Page 12 - Food&Drink Business Magazine July-August 2020

COVER STORY
Adapting to the digital era
For field instrument manufacturer VEGA, being at the forefront of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) means means bridging customers’ needs and existing infrastructure to advanced systems in an economical and practical way. VEGA online content manager Claudia Homburg writes.
AFTER mechanisation, mass production and the digital revolution, we are now in the fourth revolution, Industry 4.0: the era of digital networking of machines, products and
IT networks.
While the Internet of Things
(IoT) marked the entry of the internet into the consumer goods sector, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) establishes a separate domain for industrial manufacturing, referring to networked machines or production facilities and associated measurement technology.
The most important advantages of IIoT are being able to react quicker to
inefficient processes or problems, saving time and using smart machine data to control production and operating processes, as well as entire value chains more efficiently.
The theory is all of this should be possible in nearly real time, with the help of intelligent monitoring and decision- making processes.
So what does the actual implementation look like from the perspective of a company like VEGA?
NEW WAYS WITH
THE WHEEL
VEGA product manager Stefan Kaspar says using bridging technologies such as bluetooth
means the company doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to meet customers’ needs. In the area of measurement and monitoring of level and pressure, Kaspar says, “It is important users do not have to invest large sums up-front and that the solution can be seamlessly integrated into their existing systems without compromising their security.
“These are future-oriented, scalable solutions that can be integrated into existing systems or new ones with a tailor-made basic security configuration, that continues to grow with new capabilities.”
Bluetooth is already securely encrypted at the interface level
VEGA’s PLICSCOM system uses bluetooth to harvest data in the field, with easy access around the clock.
12 | Food&Drink business | July/August 2020 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au