Modular: The Future of Automation
As standards organisations and suppliers push the modular automation idea forward, the future of automation seems in the direction of the re-imagining of complicated tasks and automation infrastructures into subsets of seamless configurable building blocks.
The concept of modularity in automation hardware and software program has been a protracted sought-after goal in manufacturing industries. Modularity is the primary highlight in production, i.e., most of the facilities use an array of technology from many suppliers.
While motives for this disparate era use variety from cost and feature/capability to brand preference and buyer/vendor relationships, the mixing of those technology are feasible in large part because of interoperability technology like OPC UA and IO-Link.
Each MTP field holds a vendor-agnostic manner description of the automation processes required for the associated manner module.
NAMUR (an international user association of automation technology and digitalization in process industries) and ZVEI (the Germany-based electrical and electronics manufacturers association) are also throwing their support behind modularization.
For example, the NAMUR’s 2658 on modular manufacturing is being fed into IEC 63280—the usual for automation engineering of modular systems in industries—for internationalization.
NAMUR: to gain new tiers of flexibility, a modularization of process, mechanical construction, and automation is essential. It will not only supply new tiers of operational functionality and flexibilitybut unlocks greater service-based control.
An example on how modularization can affect manufacturing operations is Industry 4.0 systems’ feedback will tell you about the operation of your control valve but MTP will provide data from a control valve filter unit. Major chemical companies prefer MTP for the value of its fine-tune results.
The usual designs in plant tend to be from top to bottom approach where it started in a process flow then installation of the equipment but in MTP you can to top to bottom and vice versa. Having a knowledge in MTP, you can easily anticipate where they fit. It does not only saves time, it also saves effort in development which contributed to cost.
Source: www.automationworld.com/control/article/21578808/is-the-future-of-automation-modular
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