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While the wireless wave may indeed be coming, valid concerns remain over technical standards and low awareness levels amongst IT executives.
Industrial companies are increasingly adopting wireless sensor network (WSN) technology to increase production, improve efficiency, reduce environmental impacts, and ease the cost of complying with regulations.
ISM frequencies. 802.11a/b/g. UWB. 1451.5. ZigBee. 802.15.4. Cyber-security. Spread spectrum. HART. Customers of wireless sensors and networks are bombarded with confl icting and confusing claims from diverse sources, according to the Wireless Industrial Networking Alliance (WINA).
The resulting confusion brings back memories of earlier attempts to determine the best fi eldbus for industrial applications (the “Bus Wars”). With the highly segmented nature of the market, industrial end users need better access to clear, unbiased industry information on comprehensive wireless solutions.
At a recent wireless industry conference in Malaysia, CE Asia conducted an interview with Harris (Hesh) Kagan, then-President of WINA and spokesperson for Invensys. He serves as Director of Technology for services, applications, and solutions marketing for Invensys, a major process automation player with product brands including Foxboro, Triconex, SimSci-Esscor, and Avantis. With a track record of over 25 years in the automation and controls industry, Kagan is an authority in this fi eld.
WINA recently announced the new 2008 strategic leadership team elected to the board of directors: Ian McPherson, Apprion; Dave Kaufman, Honeywell; Steve Toteda, Dust Networks; John Jacobs, 3eTI; and Randy Klassen, OMINEX.
“I am delighted to pass the leadership baton. Wireless technology and wireless networking systems hold great promise to help our industry use energy and materials more effi ciently, lower systems and infrastructure costs, increase productivity, and ensure worker safety,” says Kagan.
Multiple opportunities
In terms of its Asia-Pacifi c wireless footprint, Invensys is doing fi eld trials with one of the major oil & gas industry players in India, participating in some of the projects of Petronas in Malaysia, and scoping out Brunei and Australia as well.
“Wireless will be the next wave in this part of the world. Till now, people were thinking that wireless was just a medium for connecting the computer, or to access the Internet. But more and more awareness is coming through that you can do more of what it could not deliver before,” says Kagan.
The oil and gas as well as food and beverage industries have been using the same technology for the past fi ve to twenty years, and as the plants grow there are a lot of communication needs.
“There are a lot of personal needs, a lot of safety needs – so there are a lot of wireless applications. And I am sure that in the coming six months to one year, we will see a different era of wireless in this industry,” Kagan predicts.
A challenge in the community is that everyone is looking for piecemeal, smaller things, he observes. “Nobody is looking at the bigger picture, looking for a plant-wide application. The best path is a plant-wide infrastructure where you can plug in a range of things, like safety applications,” Kagan advises.
P e r s o n a l s a f e t y applications are becoming one of the key deployments in the oil and gas sector, especially in offshore rigs. Here wireless can give managers and employees a better picture and automate things for safety.
Change process
Another big challenge is educating the industries and bringing about change management. A lot of concerns, like security or liability in wireless, tend to hold them back, says Kagan. On the technical side, there are frequency spectrum issues in different countries.
Fortunately, there are progressive moves on the regulatory front. Malaysia has already announced the frequencies for WiMax. India is doing some trials, and Korea and Taiwan are making rapid progress.
“There is still the lack of demonstrated successes. There is a lack of proven solutions. There’s a lot of talk about it, but most people don’t have access to successes that are out there,” Kagan rightly observes.
Fortunately, the next generation of managers in Asia have very diverse attitudes and are willing to change and modernize in order to be competitive.
“In any industry you know, maybe only 10 percent of the folks are pushing the envelope. Maybe less, fi ve percent,” Kagan says.
Some CIOs and CTOs find it tough to make sense of the bewildering array of industrial wireless solutions, such as ZigBee, HART, and the like.
“It is important to have a plan and a strategy, recognizing the fact that there will always be many different standards and protocols to deal with. The level of effort to manage multiple networks is signifi cant, and it is something new,” Kagan admits.
Existing IT structure is not typically designed to support and maintain and understand the requirements of wireless networks. Invensys solutions like Apprion are positioned in this network management space.
“The CTO and CIO of a corporation need to be aware that their IT capability needs to expand. They do need a more competent IT staff and should be interested in developing it. But what some are trying to do is to get by with as little IT as possible,” says Kagan.
In sum, it is important for industrial engineers and managers to understand wireless applications and their business impacts across the organisation.
Keeping a “10,000 feet” overview of each department and plant is important. But even more important in the long run is harnessing a “30,000 feet” overview of the entire organisation and industry, especially in a fi eld as rapidly moving as industrial wireless solutions.
