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.

| August 4, 2023

Understanding the S88 Standard: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners

Authored By: Jakub Mocny, PhD, Group Engineering Manager In the world of industrial automation, the S88 standard, also known as ANSI/ISA-88 or Batch Control, plays a vital role in providing a universal framework for the control and automation of manufacturing processes. Developed by the International Society of Automation (ISA), the S88 standard offers a structured approach to designing, implementing, and maintaining batch processes. For those who are new to the S88 standard and want to delve into its applications across various industries, this article serves as a guide to understanding the fundamentals of the S88 standard, its benefits, and an overview of its working principles. What is the S88 Standard for Batch Control Systems? The S88 standard provides a comprehensive and modular methodology for designing, implementing and managing batch processes in industries such as: The S88 standard establishes a consistent and structured approach to defining the equipment, control strategies, procedural operations, and information systems required for effective batch process automation. Within the ISA-95 framework, batch systems adhering to S88 standard are identified as Level 2 systems. They are subordinate to Level 3 MES systems and achieve process control through interaction automation and control systems (ISA-95 Level 1 and 2). In practical terms, a batch control application executes recipes. A recipe is a sequence of operations containing multiple recipe phases. Recipe phases interface with the physical plant equipment through equipment phases typically executed by PLCs. S88 sets guidelines for best practices that help industries self-regulate quality and consistency. Applications of the S88 Standard in Industrial Automation While the S88 standard was originally developed for batch processes, its applications are not limited to specific industries. The versatility of the standard enables its adoption in a wide range of fields. In general, automation system builders may benefit from using the S88 concepts even … Continued

| July 28, 2023

Edge series: Edge computing applications- Webcast

Applications Engineering Manager, Jeff Allen recently co-presented a webcast for Control Engineering covering how edge computing can be used for mission-critical, high-reliability automation and control applications. Applications demonstrate how edge computing can be used for mission-critical, high-reliability automation and control applications. See how system integrators have applied edge computing and see how it integrates in automation and control applications. Challenges and benefits will be discussed. Learning objectives: Understand how edge computing is being applied to automation and controls. Explore how edge computing enables certain applications. Learn how edge computing integrates with cloud resources. Review application benefits, return on investment considerations, and other benefits for automation and controls. Presented By:Jeffrey Allen, Applications Engineering Manager, E Tech GroupNate Kay, P.E., Control Systems Engineer, MartinCSI Moderated By:David Miller, Content Manager, CFE Media and Technology Click here to view the webcast.

| July 17, 2023

Shallow Labor Pool Forces Industrial Technology Change

This article was written by engineering technician at E Tech Group- Bradly Wright and originally appeared in Automation World. Click here to view the original post. To maintain uptime, ensure compliance, and maximize the use of skilled labor, more facilities than ever are centralizing production control and monitoring. There’s a reason more and more facilities are changing the way their production floor has been operating for decades: the current labor shortage. When production floors were fully staffed, it wasn’t uncommon to find a worker stationed at each point in the manufacturing process, monitoring the HMI (human-machine interface) as the PLC (programmable logic controller) repeated its programmed task, ensuring consistency and efficiency at each step. PLCs were designed to function optimally by executing one line of code at a time—with nothing else running in the background. This was a completely viable solution when manpower was available to individually monitor each process. Even now, the PLC remains in wide use because of its flexibility and ease of programming. It’s still incredibly reliable, allowing the operator to make on-the-fly adjustments thanks to real-time information transmission. The big difference now is in how PLCs are being used as more manufacturers are forced to implement a control system that will help centralize production control and monitoring. The use of a distributed control system (DCS) allows a central point of monitoring and operation that coordinates and supervises an entire plant completing a variety of processes and can be scaled facility wide. A PLC, however, is isolated in its control and monitoring. Because the DCS allows full visibility and control into a plant’s production, it helps make it possible to run at full capacity with a limited staff. What does the future look like? If the current trend continues, the production and manufacturing industry will likely take … Continued

| June 28, 2023

Utilizing the AVEVA PI System for a Large Pharmaceutical Client

The generation, maintenance and use of historical process data is always an important part of the discussion in the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector where transparency and traceability throughout the automation system is key. It affects things such as regulatory compliance, process optimization, business strategy, and overall viability in the marketplace. To enhance this aspect of their business, one of our clients chose to leverage the AVEVA PI Software Suite in their control system retrofit. The AVEVA PI system is one of the leaders in the industry and provides various architecture and licensing options to accommodate customers’ needs. The AVEVA PI is a product of industry collaboration and incorporates OSISoft’s data management prowess with AVEVA’s engineering expertise. Utilizing this powerful automation platform enhances process visibility, decision-making, and optimization throughout the industrial value chain. The functionality of the AVEVA PI system can be broken down into the following subsections: collecting data, storing data, contextualizing data, and visualizing/accessing data. Redundant Data Collection Collecting data is the process of taking data from a source and sending it along the pipeline to be stored. In this use case, the data sources are PLCs and relational databases. The PI System uses PI Interfaces and Connectors to perform the data collection. AVEVA offers over 450 interfaces, allowing for collection from a vast array of data sources. In the past, the client had issues with its legacy data collection; data gaps and outages would occur too frequently. PI Interfaces facilitate data collection and allow for redundancy to ensure that there is not a single point of failure in the system. In addition to the available redundancy, PI interfaces also provide buffering: if the archive itself is unavailable, the interface will store data locally until the archive is available again. The buffered data is then forwarded to the archive, … Continued