Understanding the Industrial Process and Devices

In this chapter, you will learn about how industrial data is generated, gathered, and transferred to the cloud. We will look at continuous or discrete processes and how they work, becoming familiar with the model of Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) from its origin in the factories of the 1980s to the current day. You will learn about industrial equipment, networks, and protocols, and come to understand terms such as Distributed Control System (DCS), Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), Historian, Manufacturing Execution System (MES), Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP), and Fieldbus. We will also look at how the industrial world interacts with the cloud, as well as the devices and protocols that allow this to happen. Related to this, we will learn terms including OPC-Proxy, store and forward, edge, and IoT gateway. All the concepts that are sketched in this chapter will be further...