engineering

Plant floor communication

Plant floor communication is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Plant floor communication rather than just read about it. In short: Plant floor communications refers to the control and data communications typically found in automation environments, on a manufacturing plant floor or process plant. The difference between manufacturing and process is typically the types of control involved, discrete control or continuous control (a.k.a. process control).

Key takeaways

Plant floor communication belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Plant floor communication to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Plant floor communication from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Plant floor communications refers to the control and data communications typically found in automation environments, on a manufacturing plant floor or process plant. The difference between manufacturing and process is typically the types of control involved, discrete control or continuous control (a.k.a. process control). Many plants offer a hybrid of both discrete and continuous control. The underlying commonality between them all is that the automation systems are often an integration of multi-vendor products to form one system. Each vendor product typically offers communication capability for programming, maintaining and collecting data from their products. A properly orchestrated plant floor environment will likely include a variety of communications, some for machine to machine (M2M) communications – to facilitate efficient primary control over the process and some for Machine to Enterprise (M2E) communications – to facilitate connectivity with Business Systems that provide overall reporting, scheduling and inventory management functions.

Machine to machine (M2M) communications Automation controllers typically offer communication modules to enable them to support a variety of industrial protocols, to facilitate machine to machine communications. These modules are often special designed for the protocol. A new class of module, the universal gateway, is becoming more prevalent as it offers the ability for an automation controller to communicate over one or more protocols simultaneously, and can be reconfigured for additional protocols without a module change.

Machine to enterprise (M2E) communications Few automation controllers offer direct connectivity to business systems such as MES and ERP systems. Overall integration of automation controllers to business systems are typically configured by system integrators, able to bring their unique knowledge on process, equipment and vendor solutions.

Integration Integration is typically managed through one of three mechanisms: Direct Integration – Business systems include connectivity (communications to plant floor equipment) as part of their product offering. This requires the business system developers to offer specific support for the variety of plant floor equipment that they want to interface with. Business system vendors must be expert in their own products, and connectivity to other vendor products, often those offered by competitors. Relational Database (RDB) Integration – Business systems connect to plant floor data sources through a Relational Database Staging Table. Plant floor systems will deposit the necessary information into a Relational Data Base. The business system will remove and use the information from the RDB Table. The benefit of RDB Staging is that business system vendors do not need to get involved in the complexities of plant floor equipment integration. Connectivity becomes the responsibility of the system integrator. EATM (Enterprise Transaction Modules) – These devices have the ability to communicate directly with plant floor equipment and will transact data with the business system in methods best supported by the business system. Again, this can be through a staging table, Web Services, or through system specific business system APIs. The benefit of an EATM is that it offers a complete, off the shelf solution, minimizing long term costs and customization. Custom Integrated Solutions – Many system integrators designs offer custom crafted solutions, created on a per instance basis to meet site and system requirements. There are a wide variety of communications drivers available for plant floor equipment and there are separate products that have the ability to log data to relational database tables. Standards exist within the industry to support interoperability between software products, the most widely known being OPC, managed by the OPC Foundation. Custom Integrated Solutions typically run on workstation or server class computers. These systems tend to have the highest level of initial integration cost, and can have a higher long term cost in terms on maintenance and reliability. Long term costs can be minimized through careful system testing and thorough documentation.

External links www.opcfoundation.org ARC Advisory Group Comments on Enterprise Appliance Transaction Modules

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Plant floor communication

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Plant floor communication claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Plant floor communication before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Plant floor communication ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Plant floor communication

In research: Plant floor communication appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Plant floor communication in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Plant floor communication is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Control engineering, Industrial automation, Manufacturing, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Plant floor communication outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Plant floor communication in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Plant floor communication means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Plant floor communication out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Plant floor communication in simple terms?

Why does Plant floor communication matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Plant floor communication?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Plant floor communication.