embedded-single-boards

Over the last few years a number of automation vendors have announced various services including outsourced maintenance, system integration, manufacturing and business process consulting, and remote operations. I wonder if an automation vendor can continue to be effective as both a product company and services provider.

To clarify the difference, let’s start by defining what I mean by services and products. By providing services, automation vendors engage with customers to perform labor and knowledge intensive tasks that may include system design, engineering services, system integration, preventative maintenance, remote operations, and other services. By providing products, automation vendors sell something to the customers, system integrators and engineering firms that they will apply to accomplish automation tasks in manufacturing and process environments.

Service Dynamics

The primary objective of a service company should be to focus on the development a system solution that is uniquely suited to the idiosyncrasies of the client’s business without being tethered by particular product solution offerings. A big part of this is the ability to deploy technologies from appropriate sources using integration and engineering skills to achieve a superior result for the client. Service businesses need to have effective and refined project, personnel, and quality management systems. The growth and effectiveness of these businesses is directly related to adding and managing smart people and this is a unique business proficiency mastered by successful service organizations. Pure service businesses have an advantage of successfully maintaining alliances with a range of product vendors that cannot be logically achieved by product vendors who provide services. This separation positions a pure service business to use best of breed and get the most out of vendors. For comparison, consider you are a smartphone user and the only place to get apps was your phone hardware vendor.

refer to:http://www.automation.com/portals/factory-discrete-automation/can-automation-vendors-serve-two-masters-products-services

Leveraging upgrades in processing power

COM Express-based technology was developed in 1994 by PICMG, a 250-company consortium that develops open specifications for high-performance computing applications. Today, the COM Express form factor comes in four sizes:

Mini: 55 x 84 mm
Compact: 95 x 95 mm
Basic: 95 x 125 mm
Extended: 110 x 155 mm
These different sizes of COM Express modules help businesses to remain competitive by maximizing the performance of critical infrastructure systems in an increasingly connected world in any conceivable industrial application.

The need for improved performance is evidenced by continuous new product introductions by processor manufacturers such as Intel, AMD, and others. Whether it is better threading, more cores, better graphics, lower power, or higher clock speeds, these companies continuously respond to demand for more and faster computing across the board – whether on the desktop or in embedded industrial systems. But replacing a complete subassembly or subsystem each time a compelling new generation of technology becomes available is time-consuming, expensive, and risky. And yet the need to leverage greater levels of processor power and performance is an imperative. Separating the processor module from the underlying carrier means that technology upgrade is painless and affordable.

Beyond this, the modular COM Express approach allows users the flexibility to deliver application-specific performance and power at an appropriate price level (Figure 1). For instance, a quad core i7-based processor module can be used on a specific carrier board for a high-value, high-criticality, high-performance application – while the same carrier board, with the same features and I/O functionality, can be deployed for a lower value, less critical, less demanding application with a lower-performance VIA Nano processor-based COM Express module; this results in lower development cost and faster time to market.

A modern locomotive is a perfect use case for this flexibility. There are nearly a dozen computer processors in today’s locomotives. While the processing requirements for these computers are different, most of them have similar I/O requirements. Using the same or a similar carrier board with different COM Express modules based upon the appropriate level of processor power for the application, depending on its profile, allows for price/performance balance.

refer to:http://industrial-embedded.com/articles/rugged-increasingly-connected-world/

A recent report by IHS has shown that in 2012, capital expenditure on industrial automation equipment in Asia reached a total of $76.6bn, representing 46% of global investments in the sector.

Despite this established and rising trend, selling industrial automation equipment in Asia remains a clear business opportunity and one where many European providers are lagging behind.

Despite the first half of 2012 seeing an Asian market slowdown, with only a 3.7% growth in overall revenue from industrial automation solutions equipment, the second half of the year showed definite improvement. The positive trend has continued in 2013, with the industrial automation sector set to grow by 6.2%. In such a dynamic market, getting new business can be both a business and technical challenge.

One of the key areas of opportunity is the power industry, where the booming consumer and industrial power markets in developing economies such as China and India have created rocketing demand. In China the per capita energy use is still a long way behind most of Western Europe, meaning the potential for growth is still huge. Without question, Asia represents a perfect storm of opportunities for automation solutions.

refer to:http://www.connectingindustry.com/automation/asia-claims-almost-half-of-automation-sales.aspx

The average salary of the largest percentage of respondents by job function (28.2%, automation/control engineering) was $105,650, which is a $1,610 increase over last year. The top five highest paid job functions are listed below.

Engineering management: $137,761 (6.6% of respondents), a $5,041 increase
Safety systems engineering: $129,285 (1.1% of respondents), a $7,255 increase
Consulting engineering: $127,398 (3.8% of respondents), a $3,108 increase
Sales (outside): $121,848 (4.5% of respondents), a $4,828 increase
Project management: $120,543 (3.5% of respondents), a $9,323 increase
Of respondents, 69.2% possessed a college degree or higher. The average salary of college graduates (without an advanced degree) is $109,029. The results show that those who attended at least some graduate school (but did not finish) were able to increase their annual salary by $5,647. Those respondents who actually completed an advanced degree reported an average salary of $123,004—that is a $13,975 increase (virtually unchanged from last year) over college graduates.A degree of higher learning

It turns out that we have extracted some pretty interesting data from this year’s survey. Be sure to read the entire article, because at the end I provide you with a recipe to achieve the highest salary.For example, the average salary in the U.S. has increased by 2.8%. Ho hum. The top paying job function is Industrial management. Did not see that coming! Actually, I did. So what do we have that is new to share this year?

