Understanding the Industrial Process and Devices

In this chapter, the reader will understand how industrial data is generated, gathered, and transferred to the cloud. We will look at continuous discrete processes and how they work, becoming familiar with the model of computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) from its origin in the factories of the 1980s to the current day. The reader will learn about industrial equipment, networks, and protocols, and come to understand terms such as distributed control system (DCS), programmable logic controllers (PLCs), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), Historian, manufacturing execution system (MES), Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP), and Fieldbus. We will also look at how the industrial world interacts with the cloud, and look at the devices and protocols that allow this to happen. Related to this, we will learn terms including...

Technical requirements

In this chapter, we will present concepts related to industrial processes and equipment. A basic knowledge about analogical signal processing and analogical/digital and digital/analogical conversion is required. You will also need to be aware of elements of control theory, and LAN and WAN networking.

The industrial process

An industrial process can be defined as a set of operations that transforms, with a predetermined objective, the properties of one or more material, type of energy, or information. A typical example of an industrial process might be the production of products and goods through a continuous or discrete manufacturing process, or the production of electricity, including its transportation and distribution. The industrial process also includes the collection, elaboration, and sharing of information along all production phases and steps. The industrial process is represented in the following diagram:

The industrial process

This transformation from raw materials to a product requires the following:

• Energy
• Machines
• Tools
• Human work

The industrial process is a sequential process. It can be split into a further set of sequential production steps, transforming...

The CIM pyramid

The production support system is a set of activities for managing the flow of information related to production. It includes the following aspects:

• Business: These are activities that strictly face the customer and are related to the start and end of the whole process. These include order management, marketing, sales, and the budget.
• Design: These are activities related to designing the product according to the customer's needs, expectations, and requirements.
• Planning: These are activities based on planning the business and design functions of a product. They involve the working sequence, timing, storage, and supplies.
• Control: These are activities related to the management and supervision of the process production. It includes controlling the production flow and checking the quality of the production processes and products.

We can sketch these activities...

The I-IoT data flow

In this section, we will introduce the whole flow of industrial data from the sensors to when they are processed in the cloud. We will look closer at data acquisition, data sources, the related protocols and the edge device to push the data into the cloud in Chapters 3, Industrial Data Flow and Devices and Chapter 4, Implementing the Industrial IoT Data Flow. We will then look at an overview of cloud architecture and the main components for the I-IoT in Chapter 7, Developing Industrial IoT and Architecture, and beyond.

Here, when explaining the I-IoT data flow, we have not mentioned cybersecurity. This is not because the topic is not pertinent or relevant. On the contrary, cyber-security is always a hot topic, especially in an industry in which availability and reliability of equipment is a must, and confidentiality and intellectual properties are increasingly...

Summary

In this chapter, we have looked at what an industrial process and an automated system are. We have identified the physical process, the control systems, and their interactions. The physical process is a combination of operations that act on entities that belong to the physical world and change some of their characteristics. The control system receives the information on the status of the process, elaborates it, and performs the required actions on the physical process. A more rigorous definition of process control and data acquisition systems has been also provided. We have identified and defined the different entities involved, which included devices, resources, data, events, and the interface.

Following this, we learned about the different kinds of industrial processes there are, distinguishing between continuous, semi-continuous, discrete, and batch processes. We also...

Questions

1. Which is the component that carries out the actions on a physical process?
   1. The sensor
   2. The actuator
2. What is a device, according to the IEC 61131 standard definition?
   1. A device is defined as an independent physical entity able to implement one or more functionalities
   2. A device is a logical breakdown of a software or hardware structure
3. What is an event, according to the IEC 61131 standard definition?
   1. An event is a representation of a fact in a suitable format for the communication and elaboration by the resource
   2. An event is an occurrence of a specific condition, such as the reaching of a definite temperature

4. What is a discrete process?
   1. A process characterized by processing cycles based on single parts or individual units of a product
   2. A process involving finite quantities of the final product obtained from finite quantities of raw materials, and processed according...

Further reading

Read the following articles for more information:

• FieldBus Foundation: http://www.fieldbus.org/
• International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC): http://www.iec.ch/
• OPC Foundation: https://opcfoundation.org/about/what-is-opc/