ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe found itself in the position of needing to replace, step by step, the models it had programmed itself to manage the production of various grades of steel with a solution equipped to face the demands of the future. The solution had to be easy to integrate and designed to be rolled out step by step. ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe uses its automation systems to manage the whole production process at its company steel plants. This is done using clever algorithms that map the functional relationships across all stages of the steel production process. However, there are still a host of other changeable factors that influence the quality of the product obtained, and these also need to be factored in in the form of rules or formulae. What ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe was looking for was a suitable piece of software to fulfill this rule-based management function.

Space X wanted to develop a rocket that can reduce the cost of space access by a factor of 10.

Due to Finder's steady growth in the market, Finder needed to upgrade its IT infrastructure to meet the requirements such as increase data availability and storage capacity plus ensure a robust business continuity plan. Any new solution also had to be scalable to match a future expansion of the business.

-Visibility of a large fleet of remotely located Industrial grade IoT Devices.-Health and performance monitoring of the end devices required additional code.-Frequent failures require truck rolls.Data Connectivity issues.

For people who live and work in big cities, growing their own fruits and vegetables is a dream which is often difficult to realize. But how about renting a greenhouse, and being able to remotely plant seeds, spray water and apply fertilizers through a webpage, and then watching how your crops are growing via streaming video from an IP camera while you occasionally pay a physical visit to your plants at the weekends or holidays to harvest and cook your vegetables at a feast? A group of young Taiwanese entrepreneurs are making their own, and other people’s dreams come true by establishing greenhouse plots for rent. Leveraging the latest Advantech technologies and features provided by the ADAM-6200 series Ethernet I/O series and WebAccess 8.0 HMI/SCADA software, they’ve created a greenhouse automation and remote monitoring solution from which their customers can control and monitor the environment via a virtual dashboard on a computer, smartphone or other web-based device in real time.

More and more functionality of machines and manufacturing facilities is determined by the controller software, production settings, and machine data. This essential know-how of the machine producer must be protected and shielded from manipulation by competitors, organized crime, or simple incorrect use. New business models need to be supported. And any solution has to be highly reliable and work even in harsh environments.

We all are familiar with electronic road signs both those fixed to overpasses and those portable devices on the highway or even secondary back roads. For far too long it was costly and difficult to update the messages on these signs as it required an approved individual (Police, Department of Transportation, etc.) to update these signs. This is especially critical during safety events such as an Amber Alert - a better solution was needed.

Aspin Kemp & Associates (AKA), a manufacturer of electrical power and control systems headquartered in Montague, PEI, encountered one with its hybrid power initiative, the first hybrid drill floor destined for installation on ultra-deepwater drill ships operated by Transocean, Swiss offshore drilling contractors. Since on-site modification was impossible and scrap recycling of any modifications was unacceptable, the enclosures had to arrive ready-to-install.

Gary Bruner, the president of Carolina Precision Manufacturing, a contract manufacturer that specializes in small-diameter, close-tolerance CNC Swiss turned parts, had a problem. Over breakfast that morning, Gary had logged onto the MachineMetrics monitoring system on his laptop at home to check the status of his machines assigned to a lights-out operation, but saw immediately that two of his machines were not in production. “What’s wrong with machines 35 and 36?” he thought to himself. Upon arrival to the shop, Gary learned from his operator on duty that this type of hold up was nothing out of the ordinary, and was in fact a product of inefficient startup procedures that had simply never been analyzed or augmented previously. In an industry with razor thin margins, Gary understood that the keys to growth and success were in efficiency and quality. He understood the importance of keeping tabs on production stats, job status, uptime, and setup. However, there was no way to know how well machines were doing in real time. What was causing this additional downtime? Furthermore, CPM’s current methods of measurement and data collection were not only time consuming, but had quickly becoming outdated. Historically, CPM had an employee dedicated to the collection of utilization data. This employee would walk around to each of the machines, collect scrap tickets post-production, talk to operators, and record yesterday’s data into their current ERP system; not to mention that this manual data collection was prone to errors, and would take upwards of 2 hours per day. Without the ability to visualize their results, the recorded data was not very actionable.

Enhancing the security of hazardous freight and ensuring compliance with Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration mandate that all trains carrying chemicals capable of creating a toxic inhalation condition are equipped with on-board safety monitoring systems.

