新的远程监控和控制合作伙伴关系

伙伴关系between technology companies have been one of the biggest business developments to arise in these early days of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Though technology partnerships are nothing new to the automation industry, historically they presaged a merger between the two companies or the acquisition of the smaller company in the partnership by the larger one.

See links at end of article highlighting numerous automation supplier IIoT-related partnerships.

In the age of IIoT, however, pure play technology partnerships—lacking an imminent merger or acquisition—seem to be the order of the day. Underscoring this new reality is the fact that companies of all sizes are getting involved in this type of partnership activity.

A recent example of this is the strategic partnership announced betweenAcromagandCtek Inc.In this partnership, the companies are planning to “offer complete monitoring and control solutions for customers to manage their remote assets” by combining Acromag’s signal measurement and conditioning products with Ctek’s cellular communication and autonomous controllers.

该项目以该项目为中心的特定技术是CTEK SKYROUTER控制器和Acromag Busworks遥控I/O模块。CTEK表示，其Skyrouter控制器提供了“自主智能和复杂的通信功能来管理操作和报告性能数据。他们作为Modbus Master运行，可以读写为从属I/O设备。”这些控制器的处理功能包括阈值，数学/布尔功能，触发器和数据记录。警报支持电子邮件和SMS消息传递。

通过转换电压和电流信号，代表温度，水平，流量，负载，开/关，高/低，高/低以及其他性能指标和其他性能指标，将Acromag Busworks多通道远程I/O模块接口和离散级别传感器通过转换电压和电流信号。该模块以“坚固的设计，危险的位置批准和隔离信号处理，以确保在严酷的位置确保高准确性，可靠的性能”。

According to Acromag and Ctek, the combination of these technologies means that “users can quickly and cost-effectively deploy these systems without programming to connect endpoints to the enterprise, enabling visual access to operation status from anywhere. Menu-based configuration speeds setup of data collection, reporting and alarm functions.”

System developers and end users can “enjoy the capabilities of a PLC or RTU-based SCADA [supervisory control and data acquisition] system without the high costs and complexity,” says Robert Greenfield, Acromag’s business development manager (no relation to the editor of this article). “The integrated Acromag/Ctek system is ideal for remotely monitoring and controlling the operation of pumps, motors, tanks, meters, generators, batteries, valves, fans, heaters and other industrial equipment. Users can rapidly set up data displays, alarm rules, data logging and process control logic routines with point-and-click application development. Controllers support wired serial, Ethernet and 4G/LTE network communication, as well as a cloud-based application service for easy access to critical system status reporting.”

“Now system developers can confidently pair Acromag I/O and Ctek controllers to rapidly implement SCADA solutions with cloud-based reporting that are affordably scalable for small and large sites,” adds Bob Way, Ctek’s business development manager.

Highlights of IIoT-related partnerships covered recently by Automation World:

• Industrial Internet of Partnerships
• Predictive Maintenance Partnership
• 新的工业技术伙伴关系
• Data Collection and Connection Partnerships