Raj Batra, President of Siemens Industry's Industry Automation Division, followed Inverso's deep dive, saying that he was happy we were holding this meeting at Disney, and lauded the partnership between Siemens and Disney. He noted that Disney was in the happiness business and that he hoped that we would all find our happy places here this week.
He went on to discuss the challenges facing manufacturing companies, and automation companies as well. Competitiveness with low cost countries, commodity price increases, supply chain complexity (such as demonstrated by Fukushima) and the skill and talent shortage.
He noted that the skill and talent shortage is global, and will only get worse as time goes on. He revealed that Siemens has made a $100K donation to FIRST Robotics, and he exhorted his audience to become involved because only 10% of degrees being awarded in the US every year are in engineering.
He talked about entering a new age of productivity. The process of design and manufacturing used to be serial, Batra said, and in the future it is going to be a parallel process.
Siemens is producing game changing products and software to encourage this parallel process, Batra said.
The TIA Portal and the software suite that supports it, Industrial Automation tools and products, energy efficient drive systems, services and cybersecurity tools and techniques are all part of changing the game, Batra noted.
Batra said, "The threat of cyber attack is real, growing, and for us it is bittersweet because we have had direct experience of it with Stuxnet." IN 2010 there were 20 million new strains of malware-- a 100% increase over 2009. 11 million records have been breached. Siemens is introducing new security tools and a holistic approach to cybersecurity for PCS7 and S7. Overall security management coupled with clear rules for interface with office IT and PC based systems are part of the problem-solvers. Critical is protection of the control level, and strict observance of communications. This is a defense in depth approach, Batra said. This is being built into the Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) Portal.
"It is our intention to keep the integration, and make the plant safer," Batra said. Very similar to the ISA99 approach to security, Siemens suggests a "cell structure protected by VPN and Firewall." for each part of the plant so that each cell is protected from the outside and from other cells, but information and control may be securely shared.
"But we have to make security a way of life," Batra said. "That's why we believe in the holistic approach."
Batra, in closing, exhorted the audience to have fun. "Work needs to be fun," he said, "and after all, we are in the Land of the Mouse."
