Improving customer service. Safeguarding customer satisfaction. Winning customer loyalty. Increasing service revenue. Augmenting aftersales turnover.

These are some of the primary goals that machine builders have been pursuing. But, how many have been able to meet these goals? Unfortunately, not many, owing to the machine visibility challenges arising out of lack of meaningful data flow from the commissioned device/equipment.

Nevertheless, this will not be the case going forward. Yes, you heard it right! IIoT is the magic wand that has provided a 180-degree spin to the situation.

Wondering how? Let’s comprehend by considering the present reactive customer service model as a case in point.

Whenever there is a machine breakdown or performance issue, the client logs in a compliant with the corresponding machine builder. The OEM’s service representative responds to the service request by collecting data about the issue — via email, telephone, or chat — and scheduling an engineer visit. The engineer will visit the client’s location, provide a resolution, and close the service ticket. All in all, a lengthy process with avenues for delays and disruptions, which can hamper customer satisfaction across many fronts.

IIoT turns this situation upside down.

By enabling machine builders to seamlessly connect their equipment/machine with intelligent sensors that can transfer real-time data, IIoT provides end-to-end connectivity and visibility, which was unheard of in the industry. This means that machine builders no longer have to wait for an issue to appear. They can proactively monitor the performance of the machines spread across geographies in real-time and spot any discrepancies. This gives them an edge to identify potential equipment issues before they occur and proactively reach out to the customer to provide service.

The end result: Better customer service, which will lead to greater customer satisfaction, increased loyalty, and improved service revenue.

The benefits don’t end here. IIoT-based proactive customer service also helps strengthen the relationship between the machine builder and their customers by creating an ongoing relationship; one that allows machine builders to proactively perform maintenance, while keeping device uptime high (for the customer) and minimizing service costs (for the machine builder). Thus creating a win-win situation that will augment aftersales revenue.

The Tip of the Ice-berg

Apart from supporting proactive customer service, IIoT also helps machine builders to:

Accelerate R&D

By creating an information value loop from the end machines (commissioned machines at the client’s location) to the engineers, IIoT can significantly shorten the time between an issue surfacing in the field and fixing the issue in production (even before either the client or the competitor realizes it). In the process, it can accelerate the product design cycle and reduce time-to-market, which will give an edge to the machine builder with regard to the competition.

Efficient Inventory Management

IIoT empowers machine builders to effectively track the Remaining Useful Life (RUL) of the commissioned machine along with its components. Based on these insights, they can proactively procure spare parts and efficiently manage the inventory.

Improve Operational Efficiency

Using advanced analytical and machine learning capabilities, IIoT supports faster identification of issues in operations & functions, and facilitates quicker resolutions (even before there is downtime). The result: A multifold increase in operational efficiency.

Making Multiple Revenue Streams a Reality!

What was once a dream, is now a reality! You no longer have to rely on one source of revenue —machine sales — for survival. Unlock untapped revenue streams across maintenance and support space using IIoT.

Start your IIoT journey now using Utthunga assistance. We are an industry leader with extensive experience in facilitating the creation of a truly connected IIoT ecosystem with real-time data transfer and analytics capabilities.

A new genre of industrial data exchange between industrial machines and communication PCs is on the rise – the Open Platform Communications United Architecture (OPC UA). Interestingly, application manufacturers, system providers, programming languages, and operating systems have no bearing on this open interface standard. The most significant distinction between OPC UA and the previous versions of industrial communication protocol is how the machine data can be transferred – in bundles of information that machines and devices can understand. OPC UA allows devices communicate with each other (horizontally) and also with the upward components like PLCs, SCADA/HMI (Human Machine Interface), MES (Manufacturing Execution System), and up to the Enterprise Cloud (vertically). The horizontal and vertical spectrum comprises OPC UA components, including devices, machines, systems, gateways, and servers that are integrated with machines and devices.

is OPC UA Important in Industry 4.0?

The secure, standardized flow of data and information across devices, equipment, and services, are some of the problems for Industry 4.0 and the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The IEC 62541 standard OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) [I.1] was the only recommended option for creating the communication layer in the Reference Architecture Model for Industry 4.0 (RAMI 4.0) in April 2015. The most fundamental prerequisite for adopting OPC UA for industrial 4.0 communication is an Internet Protocol-based network (IP). Anyone who wishes to promote themselves as “Industry 4.0-capable” must also be OPC-UA-capable (integrated or via a gateway).

