The starting signal for the NOA automation platform
IIoT for medium-sized companies – easy to implement
This is the official starting point for the new Open Automation and IIoT Platform: NOA stands for Next Open Automation and, in addition to flexible control and operation of your machine, also enables the smart use and analysis of your machine data. This reduces downtime of machines and systems, lowers costs and increases efficiency. Apps such as Machine Learning, Monitoring or Solutions for HMIs can be easily and flexibly installed with NOA. KEB announces the official release at the sps 2024 in Nuremberg.
With NOA, machine and plant manufacturers now have the opportunity to design individual automation solutions based on open systems. KEB offers a basic toolkit with NOA that can be expanded to include customer-specific and third-party apps – for the users themselves and also for their customers. NOA functions as a hardware-independent Automation Platform as a Service (APaaS) and is based on Linux and Container Technology. The collection, visualisation and processing of data is at the centre of NOA's functionalities.
NOA can be used for predictive maintenance, for example. The automation platform can monitor machines and predict when maintenance will be needed. This makes it possible to plan maintenance and minimise downtime. Condition Monitoring is particularly efficient thanks to the central and comprehensive evaluation and visualisation of machine data. The NOA Portal includes the Dashboard Builder, which allows users to design their own dashboards according to their requirements. The Device and Fleet Management feature allows users to manage all devices in one place and save time with over-the-air updates. Apps can be made available by the customer directly as containers on the automation platform. This eliminates the need to go through an app store, for example.
Expand your own business models with NOA
NOA is available as a white-label solution. This enables OEMs to expand their business models by providing their customers with an Automation Platform in addition to their machines. The value of the machines increases as a result of digital services such as Predictive Maintenance or Condition Monitoring, which can be offered as add-ons. Intelligent alarming or remote maintenance are further use cases for NOA.
“The design of machines and systems is becoming increasingly open in order to enable different manufacturers to work together within a system. This reduces the development effort for the user and makes it easier to integrate their own functions into the systems. The IIoT and Edge Platform NOA is based on a truly open architecture. This means that NOA can be expanded by the customer at almost any point. It is also possible to use only certain parts of NOA – entirely according to individual requirements,” says Uwe Huber, Head of HMI and IIoT Development at KEB Automation.
The structure of the Automation Platform consists of two main building blocks. NOA Core provides the infrastructure to install, operate and update apps on the hardware or edge device. This core is the basis for the service-oriented, open architecture of the platform. The App Management provides the functions for installing and updating the general services. The communication and data layer enables individual apps to communicate with each other independently. There is also an optional connection to the cloud-based NOA portal, which can be used to centrally manage all NOA edge devices and visualise and analyse data.
NOA Core can be installed on third-party hardware, giving customers maximum freedom. The only requirements are a Linux OS and a Docker installation. But, of course NOA Core also runs on KEB Automation hardware. For example, the C6 COMPACT 3 provides perfectly fitting hardware. This is an embedded automation device that can be used for various tasks in addition to the actual machine automation, for example as a gateway, edge device or HMI server.
"NOA has already been used by selected pilot customers. For example, we used NOA in the assembly of electric motors at Brusatori Electric Motors in Italy and achieved a high level of added value,” says Uwe Huber. “In quality control, processes were automated, reducing the time to test the motors from 20 to five minutes.”
This was achieved by KEB writing apps to connect data from measuring devices and simply deploying them to edge devices using NOA. The HMI software HELIO was also installed on the devices as an app using NOA to create HMIs for operating the measuring devices and visualising the results. “We were able to make many laborious manual processes more efficient,” says Huber. Previously, printed data cards were used to compare measured values from the devices. Now the process is automated with NOA by using an app to query a database of threshold values.