Industry40.tv

Ep 07: Kafka for Industrial IoT Streaming - Kai Waehner ( Field CTO & Global Technology Advisor, Confluent )

Developed at LinkedIn in 2010, Apache Kafka - a stream processing engine, now powers web-scale Internet companies such as Netflix, Uber, Twitter, Airbnb, and more. Profoundly impacting real-time user experience.

Of equal impact, is its application in creating a continuous streaming pipeline of manufacturing data, from the factory-floor to data centers. Fundamentally changing the structural organisation of manufacturing systems.

To gain an understanding of Kafka in IIoT, I had a conversation with Kai Waehner. Kai is Field CTO and Global Technology Advisor at Confluent, a company that was founded by Kafka creators and is behind the open-source project.

Here are the contents of our discussion

✔️ Stream processing in Manufacturing
✔️ Apache Kafka and Its Role in IIoT
✔️ Kafka vs MQTT
✔️ Architecture Patterns for Kafka Deployments
✔️ Connectivity to Industrial Control Systems
✔️ Data Ingestion to enterprise Applications
✔️ Examples of Real-Time Streaming Analytics
✔️ Using Kafka as a Data Historian
✔️ Re-Engineering ERP Suites with Kafka
✔️ Using Kafka to Drive Machine Learning
✔️ Hybrid Kafka Deployments
✔️ Kafka as a Platform for the Digital Twin
✔️ Kafka's Role in Augmented Reality
✔️ Kafka Use Cases in Manufacturing
✔️ Confluent

Ep 06: Foundations of Industrial IoT Data Architecture - John Harrington ( Co-Founder, HighByte )

So here's the thing, data from industrial sources is inherently messy. For example, a typical PLC system manages thousands of tags from both physical instruments and internal calculations, but this data is often unstructured, not linked to a unifying data model, and uses naming conventions that are vague to the outside world.

This makes data from such sources not readily usable in analytics applications and has led to the emergence of a new field of industrial data preprocessing for IIoT, called Industrial DataOps.

To discuss more on industrial DataOps, I had a conversation with John Harrington who is the Co-Founder of HighByte, a company pioneering this field with their HighByte Intelligence Hub.

Here some of the topics that we discussed.

✔️ What is Industrial IoT DataOps
✔️ Limitations of the Purdue Model/ISA-95
✔️ The importance of Data Quality
✔️ Data Standardisation, Normalisation and Contextualisation
✔️ Best Practices for integrating industrial data silos
✔️ Principles of IIoT Data Modelling
✔️ How DataOps enforces privacy and security
✔️ HighByte Intelligence Hub

John has previously worked as the VP of Business Strategy at PTC, and he's also served as the VP of Product Management at Kepware Technologies.

Ep 05: Advanced Plant-Floor Data Analytics - Marcos Taccolini ( Founder and CTO, Tatsoft )

Cliché as it may sound, data IS the new Oil. But, to fully reap the benefits, data needs to be properly collected and advanced analytics correctly applied to it.

To better understand the process, I had a conversation with one person who has close to 3 decades of building industrial data aggregation and advanced visualisation tools, Marcos Taccolini.

Marc is currently the Founder and CTO of Tatsoft, a platform developer for real-time factory-floor data monitoring, SCADA and HMI Systems, Distributed Data Aggregation, and Advanced Visualization Tools.

Below, is the outline of our conversation.

✔️Collecting Real-Time Data
✔️Collecting Enterprise Data
✔️Plant-Floor to Cloud Integration
✔️Integrating Structured and Unstructured Data
✔️Data Lakes for Plant-Floor Data
✔️MQTT Sparkplug B
✔️Role of OPC UA in IIoT Dataflow
✔️Real-Time Metrics Tracking
✔️Advanced Analytics Best Approach
✔️OEE Explained
✔️Plant-Floor Machine Learning Applications
✔️Operational Intelligence with the Digital Twin
✔️Tatsoft, FrameworX, and Factory Studio

Marc also previously served as the Founder of Indusoft, a provider of HMI and embedded intelligent device software, which was acquired by Invensys. He was also the co-founder of Unitec and Unisoft.

Ep 04: A Practical Guide to IIoT Connectivity - Stan Schneider ( CEO, Real-Time Innovations )

While the connectivity of industrial systems is the most important aspect of IIoT, there is currently a confusing mix of connectivity technologies and standards.

