The technical development is characterized by the convergence of previously separate applications, which also required a completely new organizational orientation. Two decades ago, IT and telecommunications were still completely autonomous areas with their own ecosystems and specialist departments, but the convergence has opened up new ways of communicating. Today, telephony is an integral part of corporate networks. Even if the benefits such as joint administration of access rights, new functionalities and open interfaces are now taken for granted, the process has taken a number of years.

The situation is similar in manufacturing today. OT, or operational technology, still leads a life of its own in many manufacturing companies. Even though the physical equipment in the factory, such as numerically controlled machines, robots, sensors, etc., is now largely digitized, networking is rather limited. Proprietary protocols are still commonplace and responsibility lies in separate departments.

In IT, or information technology, networked data-centric computing based on open interfaces is the rule. It creates the basis for processing, storing, exchanging and securing all forms of electronic data with the aim of intelligent corporate management.

Improving effectiveness

Consequently, the task today is to capture, analyze and store the enormous amounts of data from production and make it available intelligently for subsequent applications. What's more, it is important to derive immediate actions from the information obtained in order to ensure the continuity of the production process. The best way to do this is not only by quickly solving any problems that arise, but also by using predictive functions to prevent them from occurring in the first place.

The challenge for all manufacturing companies is to increase the effectiveness of the entire plant. Key figures such as NEE (Net Equipment Effectiveness) or OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) are important management tools. Practical concepts are required to improve these. Important measures include reducing waste, increasing the speed of production lines, faster changeovers and avoiding downtime. These goals are countered by the increasing complexity of production facilities combined with a lack of trained specialist personnel.

OT meets IT

The solution lies in the implementation of data-driven production with the aim of enabling actions directly on the production line based on real-time data, relieving production staff of mundane monitoring tasks, shortening operator response times and providing production staff with tools to improve the entire process.

As logical as this sounds, it is difficult to implement in practice. It is characterized by the coexistence of different systems, the limited interaction between IT and production, non-networked systems and devices as well as fractional responsibilities of departments. What's more, the collection and management of the enormous amounts of data alone is anything but trivial. Machines, sensors and devices in production continuously generate data every millisecond and in a wide variety of formats. However, suitable databases that are able to process unlimited amounts of data in a wide variety of formats in real time are rare. Although classic SQL databases offer the advantage of convenient programming and the availability of trained specialists, they suffer from the necessary performance. Specialized NoSQL databases are better suited in terms of performance, but are proprietary and therefore not very integrative. Many companies therefore find that several databases coexist, which is associated with redundant administration, overheads, data inconsistency and other difficulties.