Join us for the third episode of season 3 of The Plant podcast. Cybersecurity is everyone’s issue. The problem is, not everyone has a plan to deal with what might be modern society’s largest shared threat.
Listen in as we speak with Ahmik Hindman, Senior Networks & Cybersecurity Solution Consultant, at Rockwell Automation.
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Automation Fair: https://automationfair.com
Join us for the second episode of The Plant for 2024. True safety is designed into a system and should be smart enough to keep everyone safe and still maintain a productive output.
“… if a safety device fails, somebody can get hurt, and you probably won’t know it until somebody gets hurt. So you can’t wait on it to fail. You have to be proactive in when you replace those devices. So if you put in a system 20 years ago, then it’s probably about due for replacement of those safety systems.”
— Steve Ludwig
Join us for our first episode of The Plant for season 3. We kick off a new podcast season by taking a look back at early automation technology and how the PLC has influenced countless industries since its creation.
“…the the intuitiveness of people and how we work will always be challenged and we’ll always be able to do better because tools allow us to do better.”
— Kris Dornan
Listen in as we speak with Kris Dornan, Commercial Marketing Manager, at Rockwell Automation.
The proliferation of the Internet has created the largest interconnected network of machines the world has ever known. Our connected world is so complex that no one person or group understands everything that is needed to maintain the network and keep it in a healthy state.
The effort to maintain the network as “up” is constant. No matter where you live, someone near you is working right now to prevent something or stop something from losing its connected state. They may work just as tirelessly to get something back online that has lost its connection to everything else.
Of course, most of us never concern ourselves with these issues until we lose our connection to everything else. This scenario recently happened when many woke up to the CrowdStrike outage that caused major business disruptions over the last few weeks, especially for airlines and healthcare agencies.
This is a Big Deal
This issue is a big deal because it demonstrates the real dangers, and highlights the fragility, of a connected world of computers. Almost all these computers have an operating system. If you are unfamiliar, the operating system, or OS, is the intelligence behind every computer.
Even though operating systems are all around us now (PCs, phones, cars, etc.) most of them get updated automatically. The average person does not, and will not, take the time to manage this task manually. Many businesses cannot manage this job any better than individuals. This fact is why businesses like CrowdStrike exist. These datacenters oversee computer systems used by third parties. These third parties rely on their providers to take care of managing and distributing these updates in a planned, secure manner. Good news – this system works most of the time!
The problem is, when it fails, the failure can be wide and catastrophic. The recent CrowdStrike issue is being called the largest outage in IT history.
So if we know that any device connected to a network is exposed to the possibility of being compromised, what steps can organizations take to mitigate the risks associated with a fully connected enterprise? Since making everything less connected is not an option for most businesses, other solutions must be sought.
Discover new ways to deliver content, interact with your system and automatically respond to events on the plant floor. ThinManager Application Engineer, Nick Neppach, will demonstrate some of the newest capabilities from the platform including Containers, API, ThinManager Events and the all new ThinManager Logix PinPoint during this live presentation!
Click the link below to download a PDF of the presentation.
ThinManager What’s New 13.1 PresentationDownloadFor more information on ThinManager, please contact customersuccess@thinmanager.com
The modern industrial enterprise is complex. Many contemporary manufacturers not only face the challenges that come with automation and ensuring that facilities remain secure, but they must also manage very strict validation procedures. While downtime can negatively affect any type of installation, a validated installation requires even more effort when new equipment is commissioned, or existing equipment must be updated or replaced.
Fortunately, companies like Huffman Engineering have built their business around providing innovative solutions for their customers’ validated environments. We recently spoke with Keith Mandachit, engineering manager at Huffman. Keith shared some insights into a recent project Huffman completed for a global pharmaceutical manufacturer.
When one of Canada’s oldest operating dairy facilities needed to update their aging facility, they partnered with PID Engineering to create a modern visualization solution.
“Our customer needed to upgrade their outdated server running obsolete HMI software. This was putting their factory at greater risk of unreliability and downtime without support,” stated Jonah Renouf from PID. “We installed a Stratus Server and wanted to utilize ThinManager® to manage the client-based delivery system for HMI production screens throughout the plant.”
Our partners at Project Binder share their success using ThinManager to bring new life to an aging system. Read on to find out how this was accomplished and how it paves the way for expanding the project further.
https://projectbinder.eu/success-stories/extending-machine-lifespan/
Growth, for any business, is always a good thing. But even good things have challenges. When a growing food and beverage customer found that too many new machines combined with their existing controls system were making work harder, they called on Everworks, Inc. to streamline their facility.
The customer had acquired multiple machines and new automation equipment as part of their growth strategy. Each new machine came with an OEM solution that is typically a stand-alone FactoryTalk View ME PanelView or SE Local Station. The SE instances ran on industrial computers that required continuous updates and expensive maintenance. What the customer needed was a strategy to integrate 4 OEM systems with their existing native controls to create one modern, fully automated, large food processing line.
Singleton Birch Ltd is the UK’s leading independent lime supplier with a worldwide customer base. The product range includes quicklime, hydrated lime, natural hydraulic lime, graded chalk, aggregates and other specialist products and services.
Over the last few years, Singleton Birch has worked to optimize production operations. They have moved from a localized, plant-based approach to a centralized control room scenario with field-based operators communicating directly with the CCR (Central Control Room).