Rockwell Automation has released new software and enterprise evaluation services designed to help manufacturers and industrial operators better manage their assets and reduce risk.
This is particularly important as manufacturers converge information technology (IT) and operations technology (OT) systems, and migrate to a unified Connected Enterprise. New services include the Software Inventory Evaluation and Enterprise Installed Base Evaluation services from Rockwell Automation.
The Software Inventory Evaluation service provides organisations a thorough analysis of their plant-floor IT assets – including servers, PCs, laptops and mobile devices – and of the various software installed on those assets.
This can help identify potential compatibility risks between specific firmware and software versions as more systems are connected and devices are updated. It can also help close knowledge gaps among support staff regarding which software versions are used across a myriad of equipment, how many licenses are used or unused, and whether software is being properly supported.
The Enterprise Installed Base Evaluation service can include a multisite Software Inventory Evaluation service or Installed Base Evaluation service, which is used to analyze critical plant assets to provide a full accounting and analysis of an organization’s IT and OT assets across the enterprise.
Organisations can use the Enterprise Installed Base Evaluation service to support specific corporate-wide initiatives, such as identifying their most critical assets, reducing obsolescence risks, managing corporate storeroom and spare parts initiatives, and ensuring all assets have up-to-date bills of material.
For example, an organisation can use the service to review its facilities for parts that are running business-critical activities, have no spare parts in inventory, and are also discontinued. This can help create a corporate risk profile that highlights the highest risk for downtime at each site.
Enterprise Installed Base Evaluation reports can provide insights across all of an organization’s facilities. They also can be customised based on top at-risk locations and top at-risk machines, or focus on specific business units across multiple facilities.