Chemical Engineering May 2023 - 34

automation vision
will use technology
across every
domain - reliability,
sustainability,
energy use, quality
and more - to
perform optimization
across the enterprise.
Much like
enterprise business
solutions,
boundless automation
will eliminate
silos through
a scalable, interoperable,
and extensible
unified
FIGURE
3. As organizations embrace more automation connectivity across
their enterprise, the isolated architectures of the past are making way for an
integrated, cohesive boundless automation architecture based on the next
generation control system
win situation. They lose the critical
context of their data and create additional
silos, inhibiting access and
making it harder to use data effectively
for meaningful optimizations.
And while teams can layer edge solutions
over siloed architectures to help
move data where it is needed, those
types of solutions do not address the
core problem of creating a truly connected
system to seamlessly move
data sets where teams need them
without losing any context.
To meet those more holistic needs,
today's forward-thinking automation
providers are breaking down the
boundaries around automation technologies
by expanding the next-generation
control system to incorporate
all essential operational domains.
Integrating operations
To truly get the most benefit from
automation, organizations need an
architecture that will seamlessly integrate
the software, tools, technologies,
data and controls of a nextgeneration
automation stack across
every operational domain, from the
field to the edge to the cloud. Driving
this type of holistic optimization,
necessary to compete in a global
market, will require more than complex
independent edge architectures
to collect, standardize and
democratize data.
Innovators leveraging a boundless
34
data
model (Figure 3).
To accomplish
this vision, innovative
organizations
will shift their operations
strategies to embrace digital
transformation technologies that
expand automation and control to
encompass all process automation
needs. They will begin implementing
next-generation DCS technologies
that have evolved to become enterprise
automation platforms, without
giving up on core process control.
Control
will
still be a strong core
competency, but it will be one of the
functions manipulating and modifying
contextualized field data.
While much of this boundless automation
future is focused on advancements
beyond the horizon,
the building blocks are visible today,
and they provide a roadmap to help
organizations prepare for the brave
new world of automation that is rapidly
approaching.
Unified software ecosystem
New technologies and applications
combined with market needs - including
" born digital " companies,
decentralized
operating
models,
and the move toward self-optimized
plants - have created demand for
a new automation paradigm where
a unified software environment
streams data across the enterprise
effortlessly, when and
where
it's
needed. Today's operators expect
intuitive, integrated software platforms,
much like the solutions that
revolutionized business software ten
or fifteen years ago.
As teams begin to build an automation
architecture comprehensive
of all domains, they will rapidly eliminate
segmentation. All operational
domains will be integrated into a
single, cohesive software ecosystem,
with information from intelligent
field devices, edge systems, and the
cloud all coming together as part of a
cohesive data model. Essential data
will be democratized - standardized
in format and laden with context -
for easy collaboration among crossfunctional
teams. Moreover, that
same data will be securely available
on demand to authorized people
across the enterprise, anytime from
anywhere in the world.
A single technology stack
Modern architectures, technologies
and protocols - such as Ethernet
advanced physical layer, 5G communication,
OPC UA, hyperconverged
infrastructure, containerization and
Kubernetes - are creating a bridge
between operational technology (OT)
and information technology (IT), enabling
easier connectivity and more
data flow.
For example, smart sensors can
perform more tasks right at the asset
and pass large amounts of data directly
to process control, and send
data to reliability and analytics software
hosted at the edge or in the
cloud. Not only do these new technologies
improve visibility and decision
making at the enterprise level,
they also assist operations teams in
their efforts to improve operations.
Teams will be able to use new, critical
information from the field to make
better decisions and continuously
improve efficiency.
Miltiple domain optimization
While most modern plants can optimize
their own operations domain
by domain, boundless automation
architecture creates a framework for
tensioning multiple domains against
each other simultaneously to deliver
enterprise-wide optimization. A unified
software platform combined with
next-generation automation systems
will help organizations continue to
digitally transform their operations
through an intuitive ecosystem of
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