Implementation of Industry 4.0 to Overcome Interoperability

OPC UA is a powerful solution for overcoming interoperability issues in Industry 4.0. Interoperability is one of the most significant problems that I4.0 presents to companies. Through its semantic communication standard, OPC UA demonstrates that it is a solution. OPC UA is a crucial contributor to Industry4.0 because it facilitates information transfer between devices and machines, which cannot understand confusing instructions. The more specific the instructions are, the better the outcome. The selection of tools is crucial for installing the finest OPC UA for any automation system. Because the devices in industrial automation systems are administered by software, a well-functioning software development kit (SDK) is required. It guarantees that end-users and software engineers have a good user experience.

Important factors to consider while implementing OPC UA :

The appropriate software development kit is essential for establishing an efficient OPC UA. We’ve compiled a list of ten considerations for an automation maker, OEM, discrete, and process manufacturer when selecting an SDK. The Ideal SDK Vendor Most businesses lack adequate resources, both technological and human. Such gaps force organizations to outsource their requirements. As a result, the chosen SDK must fulfill its application requirements while improving the time to market. An ideal SDK must be advantageous in terms of both money and performance. A majority of SDK consultants provide the core functionalities that offer fundamental OPC UA advantages such as security and API. Scalability A scalable SDK empowers OPC UA to support both new and existing systems. It allows the platform-independent toolkits to function efficiently for both lightweight and enterprise-level applications. As a result, manufacturers must consider a scalable SDK that is platform or OS agnostic and supports vendor-independent hardware. Utilization Ease It is one of the most preferred yet neglected features. An SDK should be simple to use so that OEMs or small-scale manufacturers can save time and resources learning the OPC UA specification. It must support a basic application and provide API connectivity. CPU Helper An OPC UA SDK developed using architectural principles for embedded devices uses considerably less CPU. It also means that the software program may do a lot of work on a single thread. It is useful when multi-threads aren’t accessible. It is also economical because it offers a low-cost CPU that can perform majority of the work in multi-thread scenarios. Excellent Memory A decent OPC UA implementation should be light on RAM and have a small footprint. Generally, memory leaks can build up over time and put the entire system to a halt. There must be no memory leaks in the OP UA SDK (under any use case situations). Security and Compatibility The OPC UA SDK toolkit must be interoperable with diverse applications and meet stringent security requirements. The OPC UA standards provide various security options, and an ideal SDK should support them all. Language Assistance Even though C++ is the most common language for writing SDK programming, other languages like Java, C, .NET, and others are also utilized based on the needs. Developing an OPC UA SDK in multiple languages facilitates incremental enhancements to their products based on specifications such as AMQP, Pub/Sub, and UDP. Third-party Libraries Because most businesses have preferred libraries, SDK suppliers usually include wrappers such as standard crypto libraries, use-case examples, manuals, and API references to utilize wrappers such as NanoSSL, mBed TLS, TinyXML2, and Lib2XML. Scope for Future Improvements An SDK must be capable of evolving to support emerging technologies and processes. Because of the continuing advances in SDKs and OPC Foundation-based technologies such as AMQP Pub/Sub, UDP, and TSN, manufacturers must guarantee that SDK suppliers are equipped with the required capabilities while implementing industry-relevant protocols. Vendor Assistance SDK suppliers must provide knowledge and support to manufacturers at every stage of their OPC UA deployment. An efficient OPC UA deployment requires a partnership built on trust, mutual benefits, and understanding. OEMs, discrete and process manufacturers must collaborate to understand and execute OPC UA requirements for everybody’s benefit.

How OPC UA contributes to Industry 4.0 and overcomes interoperability challenges?

OPC UA provides a mechanism for safe and reliable data sharing. As the world’s most popular open connectivity standard, it plays a crucial role in achieving Industry 4.0 goals. OPC UA fulfills the Industry4.0 requirements of platform independence and time-durability. Additionally, OPC UA is designed to enable future factories to include ‘invisible’ components into their permanent data exchange, thereby significantly enhancing OPC UA’s position in the realm of Internet of Things. Embedded OPC UA technology allows open connection to devices, sensors, and controllers, providing many benefits to businesses. End-users gain from speedier decision-making due to the data it delivers, and the integrated corporate architecture becomes a reality. The notion of an interconnected industry is central to Industry 4.0. As the precursor to OPC UA, OPC Classic pioneered an ‘open data connection’ revolution, removing proprietary connectivity barriers between the management, control systems, and the rest of the organization. OPC UA takes the notion of a unified solution a step further with its platform & operating system agnostic approach and data modelling features. These enable UA to natively represent data from practically any data source on one side while retaining data context and delivering it to consumers in the best possible way. Correctly expressing data structures using consistent UA data models successfully abstracts the physical layer devices.

