MechChem Africa March-April 2021

E+H’s IIoT ecosystem for the process industry For a long time, Industry 4.0 was little more than a vision. Now applications are beginning to breathe life into the concept. The benefits of digital services are becoming apparent in real environments and solutions based completely on internet technologies are opening up brand new fields of applications. Julia Grether, business development manager at Endress+Hauser Digital Solutions, talks about some real applications for the IIoT ecosystem, Netilion. “M y smartphone has been serving as a sort of con- trol centre for my daily life for a long time,” says tion provides our private lives to the process industry as well,” explains Grether. “That makes processes more efficient and reliable,” she says.

sometimes they prove tobe real eye-openers, such as at Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH, a Netilion pilot customer located in Germany. While digitally capturing the installed base of measurement devices at the steel mill, more instruments surfaced than the plant had an- ticipated. Furthermore, someof thesedevices were found to be in need of replacement. With Netilion, there is a complete over- view of the installed base at hand. Digital twins of the actual field instruments, which are often difficult to access, are made avail - able in the cloud where they can be seen from various devices – from the office PC, an industrial tablet and even from the techni-

JuliaGrether. The 29-year-olduses her smart companion to communicate with others, check the weather, book train tickets, track the number of steps she takes and control the lights at home. After studying international management, she has her eye on the benefits of digital connectivity in her professional life as well. In her role as a business development manager, she has been working for the past year on Netilion, the IIoT ecosystem from Endress+Hauser. “My goal is to use Netilion to bring the convenience and simplicity that digitalisa-

The heart of the platform is Netilion ser- vices, a collection web-based applications that make all field instruments and their data accessible from anywhere. The apps help users carry out tasks such as capturing and managing all instruments in a plant, organis- ingdevicedocumentationormonitoring their instrument status and responding correctly in the case of a malfunction. Keeping an eye on all instruments “Netilion apps are easy to use and immedi - ately provide added value,” saysGrether. And

Endress+Hauser is accelerating the digitalisation of industrial production. The cloud-based IIoT ecosystem Netilion forms the basis for capturing and managing instruments in a plant, organising device documentation or monitoring instrument status and responding correctly in case of a malfunction.

22 ¦ MechChem Africa • March-April 2021