April 2011 - Control Global

T h e M o b i l e W o r k e r
tual desktop accessing information off a server, and you
drop it, you lose a $300 netbook. Compare that to the price
of a Toughbook. There’s going to be enormous pressure to
use the consumer model. That doesn’t override the safety
issues, but it does create a pressure and a dynamic.”
Taming the Beast
Integrating smart phones and tablets into your operation is
in many respects no different than any other project. Begin
by having a clear idea of what it is you want to accomplish,
adds Brooks. “Focus on the objectives. You can’t afford to
deploy it just because it’s cool technology. You do it because
there’s a real business advantage.”
Wonderware’s Mohrmann adds, “First decide what process
improvement you want to make. See what others have
done. Then get a scope to the project. Go about it in a stepby-step
way.”
Then focus on the risks. Bob Huba, DeltaV product manager
and cybersecurity expert at Emerson, says, “Make sure
that people understand the dangers. They need to understand
how [mobile access] can create problems.”
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Emerson’s Peterson adds, “Map the solution out. Lay out
the architectures. Configure everything and roll out the solution
in a methodical fashion. Then check it out after it’s
done. You can absolutely do a secure system. It’s really a matter
of coordinating a good plan and then executing it.”
You will also need a holistic view of your wireless operation,
says Brooks. “Spectrum is a finite resource. It’s a shared
medium, and you need strong policies and procedures to
control access. That may be the single biggest challenge.
You have to have an integrated wireless network, because
isolated ones don’t work.”
Which brings us to the knotty problem of the relationship
between your operations and IT departments. You can’t
successfully bring these mobility tools on to the plant floor
without some input from IT. “There’s going to be some resistance
on the part of IT,” says Honeywell’s Stearns. “The
IT group has to be the enabler. The control system might
look at everything below Level 2. IT might not even care
about that.”
“You need to get the decision-maker on the operations
side,” recommends Transpara’s Saucier. “IT often wags the
dog and doesn’t want to do the security to make these tools
available. In companies that have embraced the idea that IT
is a support function, there is no push-back.”
Consider starting small. Take a page from Dow’s playbook
and try out a pilot project in one area. “Try to roll it out in
part of the plant. See if it meets your objectives. Then roll it
out elsewhere,” recommends Cisco’s Miller.
Or look for an easy win. Western Power, an Australian
electricity provider, gave Blackberries equipped with
Transpara’s mobile application to 1100 technicians in trucks
all over Western Australia so they could better monitor their
substations. The entire rollout went from prototype to use in
one week, according to Saucier.
If Not Now, When?
So, you’re not ready to wrap your head around iPads on the
factory floor and Android phones for all your engineers?
Well, you can hold out, of course, but you may have to cave
eventually.
“This is looking like a when, not an if. There’s going to
be a plethora of innovations,” says Brooks. “In manufacturing,
we are going to have to have solutions that allow things
to be displayed on iPhones and Blackberries because their
usefulness has been proven. We can’t stop these commercial
devices coming into the manufacturing zone. People
will find ways of using them if they make their jobs easier.
It’s better to work with disruptive technologies rather than
block them. People will accept ‘yes, but,’ but typically, they
won’t accept ‘no.’ ”
Nancy Bar tels is Control’s Managing Editor.