Cybersecurity and 5G-connectivity as basis for digitalization

An influ­en­tial group of organ­i­sa­tions rep­re­sent­ing Euro­pean users of instru­ment users and indus­tri­al process automa­tion tech­nol­o­gy met again in Sep­tem­ber 2018 and agreed on pri­or­i­ties for coop­er­a­tion and action.

Board mem­bers and Direc­tors of Euro­pean user asso­ci­a­tions of instru­ment users and automa­tion tech­nol­o­gy users in process indus­tries — Namur, EI, WIB and Exera, wel­comed Clui AS, the Club Uti­liz­za­tori Ital­iani Automazione e Stru­men­tazione, to their annu­al meet­ing, this year held in Cologne in Sep­tem­ber 2018. Eemua was invit­ed and attend­ed the meet­ing and con­tributed to the discussions.

Dur­ing wide rang­ing dis­cus­sions the Asso­ci­a­tions reaf­firmed their inten­tion to coop­er­ate close­ly in this chal­leng­ing, fast mov­ing and com­plex field, dis­cussed com­mon con­cerns and how best to address them. To fur­ther under­line the impor­tance of col­lab­o­ra­tion the exist­ing coop­er­a­tion agree­ment between Namur, EI, WIB and Exera was extend­ed to include Clui AS as a new member.

All togeth­er Newec rep­re­sent over 250 com­pa­nies using instru­men­ta­tion and process con­trol sys­tems that are vital for the safe, effi­cient and sus­tain­able oper­a­tion of com­plex process indus­tries that pro­vide vital mate­ri­als and pow­er for the mod­ern world.

Varied and open discussions covered many key topics. Highlights included:

Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty of indus­tri­al sys­tems: Newec dis­cussed the height­ened dan­gers posed by some recent intru­sions into indus­tri­al sys­tems, includ­ing those affect­ing the integri­ty of plant safe­ty sys­tems. Close coop­er­a­tion between the orga­ni­za­tions on the real­i­sa­tion of guide­lines and prac­tices continues.

Con­nec­tiv­i­ty in the indus­tri­al envi­ron­ment: the increased use of indus­tri­al wire­less tech­nol­o­gy, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the exploita­tion of the 5G allo­ca­tion by indus­try is a sig­nif­i­cant enabler for many aspects of effi­cient plant oper­a­tion and Indus­trie 4.0, but also rais­es many ques­tions regard­ing what should be regard­ed as good prac­tice. There are huge poten­tial ben­e­fits for both man­u­fac­tur­ers and users in estab­lish­ing com­mon solu­tions and practices.

Big data: though many com­pa­nies have been doing exten­sive data analy­sis for decades, the improve­ments in data analy­sis tools are now dri­ving a raft of changes rang­ing from pre­dic­tive main­te­nance through to the busi­ness mod­el itself. A num­ber of exam­ples and poten­tial areas of appli­ca­tion were dis­cussed. Sound cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and high-speed con­nec­tiv­i­ty are seen as fun­da­men­tal pre­req­ui­sites for Big Data and fur­ther dig­i­tal­iza­tion efforts in the process and pow­er industries.

Type test­ing: the organ­i­sa­tions were keen to exchange ideas on new approach­es to type test­ing. Hav­ing regard to the wide range of require­ments of their mem­ber com­pa­nies and the dif­fer­ing approach­es and capa­bil­i­ties of test­ing lab­o­ra­to­ries, Newec recog­nised the advan­tages of devel­op­ing a com­mon view on what aspects of a device are the core to be test­ed, and what are the com­mon prin­ci­ples and con­di­tions for testing.