Smart Factories and the Challenges of the Proximity Network
2.3.4 INTEGRATING WITH IT
Though often not a purely technical consideration, IT integration drives much of the technical decisions in the IIoT system architecture. In some cases, the IT department wants the edge devices directly integrated with IT. In other cases, they do not. In some cases, they allow data to leave the premises. In other cases, they will not. The commonality between these scenarios is that IT wants to understand and mitigate the interference an IIoT system has with their system.
For Process Improvement AND Predictive Maintenance
When developing process improvement and predictive maintenance solutions, the nature of IT integration depends largely on the size of the operation. For smaller operations, we have noticed that IT / OT generally work together smoothly and may even be run by the same department. For those where IT is a corporate entity spanning multiple facilities, plant managers tend to avoid IT during the proof-of-concept phase in order to try out their idea without waiting for IT approval. We noticed that in the case of the chicken plant, that the IIoT architect preferred using a non- WiFi based wireless solution as it allowed him to avoid having to tie into IT’ s infrastructure and it also avoided interference issues of WiFi-dependent devices already in operation.
Once they attempt to make their solution mainstream, IT often wants to make sure the application integrates with their existing infrastructure. In many cases, the plant is sensitive to data leaving their facility, many times due to customer requirements. One plant we interviewed would not allow data to the leave the plant because of the security concern expressed by one of their customers, the U. S. military.
2.3.5 5. DATA BANDWIDTH
The use case drives the amount and rate of data that needs to be moved to and from the edge devices. Networking technologies such as 802.15.4 may excel in low power, but do not have the bandwidth to support certain use cases like wired Ethernet and Wi-Fi.
For Process Improvement AND Predictive Maintenance
In most cases where the process is primarily being monitored at integration points, the amount of data moved per edge device is much less than 1 Mbps. In cases where feedback and control are tightly coupled, the data rate can be much higher. This design challenge is tied directly to the powering the edge device and networking the edge device challenges, as the nature of what is powering the edge device affects which methods of networking are possible.
Many of the monitoring cases we have seen for process improvement and predictive maintenance have relatively low bandwidth requirements. For example, the monitoring of the motor vibration sensor for the crane, while it requires high sample rate over a short period of time, the overall bandwidth usage is low.
IIC Journal of Innovation- 69-