News & Knowledge

We’re your source for automation news. Keep up with the latest industry updates and E Tech employee spotlights, as well as tips and guidance from our manufacturing experts.

| March 15, 2023

Automation Trends: From Buzzwords to Real Needs

Automation will solve many problems—but not without people supporting it. Derrick Colyer, Business Development Manager at E Tech Group, shares his insights in this latest Food Engineering article on automation trends. Derrick discusses the role of AI in food manufacturing, and why digital transformation needs to come first. What’s Going on with Automation in the Food & Beverage Industry? The food and beverage industry has been one of the slowest to adopt new technologies—and maybe that’s a good thing. The auto, chemical and petroleum industries, for example, have served well as testbeds for new automation technologies. Meanwhile, food and beverage has benefitted from all the trialing and proving of “bleeding-edge” systems such that the buzzwords we’ve used for the last few years—e.g., “digital transformation,” AI/ML, “digital twin” and Industry 4.0—are becoming everyday terms that describe technology we now rely upon to be competitive in today’s changing world of consumer tastes. What Do the Automation Engineers & Integrators Have to Say? So, I asked system integrators, engineering houses and automation suppliers what their food processor clients perceive to be the three to five key trends/issues in automation today, and how processors are taking advantage of these automation trends. After tabulating the results, the top five trends cited were: Visualization (including enterprise, platform, machine and remote visibility) Data collection and analytics plus AI/ML Digital transformation Robotics and automated material handling (extending to warehouse automation) Security/cybersecurity Effective Automation & Visualization Go Hand-in-Hand When I asked integrators and system suppliers what are the key trends affecting food and beverage processors, their most-often cited responses were enterprise visualization/machine visibility/remote visibility—and tied with visibility were the tools that provide the instrumentation food processors use to achieve the visibility; that is, analytics/data collection/AI/ML, etc. As in IFR flying, without sensor data to power the visualization/instrumentation system, you … Continued

| March 9, 2023

IT/OT Vulnerability, We’ve Been Hearing All About It, But What Does It Mean?

You start your day as you normally would, reaching for your cell phone complete your morning routine. Maybe you check your bank account, the weather, the score from last night’s game. You do all of these things through apps that don’t function within a uniform operating system and allow for the security of password protection, ensuring firmware and protocols are up to date, or facial recognition. You may have to utilize different browsers because your banking website doesn’t function optimally with your default. What happens if the browser you used or sites you visited aren’t protected? You’ve just opened yourself up for and become vulnerable to malware or ransomware attacks, which could have negative financial and personal repercussions. Your phone itself could be an old model that is no longer supported by the manufacturer, preventing new security patches to be released for it while external threats continue to evolve. Now, imagine this on a large scale within a production or manufacturing facility managing numerous disparate systems, some may be on the local or secured network, some may not be. You can’t see at scale what may or may not be performing optimally, what’s nearing end of life or what may potentially be corrupted without physically walking or auditing your site every time you need this information. This not only impacts your facility, but employees, clients and potentially shareholders. What if there was something you could do? A way to proactively evaluate, align, and remediate potential threats, out of date protocols, and aging hardware. That is what an IT/OT Vulnerability Assessment makes possible. What Exactly is an IT/OT Vulnerability Assessment? Before you start, it’s important to have an intimate understanding and familiarity with your facility that will help in contextualizing the purpose behind an IT/OT Vulnerability Assessment. The IT, … Continued

| February 13, 2023

E Tech Group Promotes Navid Radnia, PMP to Director of Project Management

We’re pleased to announce that Navid Radnia has been promoted to the role of Corporate Director of PMO (Project Management Office). In this new role, Navid’s mission will be to create and continually improve on processes and methodologies that positions E Tech to deliver exceptional service to our clients on every project. Navid’s initial main focus will be to help establish project management and execution standards for the company. He will lead this collaborative effort with internal teams, using E Tech Playbook as a starting point, and pulling in best practices from other areas of the company to formulate a standard set of operating procedures that work best for the company as a whole. Navid has been with E Tech Group since the end of 2021, quickly earning the respect of his colleagues. He was nominated for several ETG Group Awards, including Rookie of the Year. Navid has a proven track record in project management excellence, delivering projects such as the world’s first compact proton therapy center – a highly targeted radiation treatment for cancer patients. His well-rounded expertise includes roles in Project Management and Production Control, as well as Field Service Engineer. Navid is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and has his Six Sigma Green Belt.

| February 2, 2023

Delivering a 1.5 Year ROI on a $2M Line Automation Recontrol

A large steel service center client was seeing troubling trends in its temper mill cut-to-length line: increasing downtime, lower-than-desired yields, and higher scrap losses. The client needed the problem(s) identified and mitigated ASAP so as to avoid more productivity loss and material hemorrhaging. Obstacle: Hack a Standalone Black-Box Control System The client was hampered in its ability to troubleshoot and improve the processes because the OEM equipment and its controls and drives programs were a “black box” solution. This meant only the OEM and its technicians had the source code of the software used to run the equipment. Without expert eyes, there was no way for the client to access and properly reconfigure the equipment and its controls. Solution: Perform a Comprehensive Process Analysis on the Mill Line Enter E Tech Group. With a 30-year Center of Excellence in the metals industry, electrical and mechanical engineering expertise, and deep knowledge of coordinated drive systems and automation modernization, E Tech Group consultants studied the client’s entire temper mill line. This included evaluating all of the upstream and downstream processes, the equipment and automation platforms, and the variety of alloys being cut to length. E Tech Group has held long-term partnerships with key automation manufacturers having executed thousands upgrades and recontrol projects over the past thirty years. As a Gold Partner with Rockwell and Solution Partner with Siemens, we confidently proposed the Rockwell PLC and Siemens Drives – a combination used often throughout many of E Tech Group’s previous projects that delivers the “best of breed” for both the PLC and Drives platforms. In addition, newly replaced levelers, hydraulic stands and piping were coupled with the far more accurate sensor and data reporting from the new PLCs and Drives back to the operators for enhanced and timely notification and decision making. Results: A Complete Control System Solution … Continued