Advanced analytics is an integral part of industrial companies that are looking to optimize their performance and make better decisions. With expanded connectivity options, cheaper sensor costs, increased computing power, and other innovations in IIoT, various plant and machine data now need to be unlocked. But data alone cannot help much without contextualizing it and acting upon its insights. This is where an Allen Bradley integrator can help.
About Allen Bradley
Allen Bradley has been a leading producer of industrial automation components for more than a hundred years. Allen Bradley and Rockwell have maintained close ties in terms of drive systems and controllers. Their products include motor control centers, push buttons, motors, relays, limit switches, timers, power suppliers, sensors, wiring components, and panel displays.
Their motors and mechanical devices come with a rugged design that withstands harsh environmental conditions like dust and vibration. Allen Bradley integrators play a huge role in contextualizing the analytics.
Their products, like contactors, relays, pilot lights, push buttons, and timers, provide control and indications. They also offer various power supplies, safety components, panel displays and interfaces. Allen Bradley emphasizes reliability, quality, and integration while also maintaining seamless compatibility with Rockwell Software, which offers comprehensive solutions along with its complete automation systems.
Allen-Bradley offers a range of analytic software and services so that operators, process engineers, and executives can better capitalize on operational data. These solutions include quality, energy, overall equipment effectiveness, and flow.
Allen Bradley also offers built-in analytic modules that allow managers to monitor overall equipment effectiveness, analyze batch processing, track maintenance schedules, and configure custom reports. It provides vast data context through an integrated control system and industrial switches that contain software to analyze authentic patterns, network health, and bandwidth inspection to harden security. It also offers various software packages that drive further intelligence.
What Makes Allen Bradley Analytics Unique?
Its uniqueness lies in its tight integration with industrial control systems. Data can flow seamlessly from sensors, PLCs, and drives. The analysis leads to real-time actions right at the source rather than requiring roundabout infrastructure. It comes with pre-build algorithms that accelerate time-to-insight based on common use cases compared to other analytics tools that require intensive upfront configuration. Allen Bradley analytic solutions use native industrial protocols.
How can Allen Bradley Analytics Help Enhance Safety?
Relying on software to guide decisions in environments with hazardous materials and sensitive production lines may seem questionable. This is because inappropriate analytics could recommend changes that may lead to accidents if not carefully validated. This restricts the scope of analytics.
But the right automation system like Allen Bradley cna alleviate these issues as they come with protected measures across software, hardware and overall system integrity. Their inbuilt sensor redundancy keeps a check on consistency before feeding any data to algorithms. The software also undergoes extensive testing in simulation conditions that reflect real-world conditions.
Data transmission in Allen Bradley systems occurs over secure, locked-down networks, and the credential and access policies help prevent unauthorized tampering with analytic tools. These features allow industries like chemicals, oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals to embrace analytics that drives safety and compliance. The recommendations by Allen Bradley Analytics undergo extensive checks and are not directly activated into the equipment.
The Allen Bradley integrator can verify the insights through HMI visibility before approving any optimizations, thus encouraging a collaborative dynamic between human oversight and AI guidance. The accuracy and reliability of these analytics will build trust in the outputs so that manufacturers can enable more automation in their production line.
How Can You Maximize the Value of Analytics?
Deploying analytics requires an upfront effort and hence, adding another data solution may seem daunting. But aligning use cases to clear business goals can help a lot, whether for boosting equipment longevity, improving yield, or shortening changeovers. Well-defined data flows and metrics will simplify deployment and also maximize Return of investment.
The Need for the Right Allen Bradley Integrator
However, to achieve these benefits, you need to work with an experienced automation and analytics Allen Bradley integrator. So look for service providers that have decades of hands-on expertise guiding manufacturers through analytics implementations for Allen Bradely systems. Partnering with leading software vendors will facilitate seamless deployments.
Make sure the service provider starts customer engagement with assessment of the infrastructure, environment, and objectives around analytics. They will also provide suggestions on the appropriate Allen Bradley systems and solutions to fulfill your data needs.
Look for system architects who can design efficient architects and navigators that can handle the complexities of the planning. Ongoing support will provide solution expansion, maintenance, and continuous training.
Final Thoughts
Analytics can help industrial companies achieve new levels of operational visibility, control, and efficiency. But this needs thoughtful planning and partnerships. Combining Allen Bradley systems with other integration services can minimize the risk of deployment, support real-time actions and long-term improvements. So make sure you partner with domain experts who can pave the path to successful analytics investments.
