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.  

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When Dealing with Obsolescence Becomes a Challenge

E Tech Group’s Group Engineering Manager, George Bruce, shares his insight in leading an extensive system upgrade over a weekend. A system integrator upgraded a decades-old obsolete system to a current high-speed system over a weekend. This article originally appeared in Control Engineering. Avoiding Obsolescence: Insights on E Tech Group’s Process: To upgrade and separate the equipment, five systems controlled by a central PLC needed to be migrated to either ControlLogix or CompactLogix and have all communication transitioned to Ethernet. The team needed to map the three decades of piecemeal undocumented upgrades that were currently keeping systems operational. The largest system consisted of a 17 slot PLC-5 rack and 12 hard wired drives, with a mix of 120V digital inputs/outputs and analog inputs. Automation & Control System Needs Upgraded, No Downtime Allowed E Tech Group automation engineers were contracted to update and replace obsolete hardware in a pickle plant. They knew that if the one centralized PLC-5 that controlled five systems responsible for over 50% of pickle production failed, they would be shutting down the entire plant to identify and fix the issue, leading the company to lose valuable time and revenue during peak production periods.  To upgrade and separate the equipment, the five systems controlled by the central programmable logic controller (PLC) would need to be migrated and have all communication transitioned to Ethernet. A Piecemeal Automation System, Time Constraints & Michigan Weather Because there were a number of hurdles to take into consideration when beginning this upgrade, it took careful planning to ensure this project could be completed without disrupting production or extending the deadline. First, the team needed to map the three decades of piecemeal undocumented upgrades that were currently keeping systems operational. Second, understanding the facility used only fresh produce, and at certain times ran at … Continued

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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

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Battling Obsolescence and Risk Begins with an IT/OT Assessment

This article originally appeared in Automation World and features Melissa Bruno, Group Engineering Manager at E Tech Group. Click here to read the full article. During any technology assessment to determine the need for an upgrade, a direct line of communication from integrators to decision makers and maintenance and engineering teams can help them better understand how to evaluate potential solutions. When you’re working in a facility that has equipment reaching end of life or components on the verge of obsolescence, it would be nice to simply wave a wand and have everything be instantly updated.  Unfortunately, because multiple installations and upgrades have been done over decades, this process tends to be a bit more involved. Before you can address obsolescence, breakdown, and security issues, you need to have a full picture of where your facility stands. To do this, we perform what we call an IT/OT (operations technology) assessment. While companies like ours perform this work, the client’s presence and cooperation plays a crucial role. Here’s how to get the most out of your assessment. Engage and understand Compounded fixes over time make it difficult to identify the main issues or where to start resolving them. Having an open line of communication with the decision makers and maintenance team, we can help them better understand what we’re assessing and what it will take to correct it. The goal is to take a large amount of material and truncate it into digestible pieces that will allow all parties to evaluate potential solutions.  In many cases, maintenance technicians or other employees may not understand what we’re doing.  They see an engineer walking the floor and assume we’re there to complete a particular task. In reality we’re performing an in-depth assessment that will be used to give them control over the optimizations … Continued

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What’s the Process of an IT/OT Risk Assessment like for a Facility Team?

When it’s Time to Consider a Control Systems Upgrade: IT/OT Risk Assessment When you’re working in a facility that has equipment reaching end of life or components that are on the verge of obsolescence, it would be nice to simply wave a wand and everything be instantly updated. Unfortunately, because multiple installations and upgrades have been done over a period of decades, this process tends to be a bit more involved. To better understand what’s wrong and what it will take to provide a fix, it really is imperative that the client is as involved in this process as are our engineers. Because of the sheer number of issues and temporary band-aids placed on them, our clients often don’t know where to start. Compounded fixes over time make it difficult to identify the main issue or issues. That’s where we come in and can help add some rigor to this process. If we can have an open line of communication with the client’s decision makers and maintenance team, we can help them better understand what we’re assessing and what it will take to correct it. The goal is to take a large amount of material and truncate it into digestible pieces that will allow all parties to evaluate potential solutions.  Custom Automation Solutions Don’t Have to Start from Scratch In many cases, maintenance technicians or employees may just think we’re there to redo the building. They see an engineer walking the floor and may assume they’re only there to complete a particular task, when in actuality we’re there to perform an in-depth assessment and present options to give them control over what optimizations are implemented. Building automation and control systems integration is a specialized field; the client may not always aware of the extent of what could be, but are sometimes excited at the prospect of … Continued

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From Sinaloa to South Carolina: Automation Integrators with International Reach

North American industry is anything but a domestic endeavor, so E Tech Group was excited to be able to expand our capabilities to include Canada and Mexico in 2021. Advanced automation systems are the key to surviving, competing and thriving in rapidly-growing industries that require a near-constant ability to adapt and scale. E Tech Group’s custom approach to every control system project we take on makes us an invaluable partner to manufacturers, distributors and critical service providers alike. With expertise across a variety of sectors and always keeping an eye on the latest developments in engineering, our automation company provides clients with integrated, user-friendly process automation solutions that keep your operations running smoothly and securely 24/7/365.