The manufacturing industry accounts for much of the world’s energy consumption. In 2021, manufacturing accounted for a whopping 33% of all energy consumption in the U.S. Energy Information and Administration. In Norway, industry uses almost twice as much energy as private individuals annually*. By taking steps to reduce energy consumption, manufacturing companies can make a major impact on total consumption in the world.

* Based on calculation with average figures (2022) from Statistics Norway.

Many manufacturing companies have already adopted sustainability strategies to reduce consumption and emissions, and more and more are trying to get started. With the ongoing energy crisis and rising energy costs, many manufacturing companies are dependent on reducing their energy consumption to remain competitive – or even survive. In addition, the industry faces stricter regulations and regulatory requirements related to sustainability, as well as more environmentally conscious consumers. The time to start producing more sustainably is now.

Use digital tools to implement sustainability strategies on the site floor

Although many manufacturing companies already have sustainability strategies in place, the practical challenge is implementing the strategy on the plant floor. In order to produce more sustainably, it is crucial that production personnel have access to information on a daily basis. Only with insight into energy and raw material consumption can measures be taken to optimise production.

To solve this, you should use digital tools, which give operators and other personnel the information they need, while constantly working on the production process. Access to both real-time and historical data makes it possible to make both immediate and long-term improvements in production related to energy and raw material consumption, faulty manufacturing, traceability and more.

3 steps to reduce energy consumption

How can digital tools be used in practice? Below we share 3 steps on how you can map and optimize energy consumption in the production process.

Step 1: Map – “Are we using too much energy?”

See your spend compared to your normal spending, goals or budgeted spend in real time.

• Monitor consumption related to process areas and production lines
• Record events in production
• Record shifts, time of day and weather conditions
• Compare performance across plants, products, and manufacturing teams
• See consumption compared to sustainability KPIs (e.g. production carbon emissions)

Step 2: Explain – “Why are we using extra energy?”

Leverage context from the site floor to understand how to improve resource efficiency.

• Map the resource consumption of all products
• Find inefficient equipment
• Discover unknown patterns, wrecks or opportunities for improvement
• Contextualize data to manage sustainability KPIs
• Use best practice to standardize operations

Step 3: Optimize – “How can we reduce energy consumption and costs?”

Take actions that improve operational performance and sustainability, both at the process level and throughout the plant.

• Optimize production planning for better utilization of resources
• Reduce resource consumption and associated costs
• Reduce variations in production processes
• Make your supply chain more agile and resilient
• Ensure holistic optimization of the entire production environment

Sustainable production with Proficy Smart Factory

GE Digital’s Proficy Smart Factory software comes with all the features you need to gain insight into the manufacturing process and take action for a more sustainable production. Already using a MES solution from GE Digital? Then you have all the tools you need at your fingertips!

Via the Web-based dashboard platform Proficy Operations Hub, you can access visualized data anywhere, anytime. Below you can see tutorials of six widgets that can be used to gain insight into the energy and raw material consumption of the production process.

Proficy Operations Hub widgets

Sparkline

Displays time series data. Can be used in several areas:

• See energy or water consumption over a period of time
• Correlate energy or water consumption to temperatures/precipitation/weather conditions over a period of time

Watch the Sparkline widget tutorial

Bullet Graph

Displays target value and real value.

• See your energy consumption compared to normal consumption, budgeted consumption or goals

See Bullet Graph widget tutorial

Bar Gauge, Circular Gauge and Solid Gauge

Three widgets with different visualization of value compared to bucket.

• See your energy consumption compared to normal consumption, budgeted consumption or goals

View the Bar Gauge widget tutorial

See Circular Gauge widget tutorial

Watch Solid Gauge widget tutorial

Pie Chart

Displays data values in pie or doughnut chart. Can be used in several areas:

• Illustrate how consumption of e.g. energy and water affects total costs and greenhouse gas emissions
• Show most energy-intensive processes
• View material consumption

Watch the Pie Chart widget tutorial

Join us in reversing the trend

According to Statista, it is expected that energy consumption in industry will continue to increase in the coming years. This is despite an increased focus on sustainability and several challenges for the manufacturing industry, including increased energy costs and stricter regulations and regulatory requirements.

With the right tools in place, you can make a difference – both for the environment and your own business. Do you want to help reverse the trend and work for a more sustainable industry? We’ll help you get started!

