aCampus: 1 st project in Technical committee 185 ‘Industrial Automation’

On August, Ukrainian technical committee 185’ ‘Industrial Automation’ has started the project called aCampus, – ‘awareness CAMpaign for better Use of Standards’. This article describes goals and the scope of tasks in the project. 

Why this project

Today, the world landscape of Industry 4.0 standards includes about 60 IEC/ISO standards, all they are not available in Ukrainian legislation. Some of them belong to area of security (incl. cyber-) and safety of critical infrastructure (power stations, railways, airports, defense enterprises and so on), others regulates multiples aspects of manufacturing efficiency, effectiveness, integration and interoperability.

In 2017 Association of Industrial Automation of Ukraine (APPAU) has created the Technical Committee 185 ‘Industrial Automation’ that deals just with 6 of such standards. But all those works are based on volunteer principles and were very hard to accomplish in necessary scope of work. Experts were not motivated as well as leaders of 6 groups. During 2 years APPAU tried to involve Universities staff but also without success. The State could not provide any actionable support to cope with that issue while the budget of APPAU was quite limited.

Meanwhile the level of penetration of modern standards remained at very low level. Resuming, APPAU focused in the project at 5 main market issues

1. Rising gap between Growing number of international standards and local acting ones. This issue becomes much deeper with cancelation of ‘old’ post-soviet GOST
2. Low level of implementation for even harmonized standards (e.g. EN-DSTU-15232 (energy efficiency in building)). The reasons are in the area low level of market education.
3. Growing risks of cyber-security and safety in critical infrastructure and industrial plants
4. No support from the State / low level of expert motivations
5. Low awareness of key industrial players about necessity of legal standards (not obligatory ones, long-term issues, Russian illegal copies)

An effective campaign rising awareness of standards users regarding mentioned issues and benefits of using standards was considered as the catalyst to the change the market situation.

The grant has been got from Ukrainian subsidiary of GIZ, Germany’s leading provider of international cooperation services that is supported by the German Government.

Project audience and objectives

Target audience includes but not limited to next categories

1. Mid- and large enterprises in Manufacturing, Energy, Utilities and Transport having departments of specialists of Control systems & IT (briefly, ‘EU’ that means End Users)
2. Control System and IT-integrators (CSI) that are typically in charge of commissioning of control system.
3. Software and hardware developers who develops new products oriented to Industry 4.0 (SWD)

The 3 main objectives of the project are specified as follow

1. To move status of 5 mentioned standards to the official Ukrainian legislation level (local DSTU)
2. To develop the promotional and educational set of basic guidelines of standards on Ukrainian including
   1. 1 white paper about a standard (so far, at least 5)
   2. Set of promotional articles and other content to rise awareness though online channels
   3. Short version of standard description (basic guidelines)

To rise awareness and interests of target audience to the set of standards that include next

STANDARDS IN PROMOTION

Next 5 standards in relation with Industry 4.0 are in priority. All they are not used in Ukraine, as well as there is no analogue of them from old-GOST serie. So far, together they make for basic level for Industrial application for both end users, as well as integrators and developers.

All mentioned standards are under responsibility Technical Committee 185 (TC185).

Description of activity

According to previous experience and analytics of APPAU, end users do not perceive modern standards ‘as they are’ because of many reasons where lack of mandatory using is at the 1^st place. So far, the only way to promote standards to the level of real use is only through demonstration of their value to enterprises. In such a context the project will use the typical and proven way of selling complex ‘product’ though market education.

Fig. 1 3 stages of penetration of standards

The main role in market education belongs to educational content, such as white papers, guidelines, analytical reports and so on. Such solid expert content should focus before at pain point and to explain to end users all negative consequences do not using modern standards and also how standards help tackles serious issue in production.

Just after the awareness rises we can ‘sell’ (means to propose) standards.

This is the main part of expert work in the project. They should prepare for each of 5 standards the relevant promotional & educational set of basic guidelines including next elements. Fig. 2

Fig. 2 The scope of working package in the campaign.

So, each of experts should prepare 3 main papers

1. To translate a respective standards (1^st part)
2. To write a white paper that focus on the market issues (the main pain points of end users and negative consequences of do not solve them).
3. To write a basic guidelines that propose ‘the solution’ (necessary rules and changes based on a standard)

Based on these papers experts then generate several ‘light’ content as articles, blogs and post to social media.

To generate and count leads (contact of potential users of standards) white papers will be proposed to download though special web-pages (landing pages) with obligatory registration forms.

APPAU will support such content by dissemination though its multiple channels.

APPAU has already the experience of developing such a content and we know that is really effective, see as example this basic guideline for cyber-security based on IEC 62443. It was done in 2017 and it can be extended and improved now.

Fig. 3. Example of a basic guideline.

Detailed plan includes 3 main stages

1. The development of educational content
2. The awareness campaign
3. The final conference and reporting

Expected results includes but not limited:

• Growth of awareness of target audience up to 800 people
• Start of real implementation of mentioned standards in Ukraine
• Decreasing potential risks and vulnerability of cyber-attacks for critical infrastructure on Ukraine. As well as safety risks
• Start of creating scalable service offer from APPAU/TC185 and partners ‘around standards’ (promotional information, translated standards themselves, training), that is crucial for their capacities building.
• Rising impact and alignment with commitment of Ukraine to follow EU’s Agreement in the part of technical standards
• Consolidation of business association with State bodies in common approach to move standards as the important part of innovative industrial ecosystem

The 1^st month of the project accomplishment shows good results. The team is formed, common web-site is launched, all 5 standards are partly translated, we already engaged 5 Universities and up to 10 End users, the promo-tools are prepared.

Follow us in next months to see the project deployment in the Facebook group TC185 ‘Industrial Automation’ (most posts are done on Ukranian), or just ask us to send  you regular information by e-mail sending an inquiry to info@appau.org.ua.

To get more about this project on Ukrainian please download the brochure