To understand IIoT Connectivity I had a conversation with Stan Schneider, who specialises in innovation where pervasive networking meets functional AI

Stan is CEO of Real-Time Innovations (RTI), the world’s largest software framework provider for smart machines & real-world systems such as power plants & autonomous vehicles

Here's what we discussed

✔️ Industrial Internet Connectivity Framework
✔️ Why Connectivity Technologies Don't overlap
✔️ Why Connectivity Wrappers Don't Work
✔️ Industrial Connectivity Stack
✔️ The Core Connectivity Standard Architecture
✔️ Data Distribution Service Explained
✔️ OPC UA vs DDS

RTI software runs over 1500 designs including the largest power plants in North America, the Canadian Air Traffic Control system, NASA's launch control system, nearly all Navy ships, GE Healthcare's hospital device networks, Siemens wind turbine farms, trains, & metro control systems, & over 250 autonomous vehicle designs

Stan holds a PhD from Stanford in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science with a focus on Autonomous Systems.

Ep 03: Fundamentals of Edge Computing - Rob Tiffany ( VP & Head of IoT STrategy - Ericsson )

The success of IIoT in mission-critical applications depends on its ability to support local storage, compute, and connectivity for real-time responses, while sending selected data to the cloud for additional analytics. In short, Edge Computing

To gain a comprehensive understanding of Edge Computing, I sat down with somebody whose day job is strategising and executing at the intersection of 5G, Edge Computing, and the Internet of Things, Rob Tiffany

Rob is currently VP and Head of IoT Strategy at Ericsson

Here's what we discussed

✔️ Edge Computing Intro
✔️ Edge Computing Architecture Trends
✔️ Edge Computing Frameworks
✔️ Edge Analytics
✔️ Digital Twins in Edge Computing
✔️ Edge Solution Orchestration
✔️ Security Challenges & Solutions
✔️ Role of Edge Computing in 5G
✔️ Moab Foundation

Rob was previously, the CTO & Global Product Manager at Hitachi, where he created the Lumada IIoT platform. He was also the Global Technology Lead at Microsoft, where he was one of the co-authors of the Azure IoT Reference Architecture. Rob is the Executive Director of the Moab Foundation, a non-profit organisation working to create a more sustainable planet through the application of connected intelligence

Ep 02 : Principles of IIoT Architecture - Rick Bullota (Co-Founder, Thingworx)

Having a solid understanding of the key components of an IIoT architecture and how to integrate them is the most important aspect of building an IIoT application, both as an in-house solution and as a service offering

So, to help shed light on the principles of IIoT architecture design, I had a discussion with one person who is best positioned to speak on the subject, Rick Bullotta

Rick Co-Founded Thingworx, which is one of the first and arguably the most successful IIoT platform to date

Here's what we discussed

✔️ IIoT Architectural Patterns
✔️ Edge Computing
✔️ IIoT Gateway Selection
✔️ Integration Mechanisms
✔️ Communication Protocols
✔️ IIoT Security
✔️ Request-Response vs Publish-Subscribe
✔️ IIoT Platform selection
✔️ Avoiding Vendor Lock-In
✔️ Cloud to Cloud Integration
✔️ Effects of Data Residency
✔️ Private Cloud vs Public Cloud

Among other diverse roles, Rick previously served as Partner Director at Microsoft, where he helped define and drive Azure IoT Strategy. He was also previously CTO and Director at Wonderware, and he was a VP with SAP Research, focusing on future manufacturing. Rick was also the CTO and co-founder of Lighthammer Software Development

Ep 01 : The Ultimate Guide to Digital Twins - Pieter van Schalkwyk (CEO, XMPRO)

Digital Twins will, undoubtedly, transform how manufacturers build and maintain products. From consumer goods to complex structures such as buildings and aircraft.

But as of now, confusion and lack of its grasp are limiting adoption.

To understand the technology better, I had a conversation with Pieter van Schalkwyk, whose company has helped Fortune 10 companies build Digital Twins.

Here's what we discussed

✔️ What is a digital twin?
✔️ Digital modeling concepts
✔️ Types of digital twins
✔️ Digital Twin formats
✔️ Tools and frameworks
✔️ Step by Step Process
✔️ Interfacing with digital twins
✔️ Digital Twin vs Digital Thread
✔️ AI and ML in Digital Twins
✔️ Digital Twins and Blockchain
✔️ Digital Twin Consortium

Pieter is the CEO of XMPRO, a low-code application development platform that enables subject matter experts to build and deploy real-time applications in weeks.

He currently serves as the co-chair of the Natural Resources Working Group for the Digital Twin Consortium & previously co-chaired the Digital Twin Interoperability, Industrial Digital Transformation, & Distributed Ledger Task Groups at the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC)