Tuesday, February 26, 2008

WBF 2008 Calling industry leaders. There's still time to register for the WBF annual meeting and conference in the Philadelphia area March 24-27. I plan to be there for a couple of days then head downtown for some Interphex action. See you there. 4:37:32 PM    comment []

Manufacturing blogs I came across this Web site (I think someone sent an e-mail) of the Alliance for American Manufacturing. I just pass it along for your own edification. I don't particularly like it because it's just a one-trick pony. The association hates China. There are points to be made about fair trade, but to place the entire blame for American plants closing on the Chinese is just hyperbole (fits in with the whole political thing going on these days--glad I'm in Florida this month so that I miss all the political ads in Ohio right now). I'm much more in tune with the guys over at Evolving Excellence who are Lean Thinking disciples and point out the way to compete with a lot more common sense as in this post. I live in Ohio very close to where many of those manufacturing jobs were lost that the Alliance cites. I'll tell you, it has little to do with China and much to do with the way those plants were run over the last 20-30 years. And it's a big problem, unions as well as management. I think American manufacturing can succeed--it just needs lots of good managers and engineers. Oh, and by the way, statistics I've seen often point to the health of American manufacturing--just don't measure it in terms of blue-collar employment. We are getting more productive, which means we make the same or more stuff with fewer people. That's OK. It just means there are more people to grow more businesses with. Let's get off our duffs and make something happen and quit whining about competition. 4:20:41 PM    comment []

Security I received an interesting call from Joe Weiss yesterday. Seems he just received the February issue of Automation World and its enclosed special report Industrial Ethernet Review. The lead article in the IER was on security. Joe's concern was that too many people worry about cyber security only from the high end IT or Microsoft Windows point of view. There are plenty of security concerns to worry about--and try to fix--at the control layer. He knows of hacks into the control system through old dial-up modems. I knew I had heard of him, but it took me a few seconds to register. He writes a blog called Unfettered that my buddy Walt hosts over at ControlGlobal. Joe also is working on his 8th Control Systems Cyber Security Conference August 4-8 in Burr Ridge (Chicago), IL. You can email him for more information. Here is a little information about the conference. I'll be in Austin and Phoenix (and Columbus, Ohio) that week, so perhaps I can get someone else to cover it for me. Latest Advancements and Issues in Securing Industrial Control Systems: Case studies and recent trends in control system cyber security IT and Operations issues with securing control systems Law enforcement and evidence gathering issues Performance and economic metrics for securing control system infrastructure Regulatory issues (FERC, NERC CIP, chemical industry, etc.) SCADA and Control System procurement issues End-user cyber security experience with control system  architectures and technologies DOE/DHS control system security status and testing results Technologies to secure control systems from cyber attacks Breakout sessions Interdependency breakout sessions SNORT for control systems session "Cryptography 101" "Security Programs 101" Training and Demonstrations Introductory and advanced Control System and IT sessions Practical applications and interactive demonstrations of  control system cyber security Vendor demonstrations 3:58:22 PM    comment []

Another virtual network OEMs who contract to provide service for their machines at the customer site and who therefore need to monitor the equipment and managed service providers who also need to monitor equipment often are at odds with customer IT departments who install firewalls to keep intruders out. In these cases, though, the "intruders" are actually supposed to be there. Lantronix, who has been at the forefront of device connectivity, has released a platform for application services called ManageLinx. The first application in the platform is VIP Access. According to the company, it provides secure, easy-to-deploy remote Internet access to virtually any piece of networked equipment behind firewalls from a central location. ManageLinx creates a "Virtual Device Network" (VDN) that allows access to only authorized equipment without visibility to any other part of the network--not compromising IT policies or firewall integrity. The company says that the platform does not require any changes to the network hardware or configuration. The initial ManageLinx offering consists of the Device Services Manager (DSM) and the Device Services Controller (DSC). Acting as a publicly accessible VDN router, the DSM manages DSC units on the local area network (LAN) at each location. The DSM serves as a proxy connection point for participating DSCs and relays connections between user hosts and destination devices. It also offers a complete Web 2.0-based management system for all configuration and control. The DSM administrator can configure individual devices, set up automated device discovery on remote networks, perform automated monitoring and enable secure access to any device visible to a participating DSC. Combining ManageLinx with Lantronix SecureLinx line of IT management equipment, administrators can also remotely access servers, PBX (Private Branch eXchange) systems and other IT infrastructure assets for a complete end-to-end remote service solution. 8:09:48 AM    comment []

