The Role of a Network Assessment in Your Plant Network Upgrade
In today’s industrial manufacturing environments, processes and demands are changing rapidly as the industry moves toward smart factories and supply chain digitalization.
As a result, industrial networks must also evolve to support new applications and technology, as well as the expanded functionality that data analytics demands.
Modern industrial networks must be able to actively address and respond to ongoing challenges and priorities like:
- Equipment interoperability to make sure systems can communicate
- Regulatory compliance to avoid liability and safety issues
- A constantly evolving cyberthreat landscape to protect information
- Knowledge erosion within maintenance teams as some workers look toward retirement
But the highest priority of all is maintaining production continuity. Any disruption to operations as a result of network downtime can have far-reaching consequences, affecting not only production schedules but also revenue, relationships with customers, safety, and market credibility and reputation.
The Risks of Legacy Infrastructure
Why do manufacturers continue to cling to legacy industrial networks, even when their leaders understand the risks this can pose?
Aging network infrastructure often remains in place due to an understandable reluctance to disrupt operations in order to implement upgrades. After all, downtime for any reason—planned or not—causes problems. (There are steps that can be taken to avoid disruptions as you improve your network, but that’s a topic for another blog.)
But neglecting network infrastructure simply to avoid the perceived hassles of upgrading has its own set of consequences:
- Downtime due to maintenance or performance issues
- Reduced operational efficiency and decreased staff productivity
- Security vulnerabilities
- Scaling difficulties
- Incompatibility with new technology
- Missed opportunities to standardize technologies and processes based on insights from industrial equipment
Often, the operational technology (OT) teams responsible for these industrial networks juggle various responsibilities, and industrial networking may not be their primary area of expertise. Instead, they may be more focused on things like equipment management and process control. This can make potential network upgrades even more daunting.
To guarantee that industrial networks garner the attention and expertise they need, external guidance can help you capture insights regarding network health, performance, and suitability.
The Value of a Comprehensive Network Assessment
Network assessments provide comprehensive evaluations of your operations to provide your team with insights into your data workflow and digital maturity.
For plants considering network improvements in the future, a network assessment can be a good first step. It can identify existing problems and what needs immediate attention, help you identify the costs and benefits of the upgrade, and understand potential risks associated with the upgrade (including the amount of downtime that may be involved).
To get an overall picture of your network, we believe that it’s important to assess performance in five areas:
1. Facility
Ensure that your network aligns with your facility’s application needs, the installation environment, and best practices for management, installation, and documentation.
2. Functionality
Assess the function of redundancies and data transmission performance, ensuring optimal performance and uptime.
3. Maintainability
Evaluate operation, time to repair, monitoring, and remote access to simplify and improve network maintenance processes.
4. Modernity
Analyze hardware, software, protocols, and data technologies to make sure you leverage cutting-edge solutions for improved network performance and futureproofing.
5. Security
Evaluate architecture/topology, device configuration, and maintenance practices to reinforce segmentation, access control, and security mindset.
Our Approach to Network Assessment Services
Belden’s experts apply this comprehensive approach to network assessments.
Once their evaluations are complete, they create visual representations of your network performance across these five dimensions to help you understand exactly how your network performs today and where it needs to improve most.
We also provide a list of tailored recommendations that show you how to improve performance in these areas, prioritized based on your company’s goals and resource availability.
Our approach provides you not only with visibility into and control over your existing network, but also lays the groundwork for future improvements. By capturing your network’s current topology, infrastructure devices and status, we can help you identify gaps between present and desired future states, empowering you to take your production where you want it to go—and make smart and informed decisions along the way.
Ready to take the first step to enhance your network infrastructure?
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About the Author
James Stokes joined Belden in 2021 and leads a team of Belden industrial networking professionals in the discrete automation space. He and his team use their experience to collaborate with customers, identifying pain points and gaps in their networks and applications to create targeted Belden solutions. He also draws from experience from previous roles in project management, software development and digital migrations, bringing a well-rounded approach to helping clients improve their use of technology.