Closed-Loop Machine Monitoring Battles Hackers

Manufacturers try to achieve the ‘Smart Manufacturing’ goals of increased production efficiency, reduced waste/downtime, improved scheduling and inventory management via IoT connectivity. As a result, the manufacturing industry is the top buyer of IoT devices. But those shop-floor connected devices become prime targets for cyber threats, says Lucas Galindo, corporate sales and marketing manager for eNet, a provider of CNC software and hardware to industry.

Unless every connected IoT device is updated with latest security updates and patches, a manufacturer’s networks remain extremely vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

Rather than connecting machines and systems to the IoT, discreet manufacturers increasingly deploy closed-loop machine-monitoring systems that function solely within the well-protected environment of an internal Ethernet network, reports Galindo.

One such system, eNET Machine Monitoring, installs data I/O boards into machines to automatically capture the exact production data that are most valuable to a manufacturer, according to eNet officials. The system can be used even on manual machines. eNET also provides a software feature, Cycle Start Disable, that allows for setting a pre-determined time limit for a machine to sit idle before the operator is forced to enter a downtime reason code, which then unlocks the Cycle-Start button again.

See also: eNETDNC

Technologies: Sensing/Electronics/IOT

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Start receiving newsletters.