Each month E Tech Group’s internal Wellness Team promotes healthy living through a different internal “challenge” that focuses on one area of wellness. For our July we had a “Challenge for Charity.” Employees tracked their active minutes; the more activities and fitness minutes tracked the more money we would donate to Revived Soldiers Ukraine. Over the course of the month E Tech Group team members recorded over 45,000 active minutes! We are honored to contribute and support to the efforts of Revived Soldiers Ukraine.
Challenge
“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”. This quote by Benjamin Franklin emphasizes the importance of site surveys for industrial environments. With time, money, and resources on the line, site surveys act as a crucial first step to plan for maintenance, spare parts, upgrades, and mitigate the risk of unplanned downtime. This critical information was needed by a leading American food distributor to better understand the health of their plant’s automation infrastructure. E Tech Group was engaged to thoroughly assess their automation hardware and operational technology (OT) networks and provide a comprehensive site assessment report. This report would clearly identify risks and opportunities as well as crucial steps to upgrade and strengthen their automation infrastructure.
Solution
The customer’s plant had three buildings which included over 500 control panels. E Tech Group analyzed numerous factors and data points to determine areas of risk and opportunity across their plant. This included the lifecycle of parts that are currently being used on the production floor as well as the equipment’s life cycle positioning ranging from active to end of life. E Tech Group’s certified professionals also evaluated existing processor types and quantities across the plant and documented the customer’s OT network infrastructure.
The data collected from the site assessment was then organized and analyzed to serve as a roadmap for facility improvements. E Tech Group formulated a comprehensive, well-structured report for the customer’s management, engineering, and maintenance teams which outlined upgrade recommendations and a clear timeline to implement these upgrades based on the priority level.
Results
E Tech Group worked closely with a plant electrician to complete an on-site assessment of all control panels and OT networks in less than eight weeks. The data from the site assessment was used to provide a comprehensive report outlining automation infrastructure by area, OT network architecture, obsolescence, and recommended paths forward to modernize. The site assessment resulted in a proactive plan to reduce the customer’s likelihood of future controls hardware failures and provided a clear roadmap to strengthen their automation infrastructure.
At its root, IIoT is about getting data from sensors, instruments and other production devices to the Internet for analysis and consumption by wider circles of users—and getting analytics results back to the line. This data can be used to monitor, control and optimize automated processes, and has gained rapid traction in a variety of sectors, including: There are countless applications and benefits associated with the adoption of IIot, but the novelty has proved an obstacle in implementing these networks. What the Automation Experts are Saying About IIoT Luckily, these tasks are getting easier as users get more familiar with implementing IIoT in their processes and plant, according to Alan Maxwell, VP of the Process Industries Division at E Tech Group, an automation system integrator based in West Chester Township, Ohio and certified member of the Control System Integrators Association. “It’s getting easier for us to connect sensors and acquire signals using software like Kepware that’s part of PTC and Wonderware System Platform that’s part of Aveva, and network via OPC UA and MQTT Sparkplug protocols via Skkynet’s DataHub,” says Maxwell. “This lets them integrate third-party IoT solutions like Oden Technologies’ software for specific industries to help run analytics in cloud-based applications and improve production lines.” Stephen Veldhuis, CTO at E Tech Group, adds: “Five years ago, IIoT was a lot newer, and everyone was doing it differently. So, we evaluated the viability of IIoT and found wireless sensors and edge computing could reduce constructability time and labor, but little standardization of protocols and limited device life due to power consumption resulted in few viable cases for implementation. However, IIoT continued to evolve, mature and add new capabilities. Now, we find more workable use cases, driving adoption.” Customizing a Control System in Chicago For instance, Maxwell reports that E Tech Group’s Advanced Software … Continued
In today’s increasingly interconnected world, it is more important than ever to ensure that your IT and OT systems are secure and reliable. The results of an IT/OT assessment can help you identify and prioritize any security risks that need to be addressed. The assessment can also help you develop a plan to improve the security of your IT and OT systems, and identify areas for operational improvement, such as bottlenecks and inefficiencies. How does an IT/OT Assessment work? What is the process? How does E Tech Group manage the process? And how do we break it down into an easy 1, 2, 3 process? Step 1: One-to-two-day site visit photographing and documenting all panels and line OT assets – regardless of manufacturer – and running a facility IT network scan. Step 2: Collect, analyze, and grade all IT and OT Assets for security vulnerability & obsolescence. Information presented back in an interactive Asset workbook and comprehensive written report. Step 3: Client meetings with management and operations to review the data and discuss remediation plans. An IT/OT Assessment can prove an invaluable tool for a company facing operational difficulties, security breaches, or reliability in their automated processes. By understanding what’s right in your IT and OT systems – and what’s not – you gain the tools necessary for us to create a secure, custom automation system for your current and future needs. Learn more about IT/OT Assessments: the process, the benefits and how E Tech Group can be your partner through it all!
