JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #117 - November/December 2017 - 4

OPlNlON industry 4.0

"The factory of the future is possible
onl if a unified secure communication
infrastructure is set up"
Smart operations in composite materials production
require the use of new and disruptive technologies, from
analytics and mobile to collaborative machines. They
require new strategies that make the most of these
technologies to create flexible, efficient, responsive, and
secure operations.

Olivier

Vallée:

Rockwell
Automation has more than a
hundred years of experience. The
company was founded in 1903 with
an initial investment of $1,000!
Today, Rockwell Automation is the
world's largest company dedicated
to industrial automation and
information, with 22,000 people
serving customers in more than
80 countries. I am in charge of
implementing solutions for the
factory of the future.

What are the specific needs of the
composite industry, and what are the
solutions you are proposing to meet
these needs?

O. V.: The needs of the composite

industry are shared by all industries:
the need to innovate and to industrialize the innovation as quickly as
possible, to improve operational efficiency, and to harness energy and
raw-material resources. The pursuit
of increased production efficiency
and savings speeds up as the competition increases and as certain
strategic metal and fossil-energy resources run short. Environmental
management is a strong challenge
for the composite industry, and reg-

OLIVIER VALLÉE,
Solution architect, Industry 4.0,
Rockwell Automation

ulations have become more stringent
in recent years, involving constraints
that manufacturers can hardly avoid
without compromising their image
and business.
To improve their efficiency, manufacturers need to have in-depth
visibility into their operational processes. Our solutions provide that.
Communication infrastructure is the
cornerstone of innovation, allowing
operational technology (OT) to converge with information technology
(IT).
Our ability to set up a unified, secured communication infrastructure
and to manage IT/OT convergence
sets us apart, as that is where our
know-how lies.

JEC Composites Magazine: Can you
tell us briefly about Rockwell Automation, giving us a few key figures
and a description of your responsibilities within the company?

with

umans are at the core of the
Connected nterprise. Man and
machine ill interact ith each
other more and more.
Are these solutions available to all of
these industries? And what are typical stages in their implementation in
the field?

O. V.: Our solutions meet the needs
of all manufacturers, regardless of
company size, as long as the manufacturing environment is automated.
The equipment and premises have to
be communicating, to start with. The
other two stages are to implement
the communication infrastructure

jec composites magazine / N°117 November - December 2017

and provide data analytics solutions
that help in effective decision-making.
How do humans fit into the Industry 4.0 trend? How do you think the
man/machine/software association is
going to develop?

O. V.: Humans are at the core of
the Connected Enterprise. Man and
machine will interact with each other
more and more. This means a genuine boost for skills and expertise.
Humans, free of repetitive operational tasks, will have more responsibilities and will play a more strategic
role.
To address those challenges,
Rockwell Automation has developed an innovative mobile solution
in the form of an application for
smartphones, called FactoryTalk
TeamONE. The app has been developed to facilitate the life of users,
who can access real-time information
on the operational status of installed
equipment, share knowledge with
staff, view live production diagnostics, interact with machine alarms,
and troubleshoot so as to minimize
downtime. The goal is to improve
productivity while fostering collaboration within the organization.
Customer follow-up is one of the
pillars of the digitized industry. How
do you take care of this connection/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #117 - November/December 2017