Future Scope:

All components in the ‘factory of the future’ will operate independently, relying on interconnections. Whether such elements are people, machines, equipment, or systems, they must be designed to gather and exchange meaningful information. As a result, future components will communicate and operate intelligently. While the industry is on the verge of the latest industrial revolution, interconnection is the essential enabler. OPC UA, a standard that facilitates interoperability at all levels – device to device, a device to business, and beyond – is a critical component of this process.

Conclusion

While a fully functional Industry 4.0 may seem like a pipe dream at this point, the industrial transformation at the grass-root level is already in full swing. Controlling the flow of resources, commodities, and information, enabling speedier decision-making, and simplifying reporting are advantages those businesses may anticipate as they transition to Industry 4.0. Intelligent materials will instruct machines on how to process them; maintenance and repair will evolve to transform inflexible production lines into modular and efficient systems. Eventually, a product’s complete lifespan can be road-mapped with its practical performance. OPC UA, which enables intelligent data exchanges across all levels of an organization, will play a significant role in evangelizing Industry 4.0

A new genre of industrial data exchange between industrial machines and communication PCs is on the rise – the Open Platform Communications United Architecture (OPC UA). Interestingly, application manufacturers, system providers, programming languages, and operating systems have no bearing on this open interface standard.

The most significant distinction between OPC UA and the previous versions of industrial communication protocol is how the machine data can be transferred – in bundles of information that machines and devices can understand. OPC UA allows devices communicate with each other (horizontally) and also with the upward components like PLCs, SCADA/HMI (Human Machine Interface), MES (Manufacturing Execution System), and up to the Enterprise Cloud (vertically). The horizontal and vertical spectrum comprises OPC UA components, including devices, machines, systems, gateways, and servers that are integrated with machines and devices.

is OPC UA Important in Industry 4.0?

The secure, standardized flow of data and information across devices, equipment, and services, are some of the problems for Industry 4.0 and the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The IEC 62541 standard OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) [I.1] was the only recommended option for creating the communication layer in the Reference Architecture Model for Industry 4.0 (RAMI 4.0) in April 2015.

The most fundamental prerequisite for adopting OPC UA for industrial 4.0 communication is an Internet Protocol-based network (IP). Anyone who wishes to promote themselves as “Industry 4.0-capable” must also be OPC-UA-capable (integrated or via a gateway).

 

Implementation of Industry 4.0 to Overcome Interoperability

OPC UA is a powerful solution for overcoming interoperability issues in Industry 4.0.

Interoperability is one of the most significant problems that I4.0 presents to companies. Through its semantic communication standard, OPC UA demonstrates that it is a solution. OPC UA is a crucial contributor to Industry4.0 because it facilitates information transfer between devices and machines, which cannot understand confusing instructions. The more specific the instructions are, the better the outcome.

The selection of tools is crucial for installing the finest OPC UA for any automation system. Because the devices in industrial automation systems are administered by software, a well-functioning software development kit (SDK) is required. It guarantees that end-users and software engineers have a good user experience.

Important factors to consider while implementing OPC UA :

The appropriate software development kit is essential for establishing an efficient OPC UA. We’ve compiled a list of ten considerations for an automation maker, OEM, discrete, and process manufacturer when selecting an SDK.

The Ideal SDK Vendor

Most businesses lack adequate resources, both technological and human. Such gaps force organizations to outsource their requirements. As a result, the chosen SDK must fulfill its application requirements while improving the time to market. An ideal SDK must be advantageous in terms of both money and performance. A majority of SDK consultants provide the core functionalities that offer fundamental OPC UA advantages such as security and API.

Scalability

A scalable SDK empowers OPC UA to support both new and existing systems. It allows the platform-independent toolkits to function efficiently for both lightweight and enterprise-level applications. As a result, manufacturers must consider a scalable SDK that is platform or OS agnostic and supports vendor-independent hardware.

Utilization Ease

It is one of the most preferred yet neglected features. An SDK should be simple to use so that OEMs or small-scale manufacturers can save time and resources learning the OPC UA specification. It must support a basic application and provide API connectivity.

CPU Helper

An OPC UA SDK developed using architectural principles for embedded devices uses considerably less CPU. It also means that the software program may do a lot of work on a single thread. It is useful when multi-threads aren’t accessible. It is also economical because it offers a low-cost CPU that can perform majority of the work in multi-thread scenarios.

