How Industrial Controllers Enable Manufacturing Flexibility

AW: What are the key capabilities that distinguish modern industrial controllers from earlier versions? 

LN: Compared to traditional PLCs, modern industrial PLCs have much more powerful  processors, more efficient memory usage, and advanced networking and programming  capabilities. These improvements allow them to handle more complex control tasks, easily  integrate with other automation systems and provide more diagnostic-rich functionality.

SS: Modern industrial controllers have software-scalable capacity that allows end users to  quickly adapt to changing engineering and operational requirements. Today’s controllers  also provide connectivity options both to the field — traditional and Ethernet based I/O —  and at the system level via standards like OPC UA. These capabilities open up a broader set  of applications and help to eliminate silos of data without the complexity associated with  traditional controllers and I/O cards.

• Processors became more powerful and components became smaller. This allowed  processors to abandon the archaic fixed addressing scheme for a more modern tag  name database that could be shared between various disciplines within the system.  This created greater alignment and coordination between primary components of  control systems including PLCs, HMI visualization devices, and SCADA systems.
  
  
• The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) focuses on linking the plant floor to the  business network, and is largely based on communications and edge processing.  Converging operations technology (OT) on the plant floor with information  technology (IT) business systems enables data originating at machines to be seen in  real time at the supervisory and enterprise level. There are many standard  communication protocols available on modern controllers to facilitate OT/IT  convergence including HTML5, MQTT, HTTP(S), SMTP, FTP, Node-Red, and OPC UA.

AW: How do these controller technology advances contribute to manufacturing flexibility?

SS: New controllers’ software-scalable capacity dramatically increases flexibility by  allowing end users to only consume the functionality currently required for the application,  reducing the administrative burden required when scaling up and down to accommodate  operational changes. Additionally, incorporating standard industrial protocols like OPC UA  enables more plug-and-produce capabilities for modular manufacturing as defined in the  Module Type Package (MTP) standard.

LN: The ability to easily configure PLC models of different types and sizes in the same  engineering environment with a standardized instruction set enables manufacturers to  quickly adjust to new products, processes and market demands. Additionally, these  capabilities facilitate expansion and scaling, along with control system adaptation to meet  changing needs. 

JP:  The plethora of communication protocols standard in most modern PLCs enable them  to connect, communicate and control most any added device. 

AW: What role do open architecture and interoperability play in enhancing the flexibility of  industrial controllers?

JP: OPC UA, MQTT and Node-Red give a PLC the ability to transmit data directly to the  cloud. In the past, this required sophisticated management software in the middle, like  SCADA or ERP. But today’s controllers can report straight to the cloud.

LN: Controllers with open and standardized communication interfaces, such as OPC UA, can  more easily integrate with a range of other automation components, devices and enterprise  systems. This same principle applies to fieldbuses over standardized physical interfaces  and technology, such as Profinet, enabling manufacturers to mix-and-match equipment  from different vendors and share data across the production environment. 

SS: Interoperability utilizing standard protocols is essential to reduce installation and  maintenance costs over the control system’s lifetime. Standard industrial protocols can  reduce or eliminate much of the complex engineering that adds time, cost and complexity.  Modern controllers provide a broad set of native connectivity options via standard  protocols, providing the flexibility to incorporate the latest technologies without requiring  custom engineering.

AW: How do modern industrial controllers support customization to meet specific  manufacturing needs?

SS: The ability to scale up or scale down, agnostic to the type of I/O, is a defining element of a modern controller.

LN: Modern controllers support customization through their modular hardware design,  flexible programming capabilities and open connectivity. Modular architectures allow users  to configure the exact CPU, I/O and specialized components for their specific applications. 

Modularity also simplifies upgrading to newer technologies by enabling selective  replacement of individual outdated modules without needing to overhaul the entire control infrastructure. This ability to quickly reconfigure or upgrade the control system empowers manufacturers to be more responsive to changing business and operational requirements.

Also, open communication standards support integration across a wide range of other  devices and systems, fostering tailored data flows and analytics capabilities. This combination of hardware modularity, flexible programming and open integration enables  manufacturers to closely align control systems to their requirements.