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by Stephanie Neil, MA Editorial Staff   Leave your master's degree in engineering or business management aside; when it comes to understanding automation architectures, it's all very elementary. These complex control systems that have become embedded in your production facilities through the years may best be described by a term we all learned in fourth grade: ecosystem. Simply put, an ecosystem is an assemblage of organisms living together interdependently and functioning as a loose unit. Replace the word "organism" with the term "automated equipment" -- something that's not alive but lively nonetheless -- and the parallels jump out at you, clear as the lunch bell. Why the analogy? Because it's important for manufacturers to rethink what automation architectures are. A decade ago they were closed, self-sufficient systems that didn't need anything but some bits and bytes to survive. They did the job -- which was to control a single function or process -- and they were a reliable, important element in keeping production lines going. But getting information out of those cloistered systems was nearly impossible. [Click to continue] |