Industrial automation reinvented

Universal automation. Do you hear it thundering in Cologne right now? Then you'd best cling on tightly to these pages, because with this concept, made possible by the IEC 61499 standard, industrial automation is moving in a completely new direction. A direction no longer bounded by the limitations of hardware, but where plug-and-produce software components pave the way to open automation and unlimited possibilities. During a webinar on May 24, Schneider Electric will explain in great detail exactly what is involved and how it responds to this with its EcoStruxure Automation Expert.

Today we live in a truly digital economy. Technological innovations and the Internet have forever changed the way we do business and make products. With the launch of the standard IEC 61499 a few years ago, a new concept of automation was already launched that answers the aspirations of manufacturing companies in this new world: universal automation. 

For greater efficiency and flexibility

A world in which software will dictate the laws from now on, because that brings the necessary benefits. 

"In the past, an automation solution was often a black box. A closed interplay of hardware components and a PLC control that did what it was supposed to. Making changes was no easy task. In recent years, more and more standards are popping up to break out of that model and put more interoperability on the table. Think Namur or OPC UA," John Coppens, industry marketing manager at Schneider Electric, gives some examples. "Now the focus is shifting more and more to software as the basis of automation processes. Then it no longer matters how many different brands are present in the machine or production. You become hardware independent. This is already happening in practice today, but with much more complexity and detours. In the future, automation projects will become open ecosystems that will have much greater flexibility in terms of, for example, rerouting, and will allow much higher efficiency because everything is aligned. That, of course, will also mean significant savings in engineering costs."

Webinar shows what it is and what it can do

Thus, where the PLC has so far served as an orchestra master, in the future that role will be reserved for software. 

Coppens: "Everything can then be programmed in a familiar software environment and distributed from there to the hardware components. That requires a whole new way of thinking. For both machine builders and system integrators and end customers, because it opens up so many more possibilities. But at the same time, this concept leans close to what we all know today; it just adds a layer on top. The first small-scale pilot projects show the potential. In the next phase, we want to roll them out on a pilot scale." 

On May 24, Schneider Electric is hosting a webinar on this topic. "The only barrier is really the change in mentality required. Everywhere we go and explain the concept, you can feel the curiosity bubbling. Universal automation just provides an answer to many of the challenges we face in industrial automation today. During the webinar, we will explain exactly what universal automation means, what it can mean in practice, and how we respond to it with EcoStruxure Automation Expert."

EcoStruxure Automation Expert

EcoStruxure Automation Expert is Schneider Electric's ready-made answer to this universal automation trend. 

"It consists of software that allows you to automate, and some hardware components that are already prepared for that to start building applications very easily. A line that we are only going to expand and deepen in the future to distribute runtime across hardware. You can then easily program and control each component in a dedicated way. Only those function blocks that are relevant to that piece of hardware. Programming will become child's play," predicts Coppens.