{"id":1203,"date":"2017-09-04T05:00:29","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T03:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.blogs.yokogawa.de\/chemical-pharma\/uncategorized\/open-communication\/"},"modified":"2022-07-04T06:59:19","modified_gmt":"2022-07-04T04:59:19","slug":"open-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yokogawa.com\/eu\/blog\/chemical-pharma\/en\/open-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"Open communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

Smoke signals and carrier pigeons<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For us humans, language forms the basis for all communication. Of course, language wasn\u2019t invented by human beings overnight. It started off as a collection of gestures and sounds, which only evolved into a comprehensive system of vocal expression over thousands of years. Language was initially designed purely to enable people to communicate with one another directly. It only worked over a maximum distance of a few yards. You had to be within hearing distance to understand what the other person was saying. This naturally meant that anyone else within hearing distance could understand it too. Those were the days when open communication was perfectly normal.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until much later that we humans developed technologies for sharing information over long distances. They included drums, smoke signals and carrier pigeons \u2013 as well as Morse code and radio. Today, the Internet is our number one form of communication and, linked to it, social media. We\u2019ve been using the latter for well over ten years now. We all resort to several of these services in the meantime, so that we can communicate with anyone, anytime, anywhere. In short, communication is what all of us do all of the time.<\/p>\n

Machines that learn our language<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Our society has set itself the objective of expanding and strengthening networks not just between people but also between machines as well as between people and machines. Networking simultaneously plays a crucial role in industry. First, machinery and equipment need to communicate along the entire value chain \u2013 what we refer to as horizontal integration. Second, they need to be directly interconnected with the office and finance worlds \u2013 the term here is vertical integration.<\/p>\n

[ot-caption title=”Human-machine network” url=”https:\/\/www.yokogawa.com\/eu\/blog\/chemical-pharma\/app\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Vernetzung_Mensch_Maschine.jpg”]<\/p>\n

It is becoming increasingly apparent that [to-link url=”https:\/\/www.yokogawa.com\/eu\/blog\/chemical-pharma\/de\/industrie-4-0\/”]Industry 4.0 (in German)[\/to-link] will fundamentally change our economic system and its value chains, far beyond simply optimizing local technologies.<\/p>\n

Yet what does this mean for the process industry?<\/p>\n

Models simply have limits<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Dr. Helget<\/strong> provided the following explanation (with english subtitle) in his keynote speech at the NAMUR Annual General Meeting 2017<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen data volumes that are continuously increasing are processed in networks that are becoming ever more complex, the automation pyramid we have become so fond of reaches its limits. This should not unsettle us, because it is a model and models simply have limits or a limited useful life. If we are going to put Industry 4.0 into practice in the process industry, we definitely need open, flexible and modular structures but without diminishing safety in any way.\u201d, says Dr. Helget.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

ExxonMobil has a vision<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Both NAMUR<\/a> and ExxonMobil<\/a> demonstrated last year how this challenge can be addressed systematically. ExxonMobil presented its vision of a fully open automation concept called Open System Architecture that will allow software and hardware from different manufacturers to coexist and interact \u2013 \u201cplug and play\u201d.<\/p>\n

[ot-caption title=”ExxonMobil\u2019s vision of open architecture” url=”https:\/\/www.yokogawa.com\/eu\/blog\/chemical-pharma\/app\/uploads\/2017\/07\/ExxonMobil-Open-Architecture-Vision.jpg”]<\/p>\n

The motivation is to cease operation of proprietary, closed systems. The aim instead is to install multi-vendor automation systems. The future architecture should have the following defining characteristics:<\/p>\n