Displaying items by tag: Siemens

Germany: Currax has added Siemens Simatic S7 controller systems to its drive portfolio under the IDS Digital brand. A variety of CPU models are available in several classes of performance in its product groups. Currax also intends to offer Simatic Human Interface (HMI) systems for compatible controller systems in the future.

Germany: The Siemens Mechanical Drives unit will rebrand for the market as Flender, a wholly owned subsidiary based in Bocholt, on 1 October 2017. The reorganisation is intended to give the unit a ‘sharper’ business focus. Its branches around the worldwide will also be rebranded. The new setup is expected to be completed by mid-2018.

“Flender is our strong brand with a tradition more than a century old, and we’ve always done business under the name. At this year’s Hannover Messe, we highlighted Flender even more brightly, and made quite a splash with our stand-alone fair booth for gear units and clutches. Eventually all the unit’s activities worldwide will be gathered under Flender,” says Stefan Tenbrock, chief executive officer (CEO) of Siemens Mechanical Drives.

The future Flender builds components for mechanical drive technology, producing at eight locations with more than 6000 employees around the world. Its product range embraces a broad portfolio of gear units and clutches, drive applications and associated services. It serves industries including cement production, wind power, marine shipping, and conveyor and lifting technology.

A Friedrich Flender AG was founded in Düsseldorf in 1899, originally making wood pulleys. Subsequently the company developed into manufacturing gear products. Siemens took over Flender in 2005 and integrated the company into its corporate group as a unit for mechanical drives. In February 2017 the company announced that it would reorganise Mechanical Drives as a stand-alone entity within Siemens.

Germany: Currax is promoting its Integrated Drive System for use by conveyor belt systems in the raw material sector. The complete drive train uses components made by Siemens that are then tailored for a conveyor’s particular requirements. Parts of the system include: the Simotics FD Motor, a conveyor belt drive with a power range of 200 – 1800kW; the Flender B3SH Gear units that are avaialble in various sizes; and the Rupex Bolt coupling, an additonal element for conveyor belt drives that are use as elastic compensating couplings and that provides a torque range of 200 – 130,000Nm. Currax is an enginering company based in Hamburg that provides and distributes products for the drive chain.

Last month’s prize for the most clichéd phrases in the cement news nearly went to UK technology firm Hanhaa and its ‘internet of packaging.’ At first glance the phrase seems like a hackneyed marketing play on the ‘internet of things,’ where objects outside of normal computers start to get networked, allowing for ‘added value.’ Silly wording maybe, but the intent is serious. Tracking is a vital part of logistics for industries like cement. The investors in Hanhaa, BillerudKorsnäs, may be on to something. Indeed, in 10 years time we may be kicking ourselves that we didn’t see it.

One drawback with networking everything though is that all sorts of items start to become vulnerable to computer hacking. The famous industrial example in recent years was the so-called Stuxnet virus, an alleged attempt by US and Israeli intelligence services to physically damage parts of the Iranian nuclear industry. It was intended to damage centrifuges by looking for Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) made by Siemens in very particular circumstances. A good overview on Stuxnet can be gained by watching Alex Gibney’s documentary ‘Zero Days.’

The problem for cement plants is that they also use PLCs for process control in common with other heavy industry. Effectively, whoever built Stuxnet has shown criminals how to attack any industrial plants that uses PLCs. Unsurprisingly, given the drip-drip of bad publicity, Siemens made a point of saying that it had gained a cybersecurity certification from TÜV SÜD, a German inspection and certification organisation, for some of its related products in late 2016.

Actual examples of cement plants being attacked are hard to find. Low-level cyber intrusions are likely to be treated akin to, say, individuals trespassing on a plant grounds and more serious incidents are probably kept quiet. ThyssenKrupp’s Industrial Solutions division, that builds cement plants amongst other things, reported that it had data stolen in an online attack from somewhere in Southeast Asia in 2016. Data espionage is one thing. Physical damage to an industrial plant is quite another. Previous to this, an unnamed German steel plant was reported to have been damaged by a systematically planned attack in 2014. Another way hackers can mess up your day is via extortion attempts or so-called ransonware attacks where systems are shut down until a ransom is paid. Recent examples of this in the wider public sphere include attempts to extort the San Francisco Municipal Railway in November 2016 and the St Louis Public Library system in January 2017. Despite shutting down their systems neither organisation paid up.

