Next generation development tools help equipment intelligence

Manufacturing industries need to develop new concepts of automation core component products and software development tools for future digitization and intelligence.

By Stone Shi June 4, 2023
Courtesy: Control Engineering China

 

Learning Objectives

  • Understand how core components of traditional automation create challenges in today’s automation environments and often are lacking in modeling, data decoupling, web-based UI and programming-language support capabilities.
  • Learn how new automation tools bring new value to old industries by adding design sense to HMIs with a style template and making way for integration of artificial intelligence capabilities for industrial automation.

Control design insights

  • Core components of traditional automation create challenges in today’s automation environments and often are lacking in modeling, data decoupling, web-based user interface (UI) and programming-language support capabilities.
  • New automation tools bring new value to old industries by adding design sense to HMIs with a style template and making way for integration of artificial intelligence capabilities for industrial automation.

With the rapid development and deepening of digitalization and intelligence of industrial equipment, new technical requirements are put forward for core automation products and software, including programmable logic controllers (PLCs), human-machine interface (HMI), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and other automation and controls.

The contradiction between the existing relatively old development tools and the new technical requirements is becoming more obvious. Ma Xuetong, the general manager of Shanghai Flexem Technology Co. Ltd. offers advice about how to break through the technical bottleneck and to accelerate equipment intelligence.

New challenges faced by traditional automation core components

Due to the development of automation before computer technology and the internet, many development tools for core components of traditional automation are “inherently inadequate” and are now difficult to adapt to the needs of the times. For example, Xuetong explained, the PLC controller, as the main core component for generating data, is a product of the pre-PC era. Although it was modified by the IEC 61131-3 specification at the beginning of this century, it still did not consider the requirements of future digitization and intelligence.

Similar issues are not limited to PLCs, nor are they reflected in the digital direction, Xuetong said. New challenges also include: facing complex industry applications, lacking modular and object-oriented design, developers need to do a lot of repetitive work, and development efficiency is relatively low; The user interaction interface has fallen behind in design and experience, making it difficult to adapt to the new generation’s requirements for aesthetics, simplicity, and efficiency; the development language is old, and new algorithms based on high-level programming language are difficult to transplant; lack of consideration for interaction with upper level software, lack of support for IT software tools, etc. The industry needs to develop new concepts of automation core component products and software development tools for future digitization and intelligence, Xuetong suggested.

Modeling, data decoupling, web-based UI, programming-language support

To meet these challenges, in 2019, Flexem launched the research and development of FlexMI series products. The latest FlexMI series of products and development tools were launched in early 2023. The products enable modern automation concepts such as modeling and data decoupling, building web-based user interfaces (UIs) and providing high-level programming language support.

FlexMI series products cover the manufacturing execution system and enterprise resources planning (MES/ERP) software capabilities with products including PLC controllers, HMI, edge-computing gateways, SCADA software, covering the control layer, display layer, access layer, monitoring layer and management layer. FlexMI adopts a unified development tool FStudio Unified software (FSU), covering the integrated development of PLC, HMI, edge gateway and SCADA software. The integrated development environment improves development efficiency.

New automation tools bring new value to old industries

Taking HMI products as an example, the mainstream HMI in the current market often does not have object-oriented structured data support because of its early development time. This results in a huge workload when interfacing with the new generation of PLC based on the IEC 61131-3 standard, where all data of the structure type needs to be unfolded into one variable and mapped one by one. This is prominent in industries with complex processes and numerous control parameters.

After using FSU, “You only need to establish an information model for duplicate structures, directly import variable tables from the PLC and use object views to quickly build a large number of duplicate elements, which reduces the workload and is not prone to errors. When the PLC integrates to complex products, the step of importing variable data is omitted. Data variable definitions can be referenced across levels between PLC, HMI, and even SCADA, greatly improving efficiency. This is the productivity gain that comes from object-oriented modeling development tools,” Xuetong said.

Adding design sense to HMIs with a style template

The interface of automation equipment has always been simple and dull, lacking a sense of design. Automation companies often lack professional UI designers, and engineers often take charge of HMI design themselves. Also, HMI configuration software as a development tool does not provide beautiful galleries, templates and font style guidance settings, and it overemphasizes functionality at the expense of aesthetics.

Xuetong said engineers should be enabled to design beautiful and professional HMIs. “FSU’s pioneering style template feature solves this problem. Product departments of automation companies can pre-set a uniform UI interface style, such as a uniform color palette, fonts, and the style of the gallery used. Once set, every time a new component is created, a stylized design is automatically generated, and the workload is greatly reduced by not having to frequently adjust the font color, etc., of each component during design,” Xuetong said.

Ma Xuetong, general manager of Shanghai Flexem Technology Co. Ltd., said new technology brings new challenges and new opportunities at the same time. Flexem Technology’s FlexMI series of products adopts a unified development tool FStudio Unified software (FSU), covering the integrated development of PLC, HMI, edge gateway and SCADA software. Courtesy: Control Engineering China

Ma Xuetong, general manager of Shanghai Flexem Technology Co. Ltd., said new technology brings new challenges and new opportunities at the same time. Flexem Technology’s FlexMI series of products adopts a unified development tool FStudio Unified software (FSU), covering the integrated development of PLC, HMI, edge gateway and SCADA software. Courtesy: Control Engineering China

Are you ready for AI for industrial automation?

In recent months, ChatGPT and GPT4, along with a dizzying array of product innovations around generative artificial intelligence (AI), have ignited a wave of anticipation for AI to break through the tipping point and into real-world commercial adoption. How to deal with the new challenges brought by AI is a question every automation manufacturer must think about and face. AI is already an inevitable trend that will affect all aspects of industrial automation and the field, and it is likely to do so sooner than expected.

The development of AI relies on three pillars: algorithms, computing power and data. The first two can fully enjoy the innovation dividend brought by the development of today’s general AI, but the data itself especially the massive amount of high-quality data that can be used for unsupervised learning in the field of automation, is very scarce. No matter how AI disrupts the industry, it is inseparable from the accumulation of high-quality data in the industry. High-quality data has been available in industry for many years. This is why industrial users should accumulate effective data as early as possible, as much as possible. Those with effective data use get the first opportunities.

Modern automation needs to enable continuous innovation, continuous provision of development tools to adapt to technological development and rapid iteration. Efforts continue to help customers establish a digital advantage and then promote greater intelligence.

Xuetong said, “Innovation is the DNA of Flexem. Embrace change, be brave to try and dare to be the first in the world. New technology brings new challenges and new opportunities at the same time. Standing at the forefront of technological innovation and offering industrial customers new productivity tools with new technologies, we are working to advance equipment intelligence, step by step.”

Stone Shi is executive editor-in-chief, Control Engineering China. Edited by Mark T. Hoske, content manager, Control Engineering, CFE Media and Technology, mhoske@cfemedia.com.

KEYWORDS: Digital transformation, modern automation design

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Author Bio: Executive editor-in-chief, Control Engineering China