UK industry must plug field communications gap

Experts from Siemens, HMS Industrial Networks and Schneider Electric give their views on why field communications technologies often do not command such a high priority when it comes to investment in plant upgrades in the UK industrial sector:

All forms of automation networking, including fieldbus, ethernet and mobile technologies, are under-used in the UK process and manufacturing industry, believes David Folley, general manager UK and Eire at HMS Industrial Networks Ltd.

This shortcoming, he said, is shown by the sales of gateway and remote asset equipment in relation to the size of the UK automation - process and discrete - marketplace compared with other countries.

Folley links this to a lack of understanding of the technologies and of the expertise needed to implement them correctly at many UK companies.

“If you compare the general level of understanding of these technologies for some reason it is lower here than countries like Germany, Netherlands or the Scandinavian marketplaces,” he said.

“Also, after finishing university, most of the best engineers go into IT - not the automation industry - due to the pay difference at the moment between the two business areas. This discourages students from [following] a career in the UK’s manufacturing industry.”

Another important point, said Folley is that the world is becoming a much smaller place with regards business transience.

“Automation machinery is sold worldwide on a more frequent basis and engineers need to understand the network technologies which are utilised in markets such as the Far-East, South America etc.”

Folley believes that it is down to the automation manufacturers to make the latest automation technologies available at universities and technical colleges.

“Only the major automation manufacturers are able to support this in any co-ordinated way, due to the cost of equipment needed to teach the latest technologies hands-on,” the HMS manager concluded.

For his part, Simon Ellam at Siemens believes that many UK plant owners and operators do consider adopting new field communications technologies, but are hampered by under-investment in modern control systems technology.

Taking a Siemens perspective, Ellam cited Open Ethernet - Profinet, as among the most under-used field communications technologies in the UK process industries.

Launched by Profibus about five years ago, Ellam said this offers users a means to standardise on one ethernet standard - rather than the various ‘flavours’ offered by different control systems and field device manufacturers.

“Legacy system are still challenging their owners with bespoke ethernet infrastructures, which have manufacturer-specific comms protocols running over the media,” said Ellam.

Profinet is, however, designed to leverage existing ethernet communications installations, particularly as it only requires the ethernet media, typically Cat5, to run.

“This means that users can increasingly use existing infrastructure but move away from proprietary, supplier-specific protocols,” said Ellam.

Moving on to wireless, the Siemens expert said that, while this technology has its place, some vendors may be over-selling wireless as the answer to everything.

“Wireless technology can definitely help with a better ROI for specific infrastructure applications … but I would say that as always it should be the correct technology for the correct application,” he said

Taking a slightly different view, Dave Sutton, product marketing manager for Schneider Electric, notes that in recent years there has been an explosion in the use of wireless-based consumer products, with many of us now using Wifi, for example, on a daily basis.

Sutton contrasts this with the relatively slow uptake in industrial applications, which he links it to a lack of know-how among plant operators and concerns regarding reliability and security.

However, the Schneider Electric manager believes that this is set to change with a new breed of decision makers who are not only comfortable with this new technology, but who are also aware of the potential benefits to their business.

“They bring with them the understanding that through the correct planning and installation, a wireless solution can enhance and improve many industrial applications,” he said.

Sutton acknowledges that there are several concerns facing plant operators when it comes to installing wireless technology- the biggest being the issue of reliability.

“We find that customers are often nervous because they have had little to no experience of this technology and so are naturally cautious,” he said. “There is a plethora of technical information available but trying to understand it and apply it to their own circumstances can be daunting for many.”

Schneider Electric, therefore, often recommends businesses to pilot a wireless automation scheme. Plant operators, added Sutton, nervous about the reliability of wireless automation should be reassured by the fact that most wireless systems contain inbuilt mechanisms to overcome situations where signal is lost or corrupted.

“For example, it is possible to utilise mesh network radios, increasing the reliability of the system by increasing the number of paths between devices, so in the event of one path disconnecting, the signal can re-route down an alternative path,” he said.

A secondary concern is the issue of security. Even if the wireless system has been robustly designed and is able to provide users with 100% uptime, the idea of it being potentially open to interference means that additional measures must be taken to avoid such issues.

“These are vital in ensuring that data integrity is maintained and privacy is not compromised - such measures include encryption and firewall installation,” said Sutton.