Several announcements from ABB at this week’s Hannover Messe industrial trade fair in Hannover, Germany showcase the future of IoT, connectivity and remote monitoring. Two announcements in particular illustrate how these trends are shaping the development of Industry 4.0.

The first is that ABB has extended its discrete automation offering to deliver more connectivity and application solutions for discrete manufacturing, general machinery and food and beverage machine builders.

The ABB zenon software, developed by the Austrian automation company COPA-DATA, extends communications, machine-to-machine connectivity and application control possibilities for machine builders. (Note: The ABB zenon software is still in the pilot phase in the United States.) This supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software extends ABB’s discrete automation portfolio which includes variable speed drives, motion control solutions, motors, programmable logic controllers and human machine interface panels. Together, these products enable the development of solutions for the Internet of Things, Services and People, (IoTSP) which present new business models for improving factory and process performance, product quality, production flexibility and energy efficiency.

ABB also showcased its new, customizable drives Remote Condition Monitoring service. (Note: Remote Conditioning Monitoring service for drives is still in the pilot phase in the United States.) This service helps in predictive maintenance planning by using remote data. It includes an expert analysis report on the drive’s condition and proactive e-mail alerts regarding potential faults or limited availability, ensuring that equipment is available, reliable and maintainable.

In industries where equipment downtime is extremely costly, new solutions are needed to assess future risks. Since drive performance data is readily available, making use of this information to find out how equipment operates and why it could fail can let users maximize drive performance and extend its lifetime. ABB’s Remote Condition Monitoring goes a step further by using remote data to identify early signs of possible system failures or production problems.

After the monitoring need has been assessed, an ABB expert will discuss the set up that is most relevant to the user’s objectives. Services can be tailored to meet specific needs.

Once a personal account has been created on the myABB Customer Portal, users can monitor live data such as availability, condition, operating parameters and fault events on their laptops, desktops and mobile devices. Customized performance reports with clear charts and graphs can also be generated.

For more information, visit www.abb.com.