RiskUKApril2017

Evaluating The Balance of Power
While space in a Data
Centre is key, so too is
ensuring business
continuity, efficiency
and productivity. This
is precisely why
Uninterruptible Power
Supply solutions will
become even more
vital in the
manufacturing sector,
and particularly so
given the advent of
Industry 4.0. Leo Craig
has the fine detail
42
www.risk-uk.com
According to a recent report compiled by
Tech Nation, the UK’s tech sector is
growing faster than the UK’s economy. In
fact, the UK leads in Europe, attracting £28
billion in tech investment since 2011 compared
to £11 billion in France and £9.3 billion in
Germany. The impact of this growth in tech is
being felt across many sectors, but none more
so than in the industrial sphere, where digital
manufacturing is becoming more commonplace.
Also referenced as the Fourth Industrial
Revolution, Industry 4.0 is set to transform the
manufacturing and production world through
new digital innovations which will improve
productivity. Industry 4.0 is all about the
current trend of automation and data exchange
in manufacturing technologies, encompassing
cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things
and cloud computing.
At its core, Industry 4.0 creates what has
been called a ‘smart factory’. Within the
modular structured smart factories, cyberphysical
systems monitor physical processes,
create a virtual copy of the physical world and
make decentralised decisions. Across the
Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems
communicate and co-operate with each other
and with humans in real-time. Via the Internet
of Services, both internal and crossorganisational
services are offered and used by
participants of the value chain.
There are four design principles in Industry
4.0 that support companies in identifying and
implementing Industry 4.0 scenarios:
• Interoperability: The ability of machines,
devices, sensors and people to connect and
communicate with each other via the Internet of
Things or the Internet of People
• Information transparency: The ability of
information systems to create a virtual copy of
the physical world by enriching digital plant
models with sensor data. This requires the
aggregation of raw sensor data to higher-value
context information
• Technical assistance: First, the ability of
assistance systems to support humans by
aggregating and visualising information
comprehensibly for making informed decisions
and solving urgent problems on short notice.
Second, the ability of cyber-physical systems to
physically support humans by conducting a
range of tasks deemed to be unpleasant, too
exhausting or simply unsafe in nature
• Decentralised decisions: The ability of cyberphysical
systems to make decisions on their
own and perform their tasks as autonomously
as possible. Only in the case of exceptions,
interferences or conflicting goals are tasks then
delegated to a higher level
From the Industrial Internet of Things and
robotics through to 3D printing and Artificial
Intelligence, the digitisation of manufacturing
will inevitably increase the demand for Data
Centre storage. While space in a Data Centre is
key, so too is ensuring business continuity,
efficiency and productivity.
Disastrous consequences
Power fluctuations and disturbances can have a
major impact in the industrial sector. At a largescale
manufacturing plant, for example, a
power shutdown or breakdown in the supply of
monitoring/control information may engender a
disastrous effect on productivity which,
ultimately, could adversely impact the
business’ bottom line. Statistics show that even
one unplanned downtime event can cost a
manufacturer somewhere around £1.6 million,
but in truth the real cost could be even higher.
Having a back-up power supply in place in
the form of a UPS solution is absolutely key for
a facility to be able to operate safely until such
time that full power is restored.
Machinery is vulnerable to numerous
electrical anomalies, from voltage sags and
spikes through to harmonic distortion and
other interruptions. When you consider that
45% of equipment failures occur due to voltage
disturbances, the importance of keeping