OPC compliance testing The OPC Foundation has its first Independent Certification Test Lab to validate and certify OPC products. The lab is located at Ascolab in Erlangen, Germany. OPC Foundation President and Executive Director Tom Burke said, "The Ascolab staff members have ben designers and developers of OPC Certification tools since our earliest days. They are widely acknowledged as 'the experts' in OPC Certification and they provide a solid foundation on which to build our certification program." Burke continues, "Companies who purchase OPC-compliant products expect secure, reliable interoperability in a highly plug-and-play fashion. All products newly certified by the Test Lab will carry a new 'OPC Foundation Certified' logo, thus providing end users with assurance of excellence. The Certification program means that users can expect reduced system installation costs and products that will perform reliably in multi-vendor installations." Craig Resnick, research director at the ARC Advisory Group, a Dedham, Mass. analyst firm, said, "Compliance certification will provide manufacturers with the confidence that their suppliers' products will work right out of the box with any other suppliers' product that's compliance tested." "Too much time has been spent by us in the past playing referee between suppliers who point fingers at each other instead of coming together to deliver solutions," said Bruce Honda, process control advisor at Weyerhaeuser. "Certifying to a common set of functions and features should assure that manufacturers like us get true compatibility between different supplier's products." John Weber, president of Software Toolbox, an OPC Foundation member company, added, "End users want quality products, and one of the primary OPC Foundation goals must be to ensure delivery of the highest quality OPC products.  End users already expect at a minimum that products will have been through existing OPC Foundation self-certification testing. In the long term, as our Test Lab program rolls out worldwide, they will also look for the independent OPC Foundation Certification logo." Software Toolbox is one of the first companies certifying its products through the new Test Lab. Paul Hunkar, OPC Foundation director of compliance & certification and consultant engineer at ABB commented, "To successfully integrate complex systems using products from multiple vendors requires that products be completely interoperable and simple to maintain, while providing plug-and-play configuration and high reliability. The Independent Certification Test Lab system provides the infrastructure to ensure that vendors are designing and shipping high-quality, high-performance and high-functionality products." The backbone of the Independent Certification Test Lab is the reference hardware/software that is the basis for testing all other products.  The following companies have provided hardware/software to the lab as part of this program: ABB, Beckhoff, Cyberlogic, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, Iconics, Kepware, Matrikon, OSI, Rockwell Automation, Siemens, Softing, Software Toolbox and Wonderware. All successfully tested products and their certification details will be posted on the OPC Foundation website. End users will be able to use the online product catalog as a tool to make intelligent purchasing decisions. 7:52:37 AM    comment []

Future of OMAC is hanging in the balance Keith Campbell, writing in his On the Edge blog, argues that OMAC should be a packaging engineering interest group. He applauds moving the Microsoft Manufacturers Users Group out of OMAC to a separate place in the Automation Federation. Interesting that OMAC's roots are with the automotive industry, quickly joined by Boeing. There is still a machine tool working group within OMAC. But the working group that moved the quickest was the packaging working group. It developed PackML, PackTags, PackConnect and a working demonstration of standards for packaging machine controls. Some think that OMAC should be only about packaging. Now, a group within OMAC would like to take the work done by the packaging work group and apply it more broadly across machines in general. The packaging purists, like Campbell, believe there still remains much work to do to convert packaging machinery OEMs to the standard way to build machines. These engineers want to circle the wagons and keep the packaging group to itself. I don't believe that the situation is an "either-or" decision, but is a "both-and" one. The work of the packaging workgroup is changing. That must be why there are many fewer people at the meetings. The intellectual foundation has been laid. Now the work is evangelistic. The group needs to consolidate the gains. It was disappointing not to see the academics at the meeting who used to always be around. These were the people teaching the next generation of packaging engineers. There still needs to be a packaging working group within OMAC. No doubt about that. But if OMAC is going to fulfill its broader purpose, then a new working group needs to get started that will take this work and apply more broadly to general machines. The machine tool working group is already demonstrating the validity of this argument. The strength of OMAC has been the working group model. It moved one out of the organization (MSMUG) because of its more general orientation--and that the umbrella of the Automation Federation is new and offers perhaps a better home. But new ones should be formed and welcomed--not a threat to the existing hierarchy, but as greater usefulness to the end users. Plus, I think to keep technology provider support moving, the organization is going to have to broaden its scope. Only Elau focuses solely on packaging. The others sell to machinery OEMs in general. They will want a standard that fits many applications, yet is the same. So, I think that the people who are solely interested in packaging should tackle their next step--pushing the adoption of the standard. But these same people should not get in the way of progress and let the visionaries move to the next step--something that will benefit the entire company and not just the packaging department. 6:56:41 AM    comment []