Industrial Automation Magazine India

Digitalisation is the key to gaining efficiency

Published on : Tuesday 08-11-2022

Ms Barbara Frei, Executive Vice President, Industrial Automation, Schneider Electric. 
Automation in industry is now moving to a connected plant environment. What are the challenges in this transition?

Majority of data is coming from the automation level. When you look from a very practical sense, if an end-user wants to go for it, there are obstacles, but the growth of automation is more complex. Universal is new, and there is an ecosystem used to the old standard. One of the main obstacles is the assumption that it would be very difficult to retrofit Universal Automation in the existing system and it could affect productivity, which we can prove is not really true. Further, the cost of setting up the infrastructure for Universal Automation, may also add to their problems, but these are all things that, from my point of view, could be overcome, if you are curious enough to really learn about the Universal Automation standard. So, in a nutshell, even if there are perceived obstacles at the moment, these are not real obstacles in reality and can be overcome, because as soon as the automation engineer learns about the upside of the standard, the more efficient the productivity will become.
 
Universal Automation is termed as a bold move in industrial automation. How does this go beyond Open Automation as understood today? 
You are right – it is really open in the sense that the software is detached from the hardware, so whoever has an Eco runtime installed on his firmware is able to run the Universal Automation application, and the reason why we have created a two-step program. On the one hand we have created UniversalAutomation.org, which is a non-profit organisation where we collect all the different stakeholders – all the end-users and system integrators on board, also machine builders and peers who are also now joining. On the other hand, we have launched the Automation Expert, and step by step, we are gaining system integrators, whom we work with. System Integrators who are working with the old standards struggle more, but those who are closer to the IT world, adopt faster.
   
The second part of this question is what about the major vendors? What is the progress, are they on the same page?
We have 2 or 3 peers in the market who have now joined us; others are still not convinced yet. Again, because you have to see, the industrial automation business, specifically when we talk about PLCs, is a business of 50 plus years. Schneider Electric launched the first PLC in the year 1968, so it is a long history where we had software detached from hardware, and now we come and disrupt the market once again. This will take time for adoption, so we start slowly to see adoption, but it is not a process that will be switching from one year to another! Yes, there are different interpretations of open automation, but I would say, and this is what we claim for us, that ours is truly open! So for some of our competitors, open means you can use any programming language, but that is not open from the end user perspective. So we really put ourselves in the shoes of the end user!
 
How can EcoStruxure facilitate this transition, especially on the energy front with a legacy of built-in inefficiencies? 
How can the industry become more efficient? The first thing is you need to measure what you are using, and here we have different areas for monitoring like the EcoStruxure power management solution which allows the end user to measure what they are using and where it is used. That’s the first step, and this is why we are saying digitalisation is the key to gaining efficiency. You need to have data to optimise, and when you have data you can start optimising in your process and energy distribution. At Schneider Electric we push a lot of this approach of energy optimisation and connected automation and we call it EcoStruxure power process, and for proper fit we have a software suite from AVEVA that does the optimisation – advanced process control and look at the asset performance management. All this helps users to get more efficient in the process and how energy is distributed. So again, t is about digitisation which brings in transparency data to make the right decisions.
 
Now that we know the methodology, what are the technologies that are driving energy efficiency and decarbonisation across industries? What about drives?
Let us take the second part first – decarbonisation – which means electrification and digitalisation. Instead of using fossil fuel based resources, you use electricity and clean sources to generate electricity. Now if you want to use electricity in an efficient way, you need digitalisation – automation and sensors – because only when you automate, you can monitor and control, and on top of it, the software to read the data and optimise. Having said that, these technologies have existed for many years now; they might have been costly and expensive to engineer, but now we have very good tools to engineer these, specifically with the combination of Universal Automation and the Automation Expert, together with the AVEVA suites, but there has also been a bit of reluctance in the market to accelerate these developments, because it needs also transformation on the customer side. Now in Europe, because of the energy crisis, the process has started to accelerate.
 
Coming to the second part, I am very passionate about drives and there is a huge potential here as the penetration rate of drives is low. Let me explain this by comparing the start of a motor with the switching on of a light – you can have a switch or a dimmer. The drive is a dimmer that allows saving 20-30% of energy and only 23-25% of the motors in the world are equipped with drives, so there is a huge potential here.
 
What about the Schneider Electric engagement with Indian organisations, especially with the Ministry of Jal Shakti to support their mission of sustainable water management?
We are working on a Green Yodha initiative with the Ministry of Jal Shakti in their pursuit to accelerate and achieve the sustainability objectives of the ‘Jal Shakti and AMRUT 2’ mission for water projects. In water distribution the losses are substantial and by monitoring the entire distribution system closely we bring in efficiency. All our IoT based EcoStruxure solutions come into play here – the controllers, data analyses, secure power solutions from APC and a unified operation command centre – where the customer can get from all sides the correct status. This is an example of a typical project.
 
Looking at the broader picture of Industry 4.0 and the Indian industry, how would you rate the situation on a scale of 1 to 10?
This is a tricky question! My last visit to India was 7 years ago, and at that time if I were asked specifically about the manufacturing environment, I would have said 1. Nobody wanted to put money on the table to automate or digitise, or optimise the production. But today, I think things have really changed. Industry 4.0 and digitalisation is on the agenda. India wants to become a strong manufacturing country for exports and compete in the world market, with quality and also on the competitive point of view, so today I would say it is on the scale at point 5 or 6. I also see the commitment to go right up to 10. For me, coming back to India after 7 years, this is a positive surprise.