Excellent Memory

A decent OPC UA implementation should be light on RAM and have a small footprint. Generally, memory leaks can build up over time and put the entire system to a halt. There must be no memory leaks in the OP UA SDK (under any use case situations).

Security and Compatibility

The OPC UA SDK toolkit must be interoperable with diverse applications and meet stringent security requirements. The OPC UA standards provide various security options, and an ideal SDK should support them all.

Language Assistance

Even though C++ is the most common language for writing SDK programming, other languages like Java, C, .NET, and others are also utilized based on the needs. Developing an OPC UA SDK in multiple languages facilitates incremental enhancements to their products based on specifications such as AMQP, Pub/Sub, and UDP.

Third-party Libraries

Because most businesses have preferred libraries, SDK suppliers usually include wrappers such as standard crypto libraries, use-case examples, manuals, and API references to utilize wrappers such as NanoSSL, mBed TLS, TinyXML2, and Lib2XML. Scope for Future Improvements

An SDK must be capable of evolving to support emerging technologies and processes. Because of the continuing advances in SDKs and OPC Foundation-based technologies such as AMQP Pub/Sub, UDP, and TSN, manufacturers must guarantee that SDK suppliers are equipped with the required capabilities while implementing industry-relevant protocols.

Vendor Assistance

SDK suppliers must provide knowledge and support to manufacturers at every stage of their OPC UA deployment. An efficient OPC UA deployment requires a partnership built on trust, mutual benefits, and understanding.

 

OEMs, discrete and process manufacturers must collaborate to understand and execute OPC UA requirements for everybody’s benefit.

How OPC UA contributes to Industry 4.0 and overcomes interoperability challenges?

OPC UA provides a mechanism for safe and reliable data sharing. As the world’s most popular open connectivity standard, it plays a crucial role in achieving Industry 4.0 goals.

OPC UA fulfills the Industry4.0 requirements of platform independence and time-durability. Additionally, OPC UA is designed to enable future factories to include ‘invisible’ components into their permanent data exchange, thereby significantly enhancing OPC UA’s position in the realm of Internet of Things.

Embedded OPC UA technology allows open connection to devices, sensors, and controllers, providing many benefits to businesses. End-users gain from speedier decision-making due to the data it delivers, and the integrated corporate architecture becomes a reality.

The notion of an interconnected industry is central to Industry 4.0. As the precursor to OPC UA, OPC Classic pioneered an ‘open data connection’ revolution, removing proprietary connectivity barriers between the management, control systems, and the rest of the organization.

OPC UA takes the notion of a unified solution a step further with its platform & operating system agnostic approach and data modelling features. These enable UA to natively represent data from practically any data source on one side while retaining data context and delivering it to consumers in the best possible way. Correctly expressing data structures using consistent UA data models successfully abstracts the physical layer devices.

Future Scope:

All components in the ‘factory of the future’ will operate independently, relying on interconnections. Whether such elements are people, machines, equipment, or systems, they must be designed to gather and exchange meaningful information. As a result, future components will communicate and operate intelligently.

While the industry is on the verge of the latest industrial revolution, interconnection is the essential enabler. OPC UA, a standard that facilitates interoperability at all levels – device to device, a device to business, and beyond – is a critical component of this process.

Conclusion

While a fully functional Industry 4.0 may seem like a pipe dream at this point, the industrial transformation at the grass-root level is already in full swing. Controlling the flow of resources, commodities, and information, enabling speedier decision-making, and simplifying reporting are advantages those businesses may anticipate as they transition to Industry 4.0.

Intelligent materials will instruct machines on how to process them; maintenance and repair will evolve to transform inflexible production lines into modular and efficient systems. Eventually, a product’s complete lifespan can be road-mapped with its practical performance. OPC UA, which enables intelligent data exchanges across all levels of an organization, will play a significant role in evangelizing Industry 4.0

Industrial automation has greatly influenced digital transformation in the oil and gas industry. It includes numerous connected devices that make this industry highly dependent on hardware and software components. As per the World Economic Forum, the digital transformation business for the Oil and Gas Industry is estimated to be $1.6 trillion by 2025.

One of the novel practices for effective implementation of digital transformation in the Industry 4.0 context is DevOps. In an industrial landscape, it refers to the combined efforts of the development(Dev) and Operations(Ops) teams in creating effective strategies that keep the company abreast of the technological, especially the digital trends.

Why is DevOps important?

