At this site technical articles published at the YOKOGAWA technical report are introduced.
IT/OT Convergence Service
Lifecycle Service Transformation: from OT to IT/OT Convergence
- Yu Dai*1
*1Director, Senior Vice President of Digital Solutions Headquarters
Transformation and Expectations for OT Service
- Hiroshi Yokoi*1
- Takashi Hasegawa*2
*1 Lifecycle Services Business Division, Digital Solutions Headquarters
*2 Business Strategy Department, Lifecycle Services Business Division, Digital Solutions Headquarters
In the manufacturing industry, customers’ needs in operations are shifting from a simple OT approach to the integration of IT and OT, which is expected to be achieved by digital transformation. In line with this trend, customers’ expectations for OT suppliers have been changing significantly. As the distinction between IT and OT disappears, OT service providers require more flexible functionality. Yokogawa envisages a one-stop service for the manufacturing industry and is working toward its full operation by 2030. This paper describes its vision, background, and roadmap.
- Takeo Kobayashi*1
*1 Sales Strategy Department, Lifecycle Services Business Division, Digital Solutions Headquarters
Providers of maintenance service must try to address the various issues faced by industry. These issues include the need for digitalization, which has been accelerated by COVID-19, improvement of the remote work environment, cybersecurity threats, the ongoing convergence of IT and operational technology (OT), increasingly complex plant and control equipment, and the scarcity of skilled engineers. Yokogawa’s OpreX Managed Service helps solve these challenges by utilizing its DX platform and IT service management (ITSM)-based ticketing system. Yokogawa combines customers’ core elements of people, processes, and technology through its 24/7 managed service, and helps reduce plant maintenance risk, improve efficiency, ensure safety, and reduce maintenance costs.
This paper outlines the major characteristics of the OpreX Managed Service and describes the background of its development, the value and services it provides, and issues to be addressed in the future.
Yokogawa’s Plant Healthcare Service
- Yoshihiro Kanazawa*1
- Hiroki Senba*2
- Shinya Nakagawa*3
- Makoto Sumiya*2
*1 Cybersecurity Department, Lifecycle Services Business Division, Digital Solutions Headquarters
*2 Service CoE Department, Lifecycle Services Business Division, Digital Solutions Headquarters
*3 Unexplored Value Creation Laboratory, Lifecycle Services Business Division, Digital Solutions Headquarters
While producing products, plants output a variety of valuable data. However, it is often difficult for plant owners to effectively use the data to ensure the health of the system. Yokogawa’s plant healthcare service helps solve this issue; its digital transformation (DX) platform periodically collects data from customers’ operational technology (OT) assets, analyzes the data, and determines the condition of the assets. Based on this output, customers can precisely assess risks and optimize and implement a maintenance plan. This paper explains the value brought by this service to customers, its three core features, and its future development.
The Architecture of the OpreX Managed Service Platform
- Katsuhiko Matsufuji*1
*1 Solution Development Department, Lifecycle Services Business Division, Digital Solutions Headquarters
Yokogawa released the OpreX Managed Service in 2020 to enhance customers’ value chain. This service solution program combines customers’ people, processes, and technology to help solve their problems. The Managed Service Suite is the digitalization platform of the OpreX Managed Service.
Operational technology (OT) today has become increasingly complex, and siloed and legacy systems tend to bring various problems across a wide range of assets. Therefore, an operation support platform must have a scalable, flexible, and highly secure architecture to improve the efficiency of maintenance work and avoid operation risks. This paper outlines the major features of the Managed Service Suite and how it fulfils these requirements.
Managed Service Enhanced with ITIL Best Practices
- Chooi LaiKong*1
*1 Service CoE Department, Lifecycle Services Business Division, Digital Solutions Headquarters
To improve the operational flexibility and efficiency of on-site production work, manufacturers have introduced open-standard networks for their industrial automation and process control systems. Such a network allows plant managers to remotely access the systems and share plant data, applications, and resources with engineering personnel and external partners. Since the shrinking number of skilled workers is making it difficult to share information and quickly respond to troubles in plants, remote support services by automation vendors are increasingly needed. In response, Yokogawa has launched the Managed Service based on the best practices of the information technology infrastructure library (ITIL) approach. This paper introduces how the Managed Service improves operational efficiency.
- Seiichi Koizumi*1
- Tetsuo Shiozaki*1
*1 DXP Planning Department, DX Platform Center, Digital Solutions Headquarters
To help customers promote digital transformation (DX), Yokogawa has been providing Yokogawa Cloud, an Internet of Things (IoT) cloud service. We are also striving to make DX services secure; we leveraged the know-how obtained through the operation of Yokogawa’s internal security system (Yokogawa Security Monitoring Center: Y-SOC) and developed IT/OT security monitoring services. This paper explains technological trends in IT/OT convergence and introduces application examples of Yokogawa’s IT/OT integrated SOC service.
High-precision Synchronous Measurement by Integrated Measurement Software
- Kenji Iwano*1
- Kanji Yokohira*2
- Takahiro Sakaue*3
*1 Software development Gr. 1, Engineering Department, Decarbonization Business Headquarters, Yokogawa Test & Measurement Corporation
*2 Software development Gr. 2, Engineering Department, Decarbonization Business Headquarters, Yokogawa Test & Measurement Corporation
*3 Hardware development Gr. 1, Engineering Department, Decarbonization Business Headquarters, Yokogawa Test & Measurement Corporation
In order to evaluate motors and inverters, it is necessary to collect data from multiple measuring instruments such as power meters, oscilloscopes, and data acquisition recorders and examine the relationships among the data. Yokogawa’s IS8000 integrated software platform collects various types of such data and displays them on the same time axis. Yokogawa has also developed dedicated measuring instruments, the WT5000, DL950, and DLM5000, which support the precision time protocol (PTP), a time synchronization standard specified in IEEE1588, and achieve sampling clock synchronization.
Running the IS8000 with the WT5000, DL950, and DLM5000 enables seamless operation from acquisition and highly precise synchronization of measurement data to analysis and report generation, delivering a system configuration and data analysis required for efficiently evaluating motors and inverters.
- Kumiko Horikoshi*1
- Ryuutarou Maki*1
- Kazufumi Nishida*1
*1 P&W Section 1, Analyzer Department, Sensing Center Development Division, Yokogawa Product Headquarters
Thanks to the expanding retail business, the paperboard market in Asia is growing and thus the demand for paper color control is increasing. To meet this need, online measurement of paper chromaticity in the paper-making process is used to ensure strict quality control of paper color. Yokogawa has enhanced the functions of the LED color sensor for the B/M9000VP paper quality control system. A new high-sensitivity spectroscope enables high-sensitivity and high-speed measurements, and a moisture-proof coating on components has improved moisture resistance. With the enhanced functionality and robustness of the LED color sensor, the B/M9000VP has improved quality control in the paper-making process.
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