Industry 4.0 and KUKA Digital Domains Building bridges between the worlds of OT and IT!

Transcending all boundaries. The digital supply chain merges the major business processes of all parties involved – from the suppliers to the manufacturer and the end customer. With integrated networking, Industrie 4.0 will be able to overcome all current media discontinuity of the value chain. The primary potential lies in the acceleration and flexibilization of production and logistics processes, the reduced effort for data acquisition, and the optimization of data security and consistency. In addition to the main issues of Big Data, Security, HRC, and Mobility, the Cloud plays a decisive role in every conceivable Industrie 4.0 scenario as a connection layer for horizontal and vertical integration. For the smart factory of the future, KUKA therefore already has modular software architectures in its portfolio, prepared for the entire evolutionary process of Industrie 4.0.

With products where all building blocks

With products where all building blocks fit together and each individual one is agile enough to dock proactively onto the IT landscapes or standards of future production environments or to integrate them seamlessly. A groundbreaking concept and a solid base from which we can take a further important step. With KUKA Connect, Nebbiolo Technologies and Edge Computing, also known as Fog Computing, we are creating system-relevant layers and cloud platforms in order to seamlessly bridge the gap between proprietary OT in production and standardized data formats and new protocols in business and cloud IT. The finished result will connect operational technologies such as robots, AGVs or logistics machines to the cloud, the web, mobile technologies and other modern IT infrastructures. We want to offer our customers real added value by supplementing our portfolio with tools for improved support, service, provisioning, deployment, installation and proactive maintenance. And to make these as user-friendly and efficient as possible.

In practice, however, it is evident that the approach to Industrie 4.0

In practice, however, it is evident that the approach to Industrie 4.0 is defined by paradigms that differ greatly between Operational Technology (OT), the specialists from industry and Information Technology (IT), e.g. ERP and MES providers. If Industrie 4.0 is to be successfully deployed in practice, it needs to be understood that OT is obviously not the same as IT. There are different approaches, different requirements and often even a different language. Let’s take the German word “Sicherheit” as an example: in English, there is a clear distinction between “safety” in OT and “security” in IT. But in German, one and the same word describes two completely different requirements: In the production world of OT, the term “Sicherheit” covers the full spectrum that starts with ensuring the availability and reliability of production systems and ends with the safety of the production environment for man and machine. Even though a tendency to rethink the issue is surfacing in industry, efficiency, and safety in this context are very often represented by specific, closed systems individually adapted to the relevant customer requirements. In an IT environment, “Sicherheit” in the sense of security generally pertains to the assurance of confidentiality, integrity, and availability through targeted access control to data. And this in a world that is increasingly characterized by open standards and a high degree of system interoperability. As a first mover, KUKA recognized these issues as far back as the 1990s and developed open, interoperable and modular systems based on standardized mainstream technologies, effectively initiating the convergence of IT and conventional automation technology.

By David Fuller - Kuka Technology