B&S - Immediately benefited from network communication training

Communication in and between machines is becoming more and more extensive. In production lines, machines need to coordinate more with each other and users want to get more data and signals out of them. Machine builders therefore come with many questions. From this practical experience, itsme has developed a training course for network communication, covering commonly used protocols and techniques. B&S benefited immediately. "In a project I was working on, I did not yet have much knowledge of the customer requirement for an MRP ring (Media Redundancy Protocol, ed.). That topic was in the training at the time."

With some 100 employees, B&S in Hengelo (OV) provides special machinery construction, industrial maintenance, service and maintenance management. With the acquisition of WiTechs Wire Technologies, it has had a machine builder for the wire industry in house since 2020. From B&S, Henk-Jan Scherphof spends most of his time working for WiTechs. "Traditionally, their machines were wired for a start and stop signal and a reset signal, but that was basically it. Nowadays, those machines also work a lot in a line and need to be able to communicate with the other machines in that line. More communication is also needed within the machine itself, to control the process properly. Moreover, customers want to be able to extract more signals and other data from the machine than before."

Delivery, streamlining and training

Network communication was therefore a subject in which Scherphof, who started as a mechatronics technician at B&S and is now a software engineer, wanted to be retrained. The company has relied on itsme for many years to provide industrial automation and streamline processes. For instance, itsme Connected Business did a project with WiTechs for on-demand delivery of kits with the necessary components for the machines on the schedule. Meanwhile, B&S is also taking training courses. In the field of network communication, itsme has a wide range of offerings, says Quinten Waegeman, product specialist and trainer at itsme Industrial Automation. This includes both the design of communication networks and the implementation of the hardware - such as PLCs and industrial switches - and the software.

"The OPC UA data exchange standard is a great enabler for Industry 4.0"

Many questions among potential trainees and their employers are about OPC UA, says Waegeman. OPC UA (Open Platform Communications - Unified Architecture) is a standard for data exchange between industrial automation systems. "Many companies still lack knowledge about this standard, which is considered one of the major enablers for Industry 4.0. It is a well-standardised technique for sharing all kinds of data in and with machines, independent of suppliers, manufacturers and components. From small sensors in the field to large data management systems running on servers, they can all communicate with each other using the same standard."

Ethernet-based

The training Scherphof attended covered three consecutive days at itsme in Raamsdonksveer. "Everything is Ethernet-based in the training," explains Waegeman. "We don't talk about bus systems anymore, although of course they are still there. The focus is on Ethernet-based technologies, such as PROFINET, TCP/IP, Modbus/TCP and OPC UA, each with their pros and cons and application areas. That is the first part of the training, while in the second part we focus on structures in networks. For instance, how can you create a ring in your network to achieve higher availability or make your network more fault-tolerant? Or how will you divide a logically connected network into separate cells to better ensure security or make data flows more predictable? You can use VLAN technology for that, for instance, to create a virtual local area network. You make that look like one LAN network, while under the bonnet you set it up with separate components."

"All this knowledge from the course I now use in my daily work"

Scherphof calls it an instructive course. "It helped me a lot in my work. At the time, I was working on a project for a Chinese customer. They had requirements, including for an MRP ring (Media Redundancy Protocol, ed.), of which I did not yet have all the knowledge. I had not yet included a manageable switch in the design that supported MRP. Fortunately, the Siemens PLC in the design did have ports that supported MRP. Furthermore, I learned how to make a PLC within a Siemens control act as an I/O device for another PLC. I also gained knowledge of Modbus. Schneider Electric, for instance, uses that for the communication of its monitoring components that we work with. I now use all this knowledge in my daily work. The course folder was very clear and is now behind me in the cupboard. I can grab it straight away: how was this again?"

Not exhausted

Thus, Scherphof is not going to stop learning for the time being. "Motion control and industrial networking are topics I find interesting. So maybe I will take another motion control training course and a follow-up for network communication." "There isn't one yet," Waegeman reports. "I am working on extensions though and maybe later the training will be split into two parts. There is more demand for data retrieval over the internet and for ever new ways of collecting and analysing data. For that, you need these kinds of industrial communication networks. Cybersecurity is therefore an important topic. I have a desire to add that."

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