Bürkert's main focus is on customers who want to implement IIoT applications. Operators of brownfield systems in particular face challenges: "Nobody wants to interfere with a functioning process control system, which is why we use an edge gateway for effective data transfer to simplify the application for the customer," explains Lukas Endress, New Business Development Manager at Bürkert. Because one thing is clear: "Customers want to know more about their process and their system so that they can act in good time before a problem arises or solve it quickly. We specifically transmit the status and diagnostic data of IO-Link field devices via an edge gateway so as not to burden the process flow in the classic control system with additional data traffic. IO-Link is now established and in high demand among many customers," says Lukas Endress.

Generating added value from data

In order to generate added value from this data, Bürkert works with its customers to develop applications that can be used to process, evaluate and visualize data. In this way, valuable information for the operation of the system and the upcoming process optimization is generated from data. "We give users easy access to this information according to their requirements - regardless of whether they want to view it in the cloud or on dashboards on the Edge Gateway," says Michael Rausch, Segment Manager Hygienic at Bürkert. "Our aim is to analyze data together with the customer and derive information from it. For example, the wear limits of field devices are highly dependent on the medium and interrelationships in the respective process and are therefore often difficult to determine. We know our devices, the customer knows their system and their process. When we combine this expertise, we can identify, diagnose and rectify inefficiencies and potential problems. Ideally, before they even become a risk." One example: "This way, we can detect unwanted valve openings in the system and tell the customer exactly whether and for how long a valve was open unintentionally. This was difficult to find out in the past. If such an event occurs, we notify the customer by e-mail or text message. This allows them to analyze which batch needs to be checked. This can significantly reduce the risk of recalls," says Rausch.