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Remote Diagnostics at Coke Plant

Kai Mariappan, plant control specialist at the Egan, MN, plant of Coca Cola, shared with his audience in the packaging track an example of a successful remote diagnostics application for packaging and production.

Kai Mariappan, plant control specialist, Coca Cola
Kai Mariappan, plant control specialist, Coca Cola

Key points of emphasis made by Mariappan:

• Regardless of whose PLCs are on the discrete pieces of packaging equipment in a line, as long as those PLCs are networkable, remote access is possible. A key to making it all work is a central gateway, which in this application came from Rockwell; can lines, bottle lines, utilities, the syrup room, a plant alarm management system, line information system, and email servers all connect to this hub.
 
• Security is critical. The very word “remote” means out of sight, and when things are out of sight, how do you know they are secure?
 
There are so many ways an attack can occur:
- An attacker can capture or guess necessary credentials.
- Data can be injected into a network.
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