Ask us about Smart Factory and sustainability

In 2013, the UK Government Office for Science produced a report, entitled the Future role for energy in manufacturing. In this report, they identified two threats to UK-based manufacturers. The first was that the price of energy in the UK will rise, compared to the cost faced by competitor firms abroad, placing UK manufacturers at a significant disadvantage. Well, the price has risen but globally because of the Russia Ukraine war. Nevertheless, the threat to UK manufacturing is still valid. The second threat is that a low-carbon electricity supply will be unreliable, and that the cost of power cuts will rise. Well, that is certainly true if you rely solely on low-carbon electricity. But using multiple sources of power can be greatly beneficial.

The PSM system can be used for applications such as:

• Electrical power consumption monitoring and reporting
• Fault monitoring
• Generator control features for generator to power grid synchronization
• Demand penalty cost reduction/load shedding

The PSM system consists of:

• PSM module – A standard IC694 module that mounts in an RX3i main rack. The PSM module provides the DSP capability.
• Terminal Assembly – A panel-mounted unit that provides the interface between the PSM module and the input transformers.
• Interface cables – Provide the GRID 1 and GRID 2 connections between the PSM module and the Terminal Assembly

The image below shows how a basic PSM system can be connected.

PSM System Features

• Uses standard, user-supplied current transformers (CTs) and potential transformers (PTs) as its input devices.
• Accurately measures RMS voltage and current, power, power factor, frequency, energy, and total three-phase 15-minute power demand.
• Provides two isolated relays that close when the voltage phase relationships between the two monitored grids are within the specified ANSI 25 limits provided by the RX3i host controller. These contacts can be used for general-purpose, lamp duty or pilot duty loads. Voltage and current ratings for these load types are provided in GFK-2749, PACSystems RX3i Power Sync and Measurement System User’s Manual.
• Provides a cable monitoring function that indicates when the cables linking the PSM module and Terminal Assembly are correctly installed.
• PSM module and Terminal Assembly are easily calibrated by hardware configuration using the PAC Machine Edition (PME) software.

To find out how Novotek can help you reduce your energy consumption and manage multiple energy sources email us at info_uk@novotek.com

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses across the UK have faced a surge in cybercrime. In fact, research indicates that UK businesses experienced one attempted cyberattack every 46 seconds on average in 2020. Industrial businesses are a prime target for hackers and the ramifications of a data breach or denial-of-service attack are far-reaching, making system security imperative. Here, David Evanson, corporate vendor relationship manager at Novotek UK and Ireland, explains how industrial businesses can keep their vital systems secure.

For many business leaders and engineers, it is still tempting to consider large multinational companies or data-rich digital service providers to be the prime target for hackers. However, the growing volume of cyberattacks on businesses globally show that any company can be a target of malicious attacks on systems and services.

According to research by internet service provider Beaming, there were 686,961 attempted system breaches among UK businesses in 2020, marking a 20 per cent increase on 2019. Of these attacks, Beaming noted that one in ten intended to gain control of an Internet of Things (IoT) device — something that indicates a tendency to target system continuity rather than conventional data.

Both factors together are cause for alarm among industrial businesses of all sizes. Hackers are targeting all manner of companies, from start-ups to global organisations, and focussing more on the growing number of internet-connected devices and systems that were previously isolated.

The consequences of a device being compromised range from data extraction to service shutdown, and in any case the financial and production impacts to an industrial business are significant. There is no single quick fix to bolster cybersecurity due to the varying types of hacks that can take place. Some cyberattacks are complex and sophisticated; others less so. Many attacks on devices tend to fall into the latter category, which means there are some steps industrial businesses can take to minimise risk.

Novotek has been working closely with industrial businesses in the UK and Ireland for decades. One common thing that we have observed with automation hardware and software is that many engineers do not regularly upgrade software or firmware. Instead, there is a tendency to view automation as a one-off, fit-and-forget purchase. The hardware may be physically maintained on a regular schedule, but the invisible software aspect is often neglected.

Older firmware is more susceptible to hacks because it often contains unpatched known security vulnerabilities, such as weak authentication algorithms, obsolete encryption technologies or backdoors for unauthorised access. For a programmable logic controller (PLC), older firmware versions make it possible for cyber attackers to change the module state to halt-mode, resulting in a denial-of-service that stops production or prevents critical processes from running.