In-vehicle communications and entertainment system hosts high-value or sensitive applications. API libraries facilitate communication and sharing of vehicle data. These API libraries are vulnerable to reverse engineering and tampering attacks and may even result in loss of passenger safety. Attackers can inject malware that may be able to migrate to other in-car networks such as the controller-area-network (CAN) bus which links to the vehicle’s critical systems. Software provided for dealers to interface with cars through the OBD2 port is vulnerable to reverse engineering and tampering attacks. Hackers may be able to abuse these tools to inject malicious code into the ECUs and CAN bus. Attackers can lift the cryptographic keys used, and use that to build their own rogue apps/software. Their cloned version of the original app/software may have altered functionality, and may intend to gain access to other in-car networks.

WellAware was exploring the market for a reliable solution for collecting data from its customers’ remote well locations. According to WellAware CEO, Matt Harrison, the company’s customers have a tremendous need to tap into the intelligence provided by the digital oilfield. In selecting a provider for its network, WellAware compared the features of an array of communication technologies. Cellular provided adequate coverage, but at the rate of $25-$50 per month per device, the cost was extremely high. Satellite was even more expensive, in excess of $100 per month per device. As a typical oilfield consists of more than 1,000 wells, implementation of these technologies would quickly become cost-prohibitive. Additionally, cellular and satellite technologies were only able to deliver between 85-95 percent data availability and were not able to transmit data at sub-minute frequencies. This was not sufficient to meet the reliability expectations of WellAware’s customers.

• Liaoyuan's demands for building a high-quality smart city, covering multiple sectors, including city management, emergency command, public security, and health care. • Unable to connect different functional sectors for lack of a unified information system; without IoT, city management is restricted to manual intervention.

Fuji Xerox faced several challenges. Delivery inquiries from distributors had to be manually associated with order information and container B/L documents. Response to delivery inquiries was slow and delivery date estimates inaccurate because Fuji Xerox had to contact each transportation carrier for shipment status updates before warehousing dates could be estimated. Manual handling of an average of 1,800 inquiries a month created an excessive workload for staff. Distributors had begun securing extra stock in a system known as just-in-case inventory to prevent inventory shortages at hub warehouses in each region, leading to chronic over-inventory

A growing range of models and ever-shorter development cycles increase the demands on the manufacturing process. As a result, tracking vehicles inside and outside manufacturing facilities is essential for delay-free quality assurance and to provide transparency throughout all manufacturing steps in the automotive industry.

A picker with an RF scanner is constantly looking at the gun to get pick commands, hitting the confirm button and doing things in sequential fashion which is time consuming. Warehouse operations costs add up to 20% of the total logistics costs for DHL.

In recent years, amid increasingly intense global competition in the manufacturing industry, there has been a growing demand for more rapid product development and market introduction, quality improvements and shorter lead times in order to quickly respond to the rapidly changing market environments and management environments through the introduction of new technologies and collaborations between companies. In this backdrop, there has been a growing expectation for overall optimization that uses data related to manufacturing in the increasingly global supply chain to connect the front lines of manufacturing with management, suppliers, and customers. This in turn has given rise to a need for secure connections between a variety of devices in FA environment and cutting-edge IT services (e.g., Big Data and the cloud) and for the accelerated development of applications in the field of next-generation factories connecting business-to-business (B2B) applications unleashing real economic value to effectively compete in the global marketplace.

The client had previously deployed a one-meter-per-store monitoring program. Given the manner in which energy consumption changes with external temperature, hour of the day, day of week and month of year, a single meter solution lacked the ability to detect the difference between a true problem and a changing store environment. Most importantly, a single meter solution could never identify root cause of energy consumption changes. This approach never reduced the number of truck-rolls or man-hours required to find and resolve issues.

The TriRivers system allows doctors to access critical healthcare applications as well as consult in real-time to UW Health for eICU and other services. Top priorities are maintaining a clean, reliable supply of power across the network and receiving warnings and intervening before a potential problem can result in downtime. Data security for patients is another major concern.

Field engineers and service teams often lack data and digital insights needed to assess, troubleshoot, and determine work scope for the large industrial assets in performing corrective and preventative maintenance activities. QA engineers many times need to understand why a particular problem in the part is happening recurrently or why parts from suppliers don’t stack up well in the assemblies due to mismatch. The root cause is usually hidden in design, manufacturing processes, supply chain logistics or production planning. But without the right data and digital insights, it's hard to pinpoint. GOAL To collect information in the design, manufacturing, service, supply-chain setup and provide access to and intelligent analytics for industrial manufacturing and performance data, to identify the root cause easier. Such insights can improve not only service and owner/operator productivity, but also provide critical feedback to the design engineering and manufacturing operations teams for continuous improvement.

