Rockwell Automation and Delmia Corp., a division of Dassault Systemes, today announced that the two companies had signed a memorandum of understanding on an initiative to bring manufacturers one step closer to making the concept of the digital factory a reality.
The two companies have been working to synchronize Rockwell's RSLogix 5000 design and configuration software for its Logix control technologies with Delmia V5 Automation, software that can validate control logic against a virtual machine or cell. Using complementary object-based technology, the duo has found a way to exchange mechanical and electrical production information, enabling the virtual commissioning of equipment.
"We are creating a holistic virtual design and production environment," said Kevin Roach, Rockwell's vice president of software, in a briefing with Managing Automation.
The solution marries Delmia's virtual design and modeling flows with Rockwell's programming software, providing a way to test and validate control code in a simulated environment rather than in the physical facility. Think of it as creating a prototype of the actual functions on the factory floor — much like a design software can make a prototype of a product, officials said. The value-add of the design-to-control technology is that it reduces the time it takes to debug programs, shortens time to market, and lowers production costs because it can reduce development time by feeding information back into the next engineering phase, Rockwell and Delmia officials said.
"We want to address the challenges customers face. How we do it is by combining technology that allows us to compress the time from design to production," said Delmia Vice President Patrick Michel.
The key to integrating virtual design and control programs is object libraries that can bi-directionally exchange mechanical, electrical, and production information. Separately, the companies have been building libraries of object-oriented technologies. And recently, as part of their strategic partnership, they have begun to build relationships between the objects in each library.
"We've been working on this independently for the last 10 years, but the exchange of information only took us about two weeks because we've created similar prototypes [making it easy] to go back and forth between the two," Michel said.
The technology has been tested, and the team is in the process introducing it to customers, but the companies declined to say when the technology — which will come in the form of an upgrade module — would be generally available or how much it would cost.
Industry analysts briefed on the technology announcement say the synchronization between the products is a key element to the digital factory environment, and that the partnership makes a lot of sense. Some categorized the solution as a bit premature, however.
"I think they may be worried about what Siemens is doing," said ARC Advisory Group analyst, Dick Slansky, referring to Siemens' acquisition of UGS and its development of a similar solution. "Siemens has been working quietly and will be rolling out stuff too," he said.
The partnership between Rockwell and Delmia is not exclusive, the companies said, but the relationship is unique with regard to the depth of integration the two have been able to achieve.
"The magic in our collaboration is that we have identified the connection points for the objects we have in each other's systems and we have cross-shared our file access technology to make it simple for users to do this," said Delmia's Michel.