Due to increased global competition and unexpected economic challenges, oil and gas companies are experiencing a strong need for digital transformation. Over the last decade, many organizations have reaped tremendous benefits by implementing DevOps in their business strategies. The positive results have encouraged the industry to incorporate software-driven innovations to improve productivity and achieve newer heights without causing significant disruptions to the existing business model.

In this scenario, DevOps plays a crucial role in helping industries roll up their manufacturing software faster because it:

• Promotes Automation:DevOps is not just a technology. It is a concept that leverages tools and processes such as Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), real-time monitoring, incident response systems, and collaboration platforms. It promotes automation and introduces new tools for creating controllable iterations that drive high productivity with accurate results.
• Optimizes IT Infrastructure:DevOps synchronizes the communication between the hardware and software components in the IIoT setup. It ensures proactive, smooth, and efficient operations at various levels and help achieve operational excellence that is predictable and measurable against intended outcomes and goals.
• Improves Operational Stability:By applying DevOps practices systematically, oil and gas businesses can experience an incrimporved hydrocarbon recovery, better safety across the production plant, and enhanced overall operational stability. This approach relays effective solutions for all the connected operations until the endpoint.

Digital Transformation in the Oil and Gas Industry with DevOps

The urgency for digital transformation in business models of the oil and gas industry is on the rise. DevOps is one of the primary facilitators in helping companies increase their digital maturity and reap benefits by implementing the most appropriate technologies and processes across the business chain.

Here’s how DevOps helps O&G companies:

• Identifies patterns in new revenue streams and gauges the maximum potential of digitalization.
• Facilitates implementation of best IIoT practices to achieve condition-based performance that drives maximum efficiency of their IT and plant infrastructure.
• Streamlines a hybrid operational model that promotes agile manufacturing principles and practices.
• Assists companies through their journey of experimentation with digital transformation through continuous improvement and reliable transition.

Why is DevOps Better Than Agile?

The decision-makers of Oil & Gas companies are eager to deploy practices that bring fruitful digital transformation to their organizations. Often, it is hard to choose from the two most popular enterprise practices such as DevOps and Agile. This dilemma is mainly because both methodologies focus on accurate results in the most efficient manner possible.

According to recent industry trends, the DevOps market is expected to grow at a CAGR rate of 22.9%, signaling a greater adoption rate than Agile. Let us understand why oil and gas companies prefer DevOps over Agile in Industry 4.0.

Agile	DevOps
1.Focuses on software development.	1.Focusses on fast paced and effective end-to-end business solutions.
2.Aligns development processes with customer needs at all stages.	2. Promotes continuous testing and delivery of products. Identifies glitches before they can cause massive disruption to the company’s operations.
3.The development team works in incremental spirits for software delivery, deployment, and maintenance. Operations teams work individually.	3.Promotes a healthy collaboration between teams across various departments to deliver error-free software to achieve total safety in the oil and gas setup.
4.Core values are: Individuals & Interactions, Working Software, Customer Collaboration, and Responding to Change.	4.Core values are: Systems Thinking, Adopt & Promote Feedback Loops, Continuous Experimentation & Learning.

Benefits of DevOps for Industry CIOs

Digitalization in the oil and gas industry is highly data-driven. Also, it constantly faces uncertainties due to fluctuations in global commodity prices, pressure to reduce carbon emissions and reliance on renewable alternatives. To overcome such challenges through an impactful digital transformation, the CIOs don multiple roles like a technical architect, solution expert, visionary, innovator, and purposeful technology provider to the company.

The blended business model of development and operations through DevOps helps CIOs create a fruitful roadmap toward a true digital transformation. Here is how DevOps drives such a transformation :

• Fosters transparent and collaborative teamwork in creating quality software that ensures efficiency, productivity, and safety.
• Identifies and implements the most appropriate automation technology leveraging the best possible output from every department in the organization. Empowers CIOs with the capability to set up IT infrastructure that withstands constant changes amid continuous delivery.
• Enhances product quality by eliminating bottlenecks and errors.
• Introduces team flexibility and agility for achieving the common goal
• Enables the CIOs to adopt futuristic technology and processes to develop sustainable business plans.

Conclusion

The oil and gas industry is one of the most rapid embracers of new-age technologies. With more companies leveraging the software-hardware collaboration that IR4.0 offers, there is a dire need to deploy the best DevOps practices to reap its benefits.

Utthunga has the best automation tools and DevOps consulting services that cater to the oil and gas industry. Reach out to us at [email protected] to stride ahead of the competition by leveraging the power of DevOps.

