Reliability and hardware design - Report.

More than 750 system architects and design engineers across the globe discussed today’s challenges to reliability and what the future may bring.

The results of Molex's global reliability survey reveals the challenges facing system architects and design engineers for hardware, including devices, when balancing growing expectations for reliability with ever-increasing product complexity, diminishing time for testing, as well as constant cost and manufacturing constraints.

• More than half of the survey participants assert that reliability drives brand loyalty
• Top reliability challenges include adequate time for testing, supplier quality, cost and correlation of product design attributes to their impact on reliability
• 46% of respondents believe AI, ML, simulations and analytics are best bets to boost product reliability
• 92% expect to lose reliability experts to retirement over the next five years

“Reliability is a real ‘rubber meets the road’ topic with far-reaching implications across every facet of product development, manufacturing and ultimately, end-user experience,” said Scott Whicker, SVP and president, Transportation Innovative Solutions, Molex.

91% of the survey participants reported a strong correlation between their ability to deliver reliable products with having trusted, proven supplier relationships. To that end, 96% of the respondents have changed part suppliers due to reliability issues, with more than a quarter reporting frequent changes. Overall, these supplier relationships are becoming increasingly critical, as evidenced by 74% of respondents who believe reliability is at risk due to shortening design cycles.

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Simplifying creation of advanced IIoT applications.

Helps OEMs and end users rapidly configure and implement advanced edge computing, visualisation and IIoT technology

PACSystems™ Edge Solutions is a new portfolio of turnkey industrial edge hardware and software solutions from Emerson. This portfolio simplifies selection and deployment, helping original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), systems integrators, and end users significantly reduce the time spent integrating, developing and validating digital transformation projects. From low footprint connectivity and computing to plantwide analytics and supervision, the portfolio delivers a scalable range of edge capabilities in fit-for-purpose packages. 

The solutions allow personnel in food and beverage, industrial machinery, renewable energy and other industries to easily collect and visualise critical data and analytics locally, right where they work, enabling them to optimise and proactively maintain operations for maximum uptime and efficiency.

Portfolio offers fit-for-purpose packages to reduce the time spent integrating, developing and validating IIoT projects.

Manufacturers are faced with many options for edge hardware and software, making it challenging to piece together effective IIoT solutions that can collect and process data at the edge for deep analysis to improve productivity, energy use, machinery health and more. PACSystems Edge Solutions are fully licensed and optimised combinations of Emerson’s edge and IIoT software and computing hardware, which significantly reduce the time and complexity of selecting, configuring and supporting edge solutions. End users gain faster access to insights from disparate and stranded data sources across the operation, minimising the time to achieve results. OEMs can securely and proactively monitor machine health, improve actionability and visibility into performance, and notify operators of potential issues before they become downtime events.

“Accessing critical data and analytics right at the point of generation empowers plant personnel to take fast, informed action to improve production,” said Sabee Mitra, Emerson’s group president for Systems and Software. “With PACSystems Edge Solutions, any industry application using PLCs can deliver immediate insights when and where operators need them most while maintaining easy scalability.”

Emerson’s new edge solutions leverage Movicon™.NExT, WebHMI, Connext OPC UA server and the PACEdge™ platform in optimised software packages to provide powerful and flexible connectivity, visualisation, and a cloud-enabled toolset. Users can connect openly to any field device or control system to create advanced edge computing, plant and energy analytics and supervisory systems, then present that information on a single, common human machine interface (HMI) from machine to enterprise level.

Individual fit-for-purpose PACSystems Edge Solutions seamlessly interconnect, unlocking easy scalability across the entire platform. Organisations can start with one application and build as future needs grow, easily expanding the value of solutions already in place. They include:

• RXi HMI: Improves visibility into machine operation and performance and empowers operators with quick access to critical information.
• RXi Edge Computing: Harnesses data from any source to deliver real-time insights and machine learning that is immediately accessible to operators to improve decision-making.
• RX3i Edge Controller: Unlocks real-time process optimisation through high-speed, deterministic control and machine intelligence in a single device.
• RXi Edge Analytics: Simplifies access and visibility to plant productivity, performance and energy usage with intuitive, pre-configured analytics.
• RXi Supervisor: Connects plant assets and production data into a comprehensive, real-time view of production operations with anywhere-access visualisation.

End users, systems integrators and OEMs alike will benefit from accelerated application development and secure, open connectivity from device to cloud, helping meet the IIoT needs of engineers and operators, along with the necessary flexibility to support future OT and IT integrations.

@Emerson_News @EMR_Automation @HHC_Lewis #PAuto #IIoT

Open source hardware technology site.

Mouser Electronics has announced the update of their popular Open Source Hardware (OSHW) Technology site. Mouser's updated technology site provides developers with the resources they need to quickly learn about the latest advances in open source hardware, and the newest open source hardware products available from Mouser Electronics. The newly enhanced Open Source Hardware Technology site, available on Mouser.com, reduces time spent selecting the best OSHW boards by providing days’ worth of research in one convenient location. The updated Product Selector is now an even more powerful tool, allowing developers to quickly select a board using a visual matrix of important features. 30 different parameters can be selected and sorted including processor type and speed, memory and expansion capabilities, wireless and wired networking, user interface options, video connectivity, and more. Online materials includes user guides, PCB files, schematics, and complete documentation. Supporting software for each board is available for fast, direct download. Under the Hardware section is a listing of available OSHW boards by category, including the newest Arduino and Arduino-compatible, BeagleBoard, Intel, and TI LaunchPad boards. The site makes it easy to find related hardware such as BeagleBone Capes, Arduino Shields and other useful accessories. All hardware is available for same-day shipping from the site. In the Featured Products section, developers can find the newest OSHW boards including the Intel Edison miniature computer, Texas Instruments MSP-EXP432 LaunchPad, and the Arduino Lilypad for wearables.  The Articles section contains new articles, including a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of open source vs. proprietary. Last, the Technical Resources section has new, related resources including updated application notes, white papers, and more to further assist developers.