‘We are likely to see a major change in the area of Machine Vision’
Published on : Wednesday 22-01-2020
Sivaram PV, Non-Executive Chairman, B&R Automation India.
What, according to you, are 3 areas where 2020 is likely to witness disruptive changes?
By disruptive changes, we mean the nature of industry undergoes a transformation – either in entirely novel products getting launched or a major change in the way the product or service is delivered to the customer. So, from a manufacturing industry context, from view of Industrial automation, we are likely to see a major change in the area of Machine Vision. Robots will actually see and move, and therefore become ‘aware’ of surroundings. The second area where we shall see a sea-change is in Intra-logistics – the manner in which products are conveyed in the factory by new-age assembly line technology like ACOPOStrak. A third area we shall see a major change, in the context of more of Edge/cloud technology being deployed, is proliferation of open protocols like OPC-UA. Interoperability and communication between diverse controllers is imperative, and coming together of major companies to support a vendor-neutral communication platform is a big step.
What is the present state of industrial automation in India in general?
Manufacturing industry in India can be segmented in different ways. We can think of large industries vis-à-vis SMEs, we can think o organised sector vis-à-vis informal sector, hi-tech products vs traditional products and so on. We can visualise a set of industries which produce products, and deploy procedures parallel to what is obtained in developed economies. These modern industries are quite well automated, and will continue to increase degree of automation. The other, larger segment which uses traditional means of largely manual operations, here there is big scope for introducing automation. Since awareness of benefits of automation is generally low in this segment, the way forward will be initially slow.
Is the slow pace of brownfield digitalisation an obstacle in the automation of more enterprises, especially SMEs?
There is a wide-spread discontent regarding the rate of digitalisation in brownfield plants. This is partly a reaction to the hype or over-expectation built up initially. But equally, the very true difficulties faced in interconnecting controllers of different makes and different vintage, form an obstacle. As more people get awareness of multi-protocol adapters like the Orange Box from B&R, the resistance will reduce. For the future, as more vendors start subscribing to open protocols like OPC UA, these difficulties will not be faced.
Yet another major constraint, is the amount of manpower trained in Automation. In a brownfield project, as the industry embarks on a journey of connectivity to obtain real time data, quickly it gets recognised that more automation of the production machines itself is also needed and beneficial. In other words, in the journey towards Industry 4.0, need is felt for strengthening the infrastructure with concepts of Industry 3.0 ! Alas, here one comes up against shortage of automation skills.
This is one revolution that is needed, as a pre-requisite for all others – a project of upskilling in matters of Industrial Automation. This needs to be done inside the colleges and institutes for the upcoming millennials. But we need to also impart same skills to people inside the industry. B&R Education Network is one such initiative.
After 5 years of Make in India campaign, manufacturing output is still stagnating. What more steps are required?
For an industry to aspire becoming part of a global supply chain, many steps are needed. A realisation that the competition is now on a global scale surely helps. The parameters on which selection is based include consistent quality, capability to scale up or down at short notice, cope with rapid changes in requirements of product features as well as quantities are all to be taken care. This means not just a decent amount of automation, but rather a good systematic deployment of automation. This must be backed by well-trained specialists. Over and above, a very good documentation of procedures, which can be made available in a context-sensitive manner at a modern HMI, is surely a plus point. Given the sensitivity to climate change worldwide, production methods with least impact on environment will get selected.
Recently at SPS 2019, ABB and B&R Automation announced fully integrated robotic solutions. Will this lead to increased demand for robots?
Traditional solutions with deployment of robots meant dealing with two independent systems – one for the automation with PLCs and another with robots. Each system had own control cabinets, wiring and electrical layout. Two different program systems were in operation, each system needed a level of training independent of each other. This effectively meant a doubling of effort and cost. It also served as an inhibitor in deployment, since two agencies were actually needed.
Integration of ABB robots into the B&R automation system eliminates the need for dedicated robotics controllers, separate control cabinets and programming specialists. The new solution reduces complexity and optimises synchronisation. Customers benefit from unprecedented precision and user-friendly programming. The robot looks like another, perhaps more sophisticated, actuator peripheral from the view of B&R Automation Studio programming platform.
This enables new concepts and new applications involving robots, controlled by the same PLC as for the machine. Machine builders will now be able to incorporate robots in their machine with the ease of using only PLC for complete machine operation.
Use of robot-solutions will further increase, as new generation machine builders can now use robots in their existing machine with all integrated automation system. They will need only one controller and one engineering system for development, diagnostics and maintenance. This lowers the threshold for those looking to implement robotics.
In closing:
As the century grows out of teens, and India strides forward to embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution, We look to the following technologies getting wide implementation.
Integrated Vision technologies will enable true ‘seeing’ robots
Integrated Trak and robots will make more accurate processing common, and
Integrated open hard real time communication will make interoperability as a plug-and-play.
An enabler for all of these technology adaption, is a strong push towards skilling and education in matters of automation. We must work with great urgency to train the trainers for success.
Sivaram PV, Non-Executive Chairman, B&R Automation India, has been associated with the company since its inception in India. He is also on the Editorial Advisory Board of Industrial Automation.