How Smart Sensors are Driving the Industry

Sensors were traditionally employed to collect field data, which was then delivered to I/O modules and controllers to be processed and meaningful outputs were provided. Smart sensors can gather field data for a variety of critical activities, as well as process data, and make decisions using logic and machine learning algorithms, thanks to the integration of intelligence down to the component level.

Smart sensors are the driving force behind Industry 4.0. Almost every intelligent device in industrial automation relies on sensors. Sensors have been used to simplify and automate industrial processes in a variety of ways using their capacity to obtain important field device information. Some of the main operational factors taken by the sensors include diagnosing the health status of assets using signal noise to prevent breakdowns, generating alarms for functional safety, and so on. The list goes on and on, starting with condition-based monitoring and power management and ending with image sensing and environmental monitoring.

Now to make it more clear let’s check out the types of smart sensors that are primarily used in industrial units:

• Temperature Sensor: Product quality is a key element to consider in industrial operations and it is directly affected by room temperature. These intelligent sensors can detect the temperature of its environment and convert the signal into data to monitor, record, and/or raise alerts.
• Pressure Sensors: Pressure sensors have the ability to detect the changes in the pressure on any surface, gas, or liquid and convert the data into an electrical signal to measure and control it.
• Motion Sensors: Motion sensors are designed to trigger the signals that increase or decrease power supply in smart factories or industrial setups. When there is a physical presence of a human, a signal is detected to automatically switch on/off lights, fans, and any other in-house device. These can save a lot of energy in commercial buildings with wide spaces and a lot of people.
• Thermal Sensors: Thermal sensors enable smart buildings and workplaces to automatically modify room temperature to maintain a steady temperature in space regardless of changing environmental conditions.
• Smoke Sensors: These sensors ensure the security of homes and offices. When smoke is detected, for example, an immediate warning is triggered in fire burst circumstances, to increase safety and the possibility of escape from the accident scene.
• Other Sensors: Some of the other important sensors used in industries are MSME sensors, acceleration sensors, torque sensors, rotating sensors, etc.

What is IO-Link?

IO-Link is an open communication system and has been in use for quite some time. It integrates sensors and actuators and shifts to another level. It has been tried, tested, and operated in machinery process control over several years.

It has turned into one of the most eminent two-way interfaces accessible today, surpassing data to the machine-level control system via a standard three-wire cable which doesn’t require any extra time or cost to connect.

How IO-Link Connects Intelligent Sensors?

An IO-Link framework comprises of IO-Link gadgets, including sensors and actuators and an expert gadget. Since IO-Link is a highlight point engineering, just a single gadget can be associated with each port on the expert. Each port of an IO-Link expert can deal with parallel exchanging signs and simple qualities.

Every IO-Link gadget has an IO gadget portrayal (IODD) that determines the information structure, information substance, and essential usefulness—giving a uniform depiction and access for programming and regulators. The client can without much of a stretch read and cycle this data, and every gadget can be unambiguously recognized by means of the IODD just as through an inside gadget ID.

Importance of IO-Link in Industrial Automation Setup

In a few years, IO-Link has attracted many industries by providing advantages such as:

• Simplified Wiring: IO-Link can be easily connected by 3 core cables with cost-effectiveness. It eliminates unwanted wiring by reducing the variety of interfaces for sensors which saves inventory costs.
• Remote Monitoring: The data is transmitted over various networks, backplane buses by IO-Link master due to which the data can be easily accessible in immediate times and for long-term analysis. This provides more information regarding the devices and enables the remote monitoring feature of devices.
• Reduced Cost and Increased Efficiency: With the innovation of IO-Link the productivity has increased, the cost has been reduced, and the machine availability has increased. These changes have heavily worked towards reducing machine downtime.

To increase productivity by optimum measures, one needs to be aware of the machine parts running in factories to keep up the pace and get maximum output. Conventional sensors lack the ability to communicate parameter data to the controller. Smart Sensors show the continuous flow of processes to fit in the environment and system.

Conclusion

By combining Information Technology (IT) and Operations Technology (OT) into a single, unified architecture, the connected enterprise is transforming industrial automation. This unified architecture allows us to gather and analyze data, changing it into usable information, thanks to integrated control and the Internet of Things (IoT). Manufacturers can use integrated architecture to construct intelligent equipment that gives them access to such data and allows them to react quickly to changing market demands. Smart sensors and I/O, based on IO-Link technology, constitute the backbone of integrated control and information, allowing you to see field data in real time through your Integrated Architecture control system.