At Hannover Messe from April 24-28, industrial automation software expert, COPA-DATA will show how the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) can be a worthwhile business area for modern machine builders. The technological interaction between zenon, the COPA-DATA software system for industrial automation, and the Microsoft Azure cloud platform will be shown in a live demo with the internationally-active equipment manufacturer KHS at the Microsoft booth in Hall 7, Booth C40.
Visitors can get to see the integration of zenon in the Microsoft Azure cloud platform and get an idea of how, in just one system, it is possible to access all data from a company’s individual machines, production lines or complete production sites. Thanks to the high connectivity of zenon, this is possible in a heterogeneous production environment. The comparison of different production sites using zenon is also available now.
Additional services such as predictive analysis, machine learning, cross-site reporting, remote maintenance and control can be fully cloud-based and also implemented in hybrid scenarios. In doing so, the zenon Azure Process Gateway ensures secure and loss-free data communication to the Azure service IoT Hub. For a high-performance design of the different applications, COPA-DATA’s IIoT solutions also use further Azure services such as Stream Analytics, Azure Machine Learning and Azure SQL.
“Our zenon software allows, in conjunction with Microsoft Azure, various IIoT applications. At our booth, we will show you how our customer KHS benefits from this technological interaction,” explained Philipp Schmidt, Head of Innovation Management at COPA-DATA. “In combination with the learning algorithms from our partner Resolto, it is possible, for example, to read the wear, its condition, and information about predictive maintenance of the machines in zenon. This benefits both the equipment manufacturer and the operator of these machines and is a significant step towards a smart factory.”
Use machines and equipment more efficiently
The manufacturer of filling and packaging equipment, KHS, uses zenon as standard as its software to control and visualize its machines. At the Microsoft booth C40 in Hall 7, KHS and COPA-DATA will work together to show how machines can be better maintained on the basis of newly-analyzed status data and thus how they can be used more efficiently. Wear can be detected early, for example, with the help of data analytics.
“We are showing our ability to innovate with this showcase,” explained Karsten Vollmer, Innovation Manager from the Technology Management Central Division at KHS. “Our filling and packaging systems are at the highest technical level and run around the clock throughout the world.
“An important next step in the direction of IoT for our customers is also secure networking of the machine operation (HMI) in cloud-based architectures. New cloud technologies joined with the connectivity of zenon offer us the basis for the development of new business models as well as comprehensive enhancement of existing products on offer. Furthermore, our customers can operate their plants even more efficiently as a result of the findings from machine learning.”