From our perspective, the Global Cement website runs using a common content management system (CMS) that runs on commonly used server software. Due to this we constantly receive low-level hacking and exploit attempts from automated scripts attempting to find weaknesses in the setup. New exploits are found, hacking attempts occur, software is updated and the cycle continues. However, the key difference between the Global Cement website and a cement producer is the turnover. A cement plant operates in millions or hundreds of millions. In this way, for hackers the return on investment of hacking an industrial plant is far higher. even if it is using limited-run proprietary software and equipment. And even if critical parts of a plant’s system are security hardened, hackers may be able to find a way in via less secure areas and then work their way across. Staff smartphones accessing a local wifi network, contractors using insecure USB drives, and hackers using social engineering techniques such as confidence tricks to gain system logins by phone are just some methods that could grant intruders digital access.

A report by Ponemon placed the average annualised cost of cyber crime to the industrial sector worldwide at US$8.05m. Although the authors point out sample size issues with their calculation, industry is the fifth most affected sector in terms of losses after finance, utilities, technology and services. Networking innovations in industry such as the ‘internet of packaging’ are potential game changers as added value from the network effect and suchlike becomes factored in. The risk though is that these kind of innovations also offer opportunities to criminals and anarchists. It’s likely only a matter of time until a serious hacking attack at a cement plant becomes public knowledge.

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Germany: Siemens has obtained a cybersecurity certification from TÜV SÜD, a German inspection and certification organisation, for an automation system based on IEC 62443-4-1 and IEC 62443-3-3. As part of the certification TÜV SÜD tested and verified the security functions implemented in the Simatic PCS 7 process control system, a system that controls and monitors continuous manufacturing processes, such as those in cement plants. With this certificate, the company has documented its security approach to automation products showing integrators and operators some of its industrial security measures.

Simatic PCS 7 provides functions for industrial security including segmentation into zones and security cells, the security of access points and user authentication, secure communication, patch management, system hardening, virus scanners and whitelisting. The security measures and functions for Simatic PCS 7 contribute toward safeguarding plant operation and avoiding plant downtime and outage times.

UK: Siemens has won the Materials Handling Engineers’ Association’s (MHEA) first Innovation Award for its work on energy efficiency savings at three Hanson UK plants. The work focused on fan and control improvements made to the clinker cooler and kiln systems at three Hanson UK sites, which have saved the company nearly Euro2m in energy savings and reduced CO₂ emissions. The award was presented at the MEHA’s BULKEX conference in October 2016.

“It’s great to be recognised for this innovative work, where companies can enjoy long-term benefits from process improvements, and we’re particularly pleased to be the first recipients of this award,“ said Siemens application specialist Gary Palmer who worked on all three of the Hanson upgrades.

Egypt: Siemens will launch its Sicement Electrification system at the Bringing Power to Cement Industry forum in Cairo. The product line is designed to provide electrical distribution and optimisation systems for cement plants including high-voltage electrical substations required for the interconnection with the national grid. All components are coordinated with each other to reduce costs and CO₂ emissions.

Pakistan: Lucky Cement has signed a contract with Siemens Pakistan to implement an SAP Enterprise System across its operations. The move will integrate all the departments, including finance, production and supply chain. Lucky Cement is the first Pakistani cement plant to implement the system.

"We have always focused on innovation and excellence as the building pillars of our continuous growth," said Executive Director, Noman Hasan. "Through SAP, we aim to drive progress through greater integration of our various locations, agility and enhanced efficiency of our operations and further efficiencies in our processes."

Russia: Lafarge's Voskresensk cement plant has set up a continuous environmental monitoring system analysing cement furnace emissions. Siemens has designed and delivered the equipment. The monitoring system controls standard parameters like the content of dust, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide, oxygen, pressure, gas flow rate and organic content. Lafarge also has an environmental monitoring system installed at its Ferzikovo Cement Plant.

Germany: Dirk Hoke took over as CEO of the Large Drives Business Unit of the Siemens Drive Technologies Division on 1 July 2014. Large Drives develops, manufactures and markets products, systems, solutions and services for drive engineering in industrial and infrastructure applications as well as sectors such as marine engineering, mining, cement, pulp and paper.

Hoke, a 45 year-old graduate engineer, joined Siemens in 1996 and started his career at the Transportation Systems Division. Subsequently Hoke held management posts in rail electrification, traction technology, and power supplies at Siemens locations in Germany and other countries. After serving for several years as CEO of Siemens' Cluster Africa and Siemens Morocco, in 2011 he took over leadership of the Industry Solutions Division before being appointed to head the Siemens Division Customer Services in October 2011.