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Briefing: xCoupler
By Craig Resnick, ARC Advisory Group Online Development and ILS Technology briefed ARC on their joint new offering during the Rockwell Automation Allen-Bradley Automation Fair. Online Development, a developer of factory automation hardware and software for OEMs such as Rockwell Automation and ProSoft; and ILS Technology LLC, a Park-Ohio Company that develops and installs production efficiency applications and software tools for semiconductor device and automotive manufacturers, have jointly released a product known as the xCoupler Enterprise Transaction Interface Module. This product provides two-tier data communications between various plant floor devices and enterprise servers. These modules simplify the multi-tier interfaces to bring proprietary machine and device data to corporate servers. xCoupler
modules are designed to fit into the backplane of a programmable
logic controller (PLC), or mount onto a DIN rail.
Several module types have been developed for enterprise server configurations.
The current product offering includes modules for the Allen-Bradley
ControlLogix PLC from Rockwell Automation and a Universal module
for DIN rail mounting.
xCoupler is targeted at manufacturing operations and maintenance management, which have long been interested in effective bridging solutions between the plant floor and enterprise computing. These solutions, however, have not been widely implemented or have failed because historically the controls-to-IT data mapping could not be cost-effectively maintained. The reasons include inconsistent and sometimes conflicting goals and performance metrics for controls engineering, operations management, and IT. This is why xCoupler has separate security contexts to uniquely address the requirement of four constituencies: appliance management, controller access management, IT systems access management, and data mapping management. As an appliance, xCoupler contains the hardware, embedded OS, and application firmware to do bridging between factory floor and enterprise applications. The communications to the controller backplane for the in-rack xCouplers and the TCP/IP-Ethernet for the freestanding versions use applicable controller vendor standards. Likewise, the IT application communications is via TCP/IP-Ethernet and native application-specific, OS-independent, protocols for each supported IT application. The xCoupler, in addition to linking to IT applications, can directly link to engineering/operation/maintenance applications as needed. Each xCoupler is designed to be autonomous, so turning off one set of equipment and the supporting xCouplers does not affect the operation of any other xCouplers. This xCoupler autonomy also supports off-site cell or machine construction and test, with the assurance that xCoupler will plug and play when it reaches the installation plant site. Online Development and ILS Technology are currently demonstrating an xCoupler mounted into a ControlLogix rack, providing a direct data exchange between manufacturing systems and business applications and extending the ControlLogix Integrated Architecture beyond the control system with simple transactions and data record definitions using Logix tags. This demonstration supports IBM WebSphere MQ transaction messaging, databases access via native interface – Oracle, DB2, or SQL Server, and is host operating system independent – Unix, Linux, or Windows. ARC feels that xCoupler is a timely and viable product that is anticipated to be well received by the market. The product looks very easy to use and implement. As is often the case, however, a seemingly simple solution has a great deal of creative and comprehensive work behind it by the developer company to in fact make it easy to use and implement by the end-user. The challenge for xCoupler will be to convince end users that this simplified, plug and play approach that eliminates a tier of complex data communications will work in their plant as demonstrated. This will require some missionary user demos, followed up by beta units installed in various applications. Once the end user is convinced of the integrity of the solution, there should be a significant demand for xCoupler. This approach, if executed properly, has the potential to greatly lower the costs of bridging between the factory floor and the enterprise. It will also create common goals among control engineering, operations management, and IT that should lead to less conflicted working relationships between factory floor and enterprise computing personnel. xCoupler modules have been jointly developed by Online Development and ILS Technology LLC, a Park-Ohio Company. Online Development is a "fast track" developer of factory automation hardware and software for OEMs such as Rockwell Automation and ProSoft. ILS Technology is a highly specialized organization that develops and installs applications and software tools to help manufacturers of semiconductor devices and equipment, as well as automotive manufacturers achieve greater production efficiencies through the use of technology. For more information about xCoupler modules, contact Online Development at 865-251-5259 or click on the email link below. |