The UK Government is requiring energy companies to install 53 million gas and electricity meters at 30 million domestic and smaller non-domestic properties by 2020.Under the UK Government's Smart Metering Implementation Programme (SMIP), there was a need for a Communications Service Provider (CSP) to provide connectivity services and communication hubs to energy suppliers. Telefonica was chosn to be this CSP.

In order to scale up operations, loT Systems’ client needed a system to monitor vacuum pumps and provide managers with actionable data at near real-time speeds from anywhere, at any time, and on any device. The vacuum pumps are part of vertical furnaces that prepare semiconductor wafers at precise temperatures and pressures according to their clients’ exact specifications. If a pump was about to fail and a manager did not see the alarm, it could lead to a scrap event, costing the client revenue, delaying production with unplanned downtime, and increasing overall manufacturing costs. Managers could not see alarms in real time unless they physically walked around the floor, making predictive maintenance and preventing scrap events harder as the client scaled upwards.

Developing a multiphase flowmeter system to indicate the rate of flow of fluid.

World’s largest FPSO vessel ever built needs to meet the high standards linked to on-site safety and a healthy working environment adapted to the climatic conditions in the Barents Sea

The discrete manufacturing domain is characterized by a strictly hierarchical structure of the automation systems, commonly referred to as the automation pyramid. Data acquired by a sensor typically flows through an IO-module into a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) which manages the local real-time control system. As all process data are concentrated in the PLC, re-programming the PLC and thus, implementing interfaces to access these data appear to be the natural choice to transfer them to the IT system. However, for brownfield installations this choice has proven impracticable for the following two reasons:In brownfield facilities, PLC usually operate within a once-specified environment and are rarely re-programmed. That is why the active staff is often not familiar with the code and lacks of the competence to modify the existing implementation in a reasonable amount of time.Furthermore, for cost reasons, any PLC was selected to exactly match the requirements of the environment within which it was intended to operate. That is why it cannot be assumed that a PLC will be able to support additional tasks such as communicating data through additional interfaces.

One of Europe’s largest integrated electric power companies was looking for analytics solutions to reliably forecast equipment failure and improve condition-based maintenance for its coal-fired power plant. With a diverse array of coal, oil, and gas/CCGT power plants, the utility’s more than 50GW worldwide generating portfolio has been under pressure to streamline global operations and reduce generating costs (both CapEx and operations /maintenance O&M expenses) by 7-10%.

The client is a 65 division conglomerate with various small divisions which were unable to support individual PLM instances. The organization also faced major challenges in organizing and maintaining the various PLM instances at a corporate level.

Like most grocery retailers, Hy-Vee is faced with the challenge of providing the highest quality products to its shoppers. Shoppers want the longest possible shelf life from perishable products and expect a consistent product experience each time they shop. Controlling the quality of products sold leads to shopper loyalty, which is of paramount importance to the success of Hy-Vee. Before products arrive in stores, Hy-Vee's distribution centers (DCs) handle items including dairy products, fresh meats, seafood, deli items, produce and frozen goods, all of which have different temperature needs and sensitivities. During transit from suppliers to DCs, Hy-Vee has limited visibility and temperature management abilities due to large amount of supplier managed transportation. For instance, during a week-long transit, a supplier's carrier equipment may malfunction, causing an item to thaw and then refreeze once repairs are made. Hy-Vee sought help from TempTRIP, an RFID solution provider that focuses on shipping, storage, receiving, and temperature control. TempTRIP's EPC RFID tags use Impinj chips to monitor and report temperature readings throughout the shipping and receiving process. The tags can also be re-configured and re-used, a unique feature within the current market of temperature monitoring devices.

To achieve its goal of doubling production capacity while keeping tight control of costs, major shoe manufacturer PT Chang Shin Indonesia set out to unlock greater efficiencies in its operations.

Lordan needed a manufacturing automation system that could identify bottlenecks, reduce downtime and waste, and improve overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). Requirements included the ability to view overall throughput and track mission-critical manufacturing information in real time directly from the production floor, rather than rely on periodical assessments.