Smart Manufacturing Connectivity for Brown-field Sensors Testbed
Another finding by the Testbed team was the discovery that the amount of work put into developing a testbed is similar to that required when setting up an application for a governmentally funded research project . That is why it could make sense for IIC members to combine future research projects with testbeds . The practical aspect of a research endeavor could be implemented through a testbed , but it would largely depend from case-to-case whether such an approach would be practical or not .
To reduce the amount of work , proper planning in the testbed preparation phase is required . The schedule must be near exact and each testbed team member must understand each partner company ’ s technologies . IT and OT people have different mindsets , terminologies and expectations towards other parties that are involved in a testbed . Good team preparation helps overcome typical struggles in the initial phase of a testbed to optimize collaboration .
By nature , the Testbed focuses on technical aspects . A usage scenario was defined and implemented for demonstration and validation purposes only . However , the Testbed ’ s objectives and message could have been delivered even better through the inclusion of multiple business-relevant usage scenarios .
The intention is to roll the Testbed solution out to TE factories as an operations development project involving the Y- Gateway . This device is ready to be industrialized and prepared to sell . However , a demand for a considerable number of devices by TE ’ s customers is required to define the final portfolio , variants , etc .
CONCLUSION
The Testbed provides a high volume of sensor data from brown-field manufacturing installations to enterprise IT systems in near real-time . The Testbed team attributes its remarkable success to good and early team preparation , respect across the OT / IT divide , valuable industry-leading participants , input from many IIC experts and IIC industry resources such as the IIRA , IICF and IISF . Their successes are influencing industry standards and Testbed participants are exploring paths to deployment and consumer demand in multiple real industry implementations . The significant impact this testbed is having and will continue to have on the manufacturing industry will be further detailed in an upcoming white paper summarizing the Testbed ’ s findings and results , while future industry deployments will generate additional technical reports .
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