Process Automation Evolution in the Manufacturing Sector
Published on : Tuesday 07-07-2020
Process Automation witnesses a wide growth in the new technologies developed at a low capital cost to ease the adoption for the companies in the manufacturing industry. Several companies offering process automation are investing in the development of the process flow to drive competitiveness with efficient production.
Process automation is the latest trend and the burning topic in the industry as it widely enhances the productivity of the companies and runs it into high profits. It primarily automates repetitive tasks and manual processes across the workflow, infrastructure, and back-office process.
“The incorporation of process automation into the workplace is not aimed to reduce the job counts, but you can achieve the complex task more efficiently with less time. It means automation of the work process in an efficient way to complete tasks”
Companies Strengthening Process Automation
Siemens, ABB, Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, Honeywell Process Solutions, Mitsubishi Electric, Yokogawa Electric, and Omron Automation are the leading companies involve in the development of the process automation for the end-users across the various industries such as retail, transportation, BFSI, healthcare, and manufacturing.
Concept of modular production through an automated workflow process in Industry 4.0
Industry 4.0 is one of the latest technological concepts, witness a wide investment from the end-users to enhance their current condition, and further influence their capability to produce more with high product quality. Moreover, the modular production concept is carried out in many ways, a recasting of ISA88 and ISA95. In addition, they are based on the plug-and-produce models that are further integrated modules to share the independent descriptions of the information to the user. The data generated from the technique of the process of the module are primarily shared by the module manufacturers in an XML-file, which known as a Module Type Package (MTP). The package primarily covers various traits such as process control, safety & security, human-machine interface (HMI), maintenance diagnostics, and alarm management.
Considering the features and operation values of the modules, these are primary use to cater to process effort and address the basic issues of the users. Also, it rectified and able to provide compiled information across operations such as asset management, automation, business systems, and control. The Industry 4.0 process architecture is based on smart-networked sensors, these are used to initiate communications with controls, automation systems, and concurrently or straight with business systems.
The formation of Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF)
The Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF) is an open group launched in late 2016, focused to create development standards to execute open, secure, and interoperable process control architecture. Moreover, the organization works closely with the FACE standard, a higher function software designed to lower lifecycle costs. It is widely adopted in the defense avionics industry and transitioned the industry operations from a proprietary solution to fully open systems architecture.
