Over the last several years, manufacturers have tapped industrial Ethernet to connect machines, sensors, and a broad range of devices on the factory floor. Customers have taken advantage of a rapidly evolving IoT ecosystem to transform that data into action and to integrate with applications to gain operational and business insights.

Such an approach has generated dramatic business outcomes including:

• Improved business efficiency as measured by improvements in Overall Equipment Effectiveness
• Business growth as measured by new product introduction velocity
• Increased productivity as measured by asset utilization and workforce effectiveness

Yet despite the business results, some industrial processes requiring deterministic response remained isolated, addressed with proprietary technology and vendor specific products. By design, traditional Ethernet is designed for best effort data delivery. Important enhancements are required to bring the benefits of IoT and open standard Ethernet networking to time sensitive industrial processes.

That's why companies such as Cisco, Bosch, Intel, National Instruments, and Schneider are driving a set of IEEE standards for Time Sensitive Networking (TSN). TSN enables a single, Ethernet network that works across vendors and drives IT and OT convergence through common management practices. This open standards based approach offers real-time control and synchronization of high performance, latency-sensitive processes over a single, standard Ethernet network.

What this means to industry is that one of the last islands of proprietary, costly technology, can be transitioned to standard Ethernet connectivity and integrated to unleash the full potential of IoT.

Customers benefit by:

• More efficient management across industrial process bringing together OT & IT with common practices
• Integration of high performance process via guaranteed delivery and minimal jitter over standard Ethernet
• Rapid, flexible deployment with choice across a diverse vendor ecosystem

Cisco is playing a central role in shaping the standard and working with industry groups such as the Industrial Internet Consortium to test interoperability across the ecosystem. Within the Cisco IoT Connectivity portfolio, TSN will be first deployed within the industry leading Industrial Ethernet 4000 family. The IE4000 is designed for Industrial and ruggedized deployments.  The Industrial Ethernet 4000 switch series supports up to 20 ports of Gigabit Ethernet with POE, as well as Fiber interfaces. The IE 4000 series hardware is currently TSN capable. With the latest IOS s/w release (version 15.2(5)E2) customers will be able to take full advantage of TSN.

The net result for customers is the opportunity to accelerate business with IoT. The latent value of data resident in time-sensitive processes may now be unlocked and turned into operational action as well as business insight.

Visit www.cisco.com/go/tsn to learn more.

For more details on our latest manufacturing solutions and their debut at Hannover Messe, view our blogs here and here.