improve how companies capitalise on the IIoT by combining expertise from industry, technology, and plant-floor professionals,” said John Genovesi, senior vice president, enterprise accounts and software, Rockwell Automation. “Now, we’re bringing innovative solutions from PTC together with leading analytics and manufacturing operations management from Rockwell Automation, for a differentiated industry solution.”

“We’re moving the needle on how leading-edge technology is applied in industrial environments,” said Catherine Knicker, head of strategic alliances, PTC. “Manufacturers have seen digital technology change, but their execution continues to follow practices established for the legacy business. This bundled offering will help organisations accelerate time to value and reinvent how they compete by breaking down barriers across their operations through a comprehensive approach to operational intelligence.”

Included in this collaborative offering are the FactoryTalk Analytics and MOM platforms, as well as PTC’s ThingWorx Industrial IoT Platform, which includes industrial connectivity from Kepware, and the Vuforia augmented reality solution. Key features of applications within the new collaborative offering include:

Intuitive, user-friendly interfaces that give users a view of their operations by combining data from multiple IT and OT sources and tailored to their role. An operations manager, for instance, can view overall performance of a facility, or multiple facilities, before researching the performance of specific equipment or factors impacting OEE.

Automated advanced analytics of IT and OT sources transform massive amounts of raw data into actionable or proactive information to improve performance and reduce the impact of downtime. Leveraging powerful artificial intelligence (AI) technology to simplify complex analytical processes, users can now proactively respond to issues ahead of any critical failures.

Augmented reality (AR) delivers more efficient and effective ways of looking at digital information within the physical world. AR enables more efficient training, wider knowledge sharing, and better first-time fix rates. Through the bundled offering, maintenance, for example, can receive digitised work instructions containing real-time performance and service history information so technicians can better diagnose and fix equipment correctly the first time.

For more information contact Michelle Junius, Rockwell Automation, +27 11 654 9700, [email protected], www.rockwellautomation.co.za



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