Information-enabled machines arm manufacturers with a valuable resource for gaining the critical operati onal insight they need in today's knowledge-based business environment. As manufacturers converge data between the plant floor and business office, machines that leverage the power of these domains have become a machine builder's competitive advantage.
While helping to differentiate machine builders in the marketplace, information-enabled machines have another advantage: they help machine builders reduce total cost to design, develop and deliver those machines to the market. As the economy has cooled, demand for information-enabled machines has heated up.
Why? Machines with embedded intelligence offer an innovative way to wring more productivity out of the manufacturing operation. That is because these machines generate data and diagnostics that lead to meaningful analysis. That analysis helps control engineers precisely identify how to improve their processes.
Fortunately for machine builders, industry standards such as Ethernet/IP have made building these sophisticated machines easier than ever. The Ethernet/IP protocol allows users to control, configure and collect information over the same network, while still having the ability to support standard Ethernet functions such as e-mail, web browsing and data sharing.
With such broad capabilities and performance, Ethernet/IP can serve the functi ons of multiple network levels. This converged network infrastructure simplifies a machine's design, and in turn helps machine builders lower their design costs.
The savings are even greater for machine builders that pair Ethernet/IP capabilities with controllers that have advanced text-string handling instructions. With supporting hardware, Ethernet/IP-enabled controllers can initiate e-mails to multiple addresses to deliver reports that maintenance personnel can use. For example, maintenance can check alarms, provide manufacturing proficiency data to management or deliver machine diagnostic data to the OEM.
Embedding intelligence-gathering devices into machines assists with the prediction and prevention of failures.
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