Broadcom says that Audi’s Edge Cloud 4 Production (EC4P) initiative, powered by VMware Cloud software, is now live with the first virtual programmable logic controller (vPLC) at the Boellinger Hoefe plant in Germany where Audi manufactures the electric Audi e-tron GT car. As part of the EC4P initiative, the VMware Cloud Foundation® (VCF) private cloud platform helps Audi centralize the management and maintenance of dedicated Industrial PC devices located on the factory floor, simplify security patching and risk management, and reduce environmental impact through the use of less hardware and fewer manual operations.
With EC4P, Audi is delivering smart manufacturing by bringing software-defined factory automation to the shop floor and bridging the gap between IT and OT. The initiative includes close partnership between key technology partners including Broadcom, Cisco and Siemens.
“The use of virtual programmable logic controllers in the body shop is an important productivity leap in our 360factory strategy for efficient and data-driven manufacturing,” said Audi Board Member for Production Gerd Walker. “We want to bring the local cloud for production to all plants and leverage advances in digital control systems in the process.”
“The collaboration between Audi and Broadcom is core to building a manufacturing future that is more efficient, cost-effective and secure,” said Sven Müller, project lead for EC4P at Audi. “Through our work together, we're setting new standards for precision, customization, and environmental sustainability. EC4P will reduce our hardware footprint, replacing thousands of decentralized industrial PCs with a more efficient, scalable and flexible architecture of local edge servers that unites the cloud and the edge on the shop floor.”
Transforming IT-based Factory Automation with a Private Cloud Platform
Audi deployed VMware Cloud Foundation to create a private cloud environment outside of the Boellinger Hoefe manufacturing plant where critical shop floor workloads are hosted and managed centrally. Some examples include:
· Virtual Worker Stations (Virtual Desktops): instead of maintaining physical industrial PCs for running thousands of “worker stations” across the factory, these can now be run as virtual machines (VM) on VMware Cloud Foundation outside of the actual plant. Software and operating system updates can be done as a parallel operation instead of forcing them into the short shift changeover times. If a worker station VM has issues, it can quickly be replaced remotely.
· Virtual Programmable Logic Controllers (vPLCs): Virtual Programmable Logic Controllers (vPLCs) are used to control robots that manufacture different parts of the cars. A vPLC workload can be installed as a VM or even container and be managed similarly to IT-based cloud infrastructure. Configuration updates, security patches and feature updates can be made from Audi’s private cloud.
Building on EC4P, upcoming use cases may include AI-driven production, data analytics and computer vision applications for Audi. With VMware Cloud Foundation, Audi aims to achieve the following benefits at Boellinger Hoefe:
· Infrastructure Standardization - one private cloud platform for all applications on the shop floor.
· Faster Updates and Deployments - improved efficiency with faster application deployment, automated updates and maintenance.
· Better agility and scalability through cloud infrastructure that makes it easier and faster to reconfigure a production line to accommodate a product mix change, and scale compute and storage infrastructure easily and independently.
· Reduced costs through a smaller hardware footprint, less hardware maintenance, and centralized software and operating system updates.
· Lower environmental impact through a smaller hardware footprint that generates less heat, consumes less power, and results in less e-waste.
· Enhanced security and resilience through automated and centralized patching at scale and use of immutable snapshots in the event of an attack or breach enable fast roll back to the last known good state, minimizing interruption to the production line.
· Less downtime through intelligent workload and network telemetry can proactively flag, diagnose and remediate issues and automated updates during planned maintenance windows.
“As Audi seeks to take factory automation to the next level and benefit from a scalable infrastructure at its factories worldwide, VMware Cloud Foundation will enable the replacement of industrial PCs and specialty hardware on the shop floor with general purpose servers running consistent VMware cloud infrastructure software,” said Paul Turner, vice president of products, VMware Cloud Foundation Division at Broadcom. “VCF provides a consistent and scalable way for Audi to operate a distributed edge infrastructure, manage resources more efficiently, and lower operations costs. Ultimately, VCF will help Audi increase factory uptime, agility, and the speed of rolling out new applications and tools across the production line.”