PLC manufacturers routinely update firmware to ensure it is robust and secure in the face of the changing cyber landscape, but there is not always a set interval between these updates.

In some cases, updates are released in the days or weeks following the discovery of a vulnerability — either by the manufacturer, Whitehat hackers or genuine attackers — to minimise end-user risk. The firmware version’s upgrade information should outline any exploits that have been fixed.

However, it’s important to note that legacy PLCs may no longer receive firmware updates from the manufacturer if the system has reached obsolescence. Many engineers opt to air-gap older PLCs to minimise the cybersecurity risk, but the lack of firmware support can also create interoperability issues with connected devices. Another part of the network, such as a switch, receiving an update can cause communications and compatibility issues with PLCs running on older versions — yet another reason why systems should run on the most recent software patches.

At this stage, engineers should invest in a more modern PLC to minimise risk — and, due to the rate of advancement of PLCs in recent years, likely benefit from greater functionality at the same time.

Firmware vulnerabilities are unavoidable, regardless of the quality of the PLC. At Novotek, we give extensive support for the Emerson PACSystems products that we provide to businesses in the UK and Ireland. This involves not only support with firmware updates as they become available, but also guidance on wider system resilience to ensure that businesses are as safe as possible from hardware vulnerabilities. The growth in cyberattacks will continue long beyond the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, and infrastructure and automation are increasingly becoming targets. It may seem a simple step, but taking the same upgrade approach to firmware that we do with conventional computers can help engineers to secure their operations and keep running systems safely.

Every industrial business focuses on uptime as a priority. For manufacturers, this directly relates to productivity and profitability, with any disruption to operations — for example, due to a power failure — being a costly risk. Yet for power utilities companies, uptime is all about securing a continuous supply of power to said manufacturer by ensuring assets are reliably operational. Here, David Evanson, Corporate Vendor Relationship Manager Novotek UK and Ireland, highlights some of the most overlooked factors in automation uptime in power network assets.

The typical power generation and distribution network consists of hundreds of distributed assets, ranging from the generators and motors supporting power generation, to the power poles and infrastructure that distribute that power across long distances. This has been the case for decades, but the number of assets continues to climb as more areas experience greater levels of electrification, adding complexity to the process of managing power networks.

In the years ahead, power networks are only set to become more complex. In 2018, Prithpal Khajuria, business lead and domain expert for power industry at Intel, commented that “there are several new elements coming to the grid, solar panels, added storage, electric vehicles, so the management of the distribution grid is going to become more complex as we go forward.”

The automation layer of a power network is vital in managing this challenge, allowing utilities managers and technicians to remotely monitor assets and easily adjust processes. Integral to this functionality are programmable logic controllers (PLCs) in the field, which already have a complex set of technical requirements that operators must consider when specifying them.

An often overlooked consideration when specifying hardware is futureproofing. For power networks, PLCs might be in operation for over a decade. As such, two other factors become important in selection: environmental conditions and modularity. Some parts of a network are exposed to extended temperature conditions and the PLC must be able to function effectively in this range. Similarly, upgrading PLCs in the future shouldn’t require a complete overhaul of connected automation systems.

From Novotek’s experience providing automation hardware and software to the power industry, part of the reason that operators overlook these considerations is due to the scale of the network. If one in 50 PLCs is failing due to environmental issues, this can at first seem like a nuisance more than a pressing problem. But for larger power generators where networks of 2000 controllers are quite common, this amounts to 40 PLC failures and can severely impede efficient power generation.

Furthermore, when the time comes to modernise and upgrade the PLC or replace it due to a failure, it means ensuring compatibility with the other systems and devices in the automation layer. With some PLCs, operators can find themselves in a situation where only certain models of hardware will communicate effectively, leading to a time-consuming and expensive replacement process.

At Novotek, we recommend choosing open PLCs and automation, which are compatible with the broadest possible range of systems and applications. For example, Emerson’s PACSystems RX3i range of controllers fits this requirement because it is an open controller that can communicate with most modern automation systems. In addition, it also boasts an extended operating temperature that makes it durable in demanding environments and it supports easy migration from outdated controllers, with backwards compatibility for modular kits and built-in programming translation. These factors together make it an ideal option for power network automation.

Although technical capabilities are a core consideration of automation layer devices, futureproofing is equally about environmental and physical factors. They are invaluable to maintain a reliable power generation and distribution network long-term, ensuring uptime for the network and those that rely upon it.