Automation major B&R showcased Orange Box as well as other allied solutions during the four days of Automation Expo 2017 held at Bombay Exhibition Center from 9 to 12 August. Orange Box enables factories and plants to fully transform into smart manufacturing setups and connect old and digitally isolated machines. Smart manufacturing operations require collaboration between intelligent transport system with high-quality movement coordination based on real-time synchronization.
One of the solutions on show at B&R stall was SuperTrak, an intelligent transport system, used for conveying liquids or products, without spilling or damaging them. These are typically deployed in food, pharma, packaging and medical companies. SuperTrak is equipped with sensors to check the wear and tear of the machine and this information along with energy and condition monitoring data of the machine are fed into Orange box.
Orange Box is a mix of hardware and software solution to analyze the data and effectively communicate it through display devices, such as a smartphone. A user can view the production time, overall equipment efficiency (OEE) and unplanned stoppages, to take necessary action without any delay. With Secure Remote Maintenance, the collected data is securely uploaded to the cloud and provides authentication to a particular device permitted by end users. On request, the OEM has access to the particular machine, helping him diagnose errors and provide the right solution to the users as early as possible; similar to the quick changeover.
Brownfield installations are old plants that need to upgrade the system with modern technology and Organe Box helps to achieve that. Based on the customer needs, he can choose APROL, an open DCS platform, which provides similar service for existing as well as new plants.
B&R also presented a complete holistic picture of data exchange from the field to the clouds using open communication standards for Industrial IoT such as OPC UA, Ethernet POWERLINK and openSAFETY.
