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The Rise of Connected Systems: Managing for Efficiency and Growth

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The Rise of Connected Systems: Managing for Efficiency and Growth

CONTENTS

Introduction. ......................................................................................................2

Efficiency Gains From Remote Systems Management and Software Configuration ..............................................................................2

Health and Performance Monitoring to Reduce Production Downtime and Improve Yield ............................................................................3

From Data Management to Actionable Business Insight ..................................4

The Time Is Now: The Power of Platforms .......................................................4

Remote Systems Management With SystemLink™ ..........................................4

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There will be 50 billion connected devices worldwide by 2020

IntroductionIndustry is becoming increasingly more connected. Due to trends like the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), 5G, and the electrification of vehicles, the push toward connected systems has transformed what were once just theories and pilot projects into large-scale, distributed deployments with impactful business returns. These returns are largely derived from actionable, data-driven insights that allow future-looking companies such as Airbus, Firefly, and Siemens to maximize asset uptime, increase operational efficiency, and drive future product innovation.

Systems that manage, maintain, and extract insight from small-scale pilots or groups of hardware are relatively straightforward to implement because of the many analytics software sets, data management tools, and advanced processing edge nodes that are available today. Because of this, attention is now shifting toward the next challenge: finding efficient and innovative ways to scale and manage large-scale deployments, testers, and nodes across entire plants, fabs, and factories. This involves finding smarter ways to remotely manage systems and software configurations, monitor the health and performance of connected systems, and manage and extract insights from the data generated.

Efficiency Gains From Remote Systems Management and Software Configuration

The rise of connected systems has resulted in more distributed workforces, plants, and hardware. Aberdeen Essentials says that, on average, 31 percent of companies’ critical assets are in the field. Those in charge of managing and maintaining those assets must implement cost-effective strategies to manage the operational technologies for those assets. A systems manager might need to address aspects such as configuration, diagnostics, and device administration for systems that are halfway around the world. Companies can harness the flexibility of cloud-hosted technologies to implement remote system management solutions that provide useful insights into the state of multiple connected systems.

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In addition to maintaining hardware and making sure systems don’t fail, continuous improvement involves implementing effective software management strategies to keep system software and firmware up to date. This prevents potential performance issues, security vulnerabilities, and interoperability challenges with other systems. Manual software distribution is expensive and inefficient, especially when a company’s assets are geographically distributed. Additional challenges arise when companies staying abreast of technological innovations use technology from multiple vendors. Effective software configuration management strategies in industrial settings rely on proven frameworks and best practices to operate in highly dynamic environments where system availability and network stability are variables. A high mix of systems from multiple vendors operating at different levels of the IIoT network requires technologies capable of tracking and controlling granular software changes at the application and firmware levels of each system. Going forward, companies need to transition to platforms that incorporate software configuration management best practices to navigate the often-blurry boundaries between operational technology (OT) and mainstream IT solutions without impacting the business.

Health and Performance Monitoring to Reduce Production Downtime and Improve Yield

Downtime of production lines or test sets due to system failure can be expensive. For example, stopped production costs the automotive industry an estimated $22,000 per minute. Also, with the trend of connected systems, a company’s assets are no longer limited to a single fab or production line in a single city; they might be distributed across the world. Though critical, sending asset managers and maintenance experts to manually check system health and performance at all these is burdensome and inefficient. For companies, operational and maintenance costs are generally the largest contributor to total cost of ownership. This is especially true in aerospace and defense organizations, which purchase test equipment on 10- to 15-year service timeline expectations. Effectively monitoring system health and performance can help asset managers detect early problems that could turn into operational calamities.

In addition, increasing demands on companies to achieve higher throughput to remain competitive mean functional systems aren’t enough. Improving system performance beyond baseline functionality can drive operational efficiency. By having accurate insight into system performance and tracking system metrics, companies can better identify hardware that might need attention, more effectively allocate systems for test and measurement activities, and improve overall yield, production, and efficiency. Comprehensive online health monitoring solutions for large-scale system deployments can check parameters such as memory and CPU usage, networking, and I/O statistics to help minimize the impact of unplanned downtime and improve asset utilization.

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From Data Management to Actionable Business InsightIIoT systems generate a lot of data. ABI Research (QTR 1 2017) predicts that by 2020, industrial machines will create over 78 exabytes of data. Managing data on this scale is incredibly difficult but essential. Data gathered from a company’s connected systems can generate insight that prevents system downtime, streamlines operational processes, and helps develop future products. Consider companies like Jaguar Land Rover, which developed and implemented a smarter data management solution that reduced test costs and improved testing efficiency. Big data informs daily decisions that can potentially save—or cost—companies millions of dollars.

Insight from small groups of systems can be easily gleaned with signal processing and analytics tools. However, what’s even more valuable is gathering data from systems at all levels of an organization, spanning manufacturing, test, and maintenance, and ultimately developing strategies to correlate this data and obtain actionable insights. A smarter data management infrastructure allows companies to obtain information and perform analysis from the edge level to the enterprise level. An effective data management solution needs to incorporate data from multiple distributed sources and produce different insights at different levels so the right people see the right information and so raw data is translated into informed business decisions.

The Time Is Now: The Power of Platforms Building IIoT solutions today represents an opportunity to develop a competitive edge and avoid getting left behind as the market continues to embrace the latest solutions. Companies across all industries are adopting a new breed of disruptive platforms and ecosystems that will transform businesses into engines of innovation and growth by exploiting intelligent technologies such as sensor-driven computing, industrial analytics, and intelligent machine applications. With IIoT technologies, companies can harness the benefits of these state-of-the-art platforms to ultimately reduce the time and money they spend on systems management, decrease unplanned downtime, and improve asset utilization.

Remote Systems Management With SystemLink™

NI designed SystemLink to help engineers connect, deploy, and manage distributed systems, both NI and third-party, through a centralized interface accessible from anywhere. They can remotely configure and deploy software, monitor the health and performance of their equipment, manage alarms, and visualize application parameters. Additionally, engineers can automate the communication of data to customer-defined dashboards and remote operator interfaces.

For more information, visit ni.com/systemlink.

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