June
2016
HYDROCARBON
ENGINEERING
50
These components are each important for an
effective ecosystem that can best serve manufacturing
customers, regardless of industry, and help them
improve safety, security, efficiency and reliability of
operations.
Rolling out the IIoT
The IIoT represents a fundamental shift, and, while
many organisations are recognising the potential
benefits of the IIoT to their operations, there are still
questions about how to roll it out.
Honeywell is working with customers to develop
transition plans that address the customers’ specific
needs and expectations, including:
Preservation of core customer internet
protocol
Customers typically have very large engineering and
intellectual property investments in their automation
systems. Control strategies, supervisory applications,
and human machine interface (HMI) graphics need to
be preserved as the automation system evolves. It is far
better to preserve this investment either by providing
ongoing support for these items in their current form
or by providing high fidelity translation to new forms.
Preserving in-place equipment
Ripping and replacing is usually not feasible or cost
effective, so it is imperative that the evolution to
the IIoT accommodates existing equipment. One
key strategy is to provide support for existing
communications protocols that allow existing
equipment to be integrated into an IIoT architecture in
a secure way.
Maintaining SIL levels
The safety integrity levels (SIL) of equipment and
systems in an automation system are central to it
achieving its primary goal of safe operations. Any move
to new deployment patterns and new devices needs to
maintain existing SIL levels. Of course, the same applies
to maintaining the security of a system. In both cases,
the evolution of the system should be seen as an
opportunity to not only maintain levels of safety and
security, but to enhance them beyond their current
levels.
On-process updates
A step wise evolution to new forms of automation
systems will occur over a period of time. As changes to
a system are introduced, they need to be carried out in
a way that does not interrupt or compromise plant
production. The updating of hardware and software as
well as the introduction of new system components
needs to be carried out ‘on-process’.
Performance capacity and demand
The IIoT encourages the collection of more data from
more sources. While this increase in data availability
provides a platform for improved analytics, more
advanced planning and optimisation applications, and
more powerful mobile solutions, the impact of this
additional demand for data on the existing components
of an automation system must be managed. There is
little point in enabling new forms of application if the
needs of those applications compromise the core
mission of the automation system.
A key enabler
Successful implementation of the IIoT will be a key
enabler for manufacturers to maintain high levels of
safety, security, efficiency and reliability of their
operations.
Safety and security are an overriding concern in any
industrial enterprise. While physical safety and
protecting employees and the environment are top of
the list for most facilities around the world, many
plants need to increase their cyber security, and the
IIoT could further highlight any deficiencies.
Although adapting the IIoT and connecting plants in
the cloud may seem to be further exposing operations
to potential cyber attacks, the IIoT can actually help
address these issues by pushing automation system
functionality either down into the hardened computing
environment (the edge) or up into the cloud. The cloud
computing environment has rich access control and
communications security mechanisms built in, while
the centralised nature of the infrastructure makes it
much easier to maintain in order to address potential
vulnerabilities.
As with security, reliability and the ability of a
system to remain operational over time can be
enhanced by moving functions out to the edge and
into the cloud. This allows them to be more easily
managed, maintained and upgraded, thus reducing the
impact of these operations on the system. This
decoupling also allows them to be managed more
independently, again allowing the system to remain
operational through a much wider range of lifecycle
events. Cloud-based deployment makes it easier to
expand a system with additional storage and
computational resources in order to facilitate
incremental plant expansions without the necessary
engineering overhead associated with a current DCS.
Conclusion
Ultimately, when a production process is running
safely, securely and reliably, attention can turn to
making production as efficient as possible in order to
maximise the profitability of the enterprise. This
increase in profitability amounts to optimising
operations in a range of areas, such as maximising
throughput or yield, minimising energy and raw
material usage, minimising engineering, maintenance
and labour costs, and so on.
The IIoT approach provides important
opportunities for improving decision making by
delivering the right information at the right time to the
people in the right places, so action can be taken
quickly.
