Taking Command of Data in Increasingly Complex Industrial Operations

As industrial operations become more automated, they become more complex, with a variety of devices that can be subject to human error, machine failure, and cyber attacks. Any one of these issues can disrupt production, resulting in lost revenue, increased costs and lost profits, as well as disappointed customers who may look elsewhere for more reliable suppliers. Until now, data management solutions have only covered individual machines or partial aspects of a plant, such as PLC, SCADA, and HMI. As a result, operators and engineers have only partial visibility into the status of ongoing operations. 

IT and OT have developed along separate paths and the growing reliance on automation and digitization is exposing the weaknesses of industrial data management. IT has made great strides in improving the availability and useability of diverse data sets, while OT has lagged in digital asset management. Version control, automatic backup and restore, and visibility into plant operations tend to rely on a hodgepodge of device- or vendor-specific solutions providing a fragmented management environment and an inability to fully realize the benefits of data analytics to guarantee better, safer, and faster decision-making.

Standardized management of software, firmware and configuration settings is a fundamental element of modern plant operations. The ability to connect to all common automated production and IoT devices is the only way to keep track of program updates and manage version control comprehensively.

Too often, when a piece of equipment fails, operators restore control programs from outdated or incorrect versions and control settings. This can prolong downtime and result in faulty production that must be scrapped or repaired.

With complete version management, plant operators always have access to the latest version of software or firmware and can see if changes are needed. With the ability to automate backups across the plant, operators can save time and effort, reduce errors, and ensure a reliable data snapshot of the entire production environment.

An easy-to-use data management platform unlocks valuable business intelligence capabilities by consolidating and analyzing complex, fragmented production environments. Better industrial data management enables companies to increase overall equipment effectiveness by digitally connecting information from the field, control, supervisory and enterprise levels. They can gain insight into how efficiently components are being used and how often changes are being made to specific components. What's more, they can adopt policies and best practices for asset and configuration data, which can lead to higher levels of standardization and efficiency.

Compliance management is only growing in importance due to fast-changing regulatory mandates such as the KRITIS IT security law, the FDA 21 CFR Part 11 regulation, and GxP rules to ensure process quality, production documentation, and proof of compliance. Integrated documentation and regulatory workflows, such as those for the release process, help ensure reliable and seamless compliance management in which risks are reduced resulting in rule-compliant, traceable, and auditable production processes.

In today’s environment, everything is networked, or will be soon. Cybercriminals are relentless in finding network connections that operators may not even be aware of, creating more opportunities for damaging security breaches that can result in theft of intellectual property, ransomware, and cyber vandalism. Ransomware can be devastating, bringing operations to a halt until the plant owner agrees to pay an attacker, typically in hard-to-trace cryptocurrency. With an effective data management platform, operators can ensure they have addressed security vulnerabilities to protect production environments from attack, prevent damage, and avoid downtime. The ability to quickly restore production environments and devices to pre-attack versions increases resiliency in the face of unknown threats.

In this digital era, data has been labeled the new gold. It holds the ability to create value when organizations can consistently evaluate data and unlock insights that can be used to make better, safer, and faster decisions to increase plant productivity. Plant environments are only going to become increasingly complex with more Industrial IoT devices, robots, and automation. Data management in those environments is essential to simplify that complexity so organizations are more resilient, agile, and profitable.