Industrie 4.0.: More than a powerful trend
The path to the fourth Industrial Revolution is not always clear. Many companies and industrial organisations have different views on the precise meaning of Industry 4.0. As a pioneering technology group, HARTING offers solutions for these rapid developments and, to make them more comprehensible, has grouped them into six recognisable trends. Products and solutions from the HARTING Electronics subsidiary work together to support the intelligent production systems of tomorrow.
The impact of digitalisation
Digitalisation now impacts on every area of modern life. Almost without exception, we are all networked with our fellow human beings and the environment via a smartphone or other mobile device. This is a development which is also forging ahead in areas outside of everyday life. More and more intercommunicating end devices and products are finding their way into industrial production. This increasing digitalisation, this merging of two major areas – software/IT and traditional automation – is becoming more widely known as Industry 4.0, a term now entering the mainstream. But what exactly does it mean? In many companies, particularly SMEs, the meaning of the term is still opaque and it is subject to a number of different interpretations.
Modularisation
Modular approaches are becoming increasingly significant. A shift towards custom-tailored manufacture is spelling the end for rigidly structured mass production. Modular components save time by allowing rapid changes and adjustments to production systems to be carried out faster.
Identification – Auto-ID solutions
Condition monitoring can be uncomplicated and cost efficient with RFID sensor-transponder systems. They help to report wear early on and reduce downtime. While goods and workpieces used to travel “invisibly” through a production system, they can now use RFID to communicate with their environment and provide information about how they should be processed.
Integration – Intelligent devices and software solutions
Smoothly functioning communication between objects and third-party systems such as a PLC from the web shop to the shop floor – flexible software solutions tailored to meet the requirements of any application.
Convergence of real and virtual systems
Real production and virtual control systems are converging to an increasing extent. This can be seen in the HARTING HAIIC MICA energy management system for efficient production and condition monitoring.
Miniaturisation
Networks in the field are becoming more highly populated, and at the same time, smaller and more powerful components are demanded. This also applies to computer systems and plug connectors.
Customisation
Individual system solutions and products which coordinate perfectly. Open-source software platforms meet customer requirements just as much as custom-tailored hardware assemblies. The fourth industrial revolution is accompanied by increasingly dense networks of sensors, actuators and smart devices in the field. Machine-to-machine communication and digitalisation of previously anonymous workpieces require increasing numbers of interfaces and connections. There is a growing demand for smaller and more powerful components that can be operated faster and more easily. Industry 4.0 and the associated modular structure of production systems are resulting in higher mating cycles and data rates for plug connectors. HARTING Electronics, a HARTING Technology Group company, is offering a range of hardware solutions for plug connectors which support the Industry 4.0 trends towards miniaturisation, modularisation and digitalisation.
The trend towards miniaturisation is evident in all the lifelines of industry – power, signal and data. This miniaturisation allows housing to be configured on a smaller scale and provided throughout with M12 connectors.
The significance of HARTING’s preLink® system
The stand-out example here is HARTING’s preLink® system, a flexible cabling solution for the applications of the future in which HARTING has found a way to separate the formerly indivisible combination of cable and plug connector into two independent and reusable parts. The preLink® terminal block can be used with 8-core Ethernet cable which can be safely assembled in the field with the compatible preLink® pliars in a single operation. This terminal block fits into a number of sockets and plug connectors.
Enabling the flexible connection technology of the preLink® system to serve a wide range of different situations, it is available with different mating faces used routinely in industrial applications. They include RJ45 network plugs and sockets and M12, PushPull Variant 14 and as an insert in Han® 3A for IP65/67-compliant applications.
The current focus for transmission over distances exceeding 100 metres is on optical fibres, which allow substantially higher data rates over several kilometres. Factors such as the type of optical fibre, the transceivers and the protocol used determine the limit. For this variant, HARTING offers a PushPull plug connector in an optical LC Duplex variant.
With these trends firmly in mind, HARTING is creating easily accessible products and solutions for the fourth industrial revolution.
