Manufacturing

Demonstrating the transformational qualities of industrial IoT

IPConsul is an IT service provider with a novel approach to demonstrating the efficacy of new technology: it brought technology to a rural maple syrup farm to test the installation, monitoring, and management of industrial IoT connectivity.

The 1000-tree farm, in the forests of rural Quebec, is small by maple syrup production standards, but it is ideal for the purposes of IPConsul.

"It is cold, remote, and not straightforward to manage," explains Guillaume Leduc, president and CEO, IPConsul. "We saw an opportunity to prove the effectiveness of industrial IoT connectivity in maintaining equipment, removing manual processes, and optimizing production."

The goal, Leduc continues, was to find efficiencies in the harvesting of maple syrup through digital transformation. Equally importantly, IPConsul could demonstrate to a wider audience the opportunities for industrial IoT to enable secure access to remote assets for maintenance and troubleshooting, eliminating time-consuming travel to remote locations. The company works with customers in the agriculture, retail, and manufacturing industries and brings them to the farm to show industrial IoT, and the power of real-time decision making, in action. If industrial IoT can work in a freezing forest, it can work anywhere.

The IPConsul plan was to install pressure sensors along 800 meters of vacuum pipes used to extract sap from the maple trees. The sensors help to validate that the pipes are working effectively and reduce the need for farmers to trudge around the forest checking each pipe individually. Additional sensors check for tree moisture, indicating the optimum time to harvest, and liquid level sensors monitor sap in the collection tanks.

The maple syrup harvest is a short window, and this is an industry that works off tight margins. "The connectivity needs to be reliable, there can be no disruption," Leduc says.” You need to optimize, optimize, optimize."

Gathering and presenting usable data

The solution is built using a suite of Cisco industrial IoT solutions. Cisco Catalyst IE3400 Rugged Series Switches and Cisco Industrial Ethernet 4010 Series Switches connect industrial equipment. Cisco Wireless Gateway for Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) connects battery-powered sensors over long distances to monitor tree moisture and collection tanks. Cisco Catalyst IR1100 Rugged Series Routers connect these field assets to the WAN so data is available in the control center. Finally, Cisco Secure Equipment Access embedded in the Catalyst IE3400 and Catalyst IR1100 enables zero trust remote access to assets for configuration, maintenance, and troubleshooting.

"When you speak about communication, Cisco enjoys a reputation for its outstanding quality and market recognition," says Leduc. “Industrial IoT is an expanding technology, and we are pleased to work alongside Cisco. They offer purpose-built networking technology for harsh climates, such as the cold Quebec winters. We use Cisco’s Secure Equipment Access for maintenance and troubleshooting issues at the farm, eliminating the need for time-consuming travel. Since their IIoT solutions share their roots with their IT networking solutions, we can confidently secure, manage, and scale our operations. Together, we figured out how to gather data securely and reliably, delivering productivity and efficiency gains for our customers," Leduc continuous. "Cisco technology enables us to collect data from sensors securely and with low latency. It also enables us to securely access assets remotely without the need for site visits. This is the true value of working with Cisco. It is an end-to-end solution.”

Remote monitoring to create time and cost efficiencies

The project has successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of industrial automation, the ease of install, and the simplicity of managing data inputs from one central location. Secure data feeds now come in from trees at least a mile from the farm; if there are leaks or pressure drops, if squirrels have nibbled the pipes or ice has damaged the equipment, the farmer now knows exactly where to locate the problem.

The industrial IoT solution has run now for two harvests. Leduc says it is too early to read much into the data, but anecdotally, the telemetry data has changed the way the farm's maple syrup harvest is run. The next phase is to monitor the storage, heating, and cooling part of the process. Industrial IoT solutions can integrate sensors to measure temperature, flow, and pump pressure. Telemetry data is collected and digitally transferred for immediate visibility.

Today, leveraging LoRaWAN provides visibility into the exact condition and performance of each vacuum pipe in this remote location. It is no longer necessary to have a human check 2600 feet (800 meters) of vacuum pipes linking 1000 trees in rotation. If there is a problem, an alert provides a notification for someone to immediately check a specific tree. Automation creates process efficiency. Proactive alerts prevent production downtime.

While the 1000-tree farm is small by Canadian standards, some of the larger farms have 500,000 trees with sap being transported to a central storage facility. Automation and remote monitoring of the harvest process across such expansive areas has the potential to create huge time and cost savings.

IPConsul is focused on showing that this is not simply a maple syrup story. Other manufacturers may benefit from industrial IoT automation. There may be opportunities to measure heat, dust, or vibration and provide telemetry data for effective management. This kind of industrial automation creates process efficiency and maximizes production uptime.

For IPConsul, the maple farm helps validate that industrial IoT can be applied in tough conditions, and can improve efficiency in a host of industries.

IPConsul is confident it has proven you can monitor a large area, with off-grid industrial automation sending accurate information securely to a central point.

"Industrial IoT is a journey," Leduc says, "But with the manufacturing industry recognizing the importance of automation and the promise of AI in helping make faster, more accurate decisions from collected data, this is an exciting journey to be part of."