There is definitely some good news. Salaries have increased slightly, but job satisfaction has increased more—by five plus percentage points. It is definitely a job seekers market. The demand for quality automation professionals continues to increase. In fact, if you are in the market for a new job, you will likely have multiple offers on the table. The bad news is the skills shortage is very real and will not get better any time soon.

So without further ado, InTech again collaborated with Automation.com to conduct the annual salary survey. Our survey had 4,674 responses from automation professionals located around the world, with 56% from the U.S. Because salaries around the world vary greatly, we broke out the U.S. responses only to avoid skewing results. All the results quoted in this article, other than average salary by region of the world, represent U.S. responses only.

refer to:http://www.automation.com/factors-that-affect-your-salary-what-you-need-to-know

For the most part, remote sites with critical equipment are located in places that are difficult to access due to long distances or harsh conditions. Accessing critical information, such as equipment health and operational data at these sites can be time-consuming and costly. Also, given today’s aging industrial infrastructures, monitoring and controlling the data within these sites is more critical than ever. In fact, we are beginning to witness the consequences of not updating and maintaining outdated networks, as demonstrated by recent explosions at gas pipelines and blackouts in major cities when parts of the electrical grids have gone down.

Keeping a closer eye on these infrastructures is necessary not only to prevent loss of revenue, but more importantly, loss of life. Unfortunately, however, networking with remote sites to proactively prevent equipment degradation is far from an easy task and may even require a four-hour helicopter ride. In order to proactively monitor and control remotely located assets, users must be able to access local sensor data. The most cost-effective and intelligent way to do this is through cellular automation.

When customers come to JAI to discuss a color application, Kinney starts by asking what sort of spatial accuracy the system needs versus color accuracy. “It also depends on data rate,” he adds. “If you need absolute color accuracy of less than 1%, then we usually look at a three-CCD prism camera solution. If spatial accuracy over a wide inspection area is more important, then a very-high-resolution single-chip Bayer camera may be better. If you need high speed, CMOS offers higher frame rates and multi-line sensors with NIR capability and is very effective for high-speed printing applications where colorimetry measurements are very important because NIR can help you judge between true black ink and black made by combining cyan-magenta-yellow inks. And for some printing applications, knowing the difference is important for quality purposes.”

Color machine vision has its challenges.
Systems can produce three times the data (or less than one-third the resolution) of a monochrome camera solution. Color can introduce more potential sources for imaging errors, more complexity, more cost, and require careful engineering that reduces the system’s flexibility to deal with lines that make products of varying shape, colors, and size. In fact, if designers can find a way to use filters and lighting to measure a colored area using monochrome cameras, they usually do.

Today, printed circuit boards require more color vision solutions because the color of a component helps to identify each part. Plugs and connectors are color coded, and at the same time, the board is tracked using a black-and-white barcode. “These applications used to be done with a high-resolution monochrome camera, but now, you need to be able to sense color to make sure the right component and connector are in the right place,” Kinney explains. “The barcode will usually be located at the edge of the frame. If you use a single-chip color camera, you have to be concerned about color shading and halos at the edge of the image, and it’s made worse if you use cheap optics.”

refer to:http://www.visiononline.org/vision-resources-details.cfm/vision-resources/Is-Your-Machine-Vision-System-Color-Blind/content_id/4333

The ability to connect the control room to the board room has been a common talking point over the last few years as operating companies have increasingly strived for ways to make operations more efficient, and decision-making processes faster and better informed.

Rising operating costs and unstable oil prices, for instance, are forcing oil and gas companies to continuously lower their operating expenses. The same is true for other extractives industries such as metals and mining. Those companies must improve product quality and production efficiency while lowering the consumption of energy and reducing emissions.

To complicate things further, many of these operating companies typically have multiple production facilities geographically spread out, meaning expertise and best practices can be difficult to share and institutionalize across locations. Optimal production and productivity is hard enough to achieve on a single asset level, but interdependencies between processes and facilities complicate things even further.

And that’s not even taking safety into account: Production sites in remote locations present a variety of safety concerns, either in the hazardous environment of the operating facility itself (e.g., underground with risk of earthquakes, high altitudes, offshore with risk of hurricanes) or associated with transportation to these facilities (e.g., helicopter trips or long car trips over bad roads). Offshore operators, for instance, seek to improve safety by limiting helicopter flights and boat trips to remote facilities, and by reducing the number of people onboard platforms.

refer to:
http://www.automation.com/business-transformation-through-remote-collaboration-optimization-and-operations

Resurgence of the Do It Yourself (DIY) community has driven a range of open networking platforms, giving aspiring technologists cheap and easy access to embedded development. Outside of hobbyist toys and educational devices, however, “hacker” boards are increasing performance and I/O flexibility, and have become viable options for professional product development.

The “maker” movements of the past few years quickly gained traction in the education and hobbyist markets, as organizations began producing open hardware boards with a “less-is-more” architecture at a price to match. DIY boards like the Arduino, BeagleBoard, and Raspberry Pi provide “known state” programming platforms that allow easy exploring for novice developers, and enough flexibility for advanced hackers to create some pretty remarkable things – which they have solutions.

refer to:
http://embedded-computing.com/articles/diy-pushes-open-hardware-kindergarten-kickstarter/