From wireless to Wi-Fi
Uses for wireless technologies, including Wi-Fi, not hard to find
By Scott Bury, contributing editor -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 4/1/2005 7:00:00 AM
By now most everyone has heard of Wi-Fi, which stands for "wireless fidelity," and which, among other things, allows wireless, Ethernet-based connection of laptop PCs to the Internet. Wi-Fi hotspots are found in restaurants, coffee shops, and hotels. The technology also is used in hospital, university, and corporate settings to connect cabled networks in different buildings.
According to research firm IDC,Boston, the number of wireless LANs in the U.S. tripled between 2001 and 2004, to 12 million installed.
Wi-Fi also is a standard for wireless communications in manufacturing, where emerging applications based on converging technologies will eventually allow not just better communication, but new kinds of business processes. The combination of wireless networks with RFID, in particular, will free managers from being confined to their desks while liberating workers from many manual processes.
Companies such as optical networking products manufacturer Finisar, Sunnyvale, Calif., let visitors use their Wi-Fi networks to access the Internet while on the premises. "Yes, we're giving away Internet access," admits Chip Greel, manager of network services. What Finisar gets in return is better collaboration amongst employees in various locations, and with suppliers and customers.
Why wireless?
In warehouses and factories, wireless typically means information is more "real time," since it need not be gathered and stored before loading into the enterprise system. An inventory database, for example, can be updated as employees pick items from stock, reading bar codes using handheld scanners.
In offices, a wireless LAN reduces the need for wiring; one network drop to a wireless access point can connect a number of desktop or laptop computers. Wireless connections also make reconfiguring offices and departments simpler, since there's no need for rewiring. "We're not constrained to artificially placing a PC near a network jack," says Greel.
Managers carry laptops or PDAs into conference rooms and remain connected to corporate networks, allowing them to download corporate graphics for presentations, check e-mail, or connect to the Internet at any time without a network jack.
Wireless networking allows engineers, scientists, and researchers in Finisar's R&D facility in California to collaborate more flexibly with personnel at manufacturing facilities in Texas, China, and Malaysia. For example, Finisar has innovatively combined wireless data connection and video conferencing. Mobile video carts carry a digital video camera, PC, wireless speakerphone, and wireless network connection, enabling video conferencing "on location." In situ, the camera can zoom in on a part or machine, sharing status in real time with colleagues overseas.
Finally, Finisar makes extensive use of clean rooms, where network wiring would inevitably add complication and expense.
"Wireless networking frees employees to do more value-added work as opposed to spending time making sure the infrastructure works properly," says Chris Jones, a VP with research firm Aberdeen Group.
Evolving standards
At tool and insert manufacturer Tool-Flo Manufacturing, Houston, supervisors use Wi-Fi-enabled telephones from communication provider Avaya to keep in touch as they move around the manufacturing facility. Employees use wireless entry stations to record their work hours and activities by scanning bar codes.
"We need wireless," says IT Manager Mike Hancock.
In November 2003, Tool-Flo upgraded its networks with technology from Avaya, including a "mini-call center" and an enhanced Avaya wired network. At the same time, it installed wireless telephones for seven call-center agents, and 11 more for shop-floor supervisors.
The fiber-optic network includes two Avaya switches and an Avaya AP3 wireless network with five indoor and three outdoor antennas. But whether they're connected via a wireless or a hardwired network is transparent to Tool-Flo's employees. "The wired and wireless networks appear as a single seamless network," says Hancock.
This seamless integration of wired and wireless also was key for Finisar. "We wanted an invisible link between our hardwired and our wireless networks," says Greel.
After an extensive evaluation of possible choices, Finisar chose Trapeze's LAN Mobility System and RingMaster wireless LAN life-cycle management tool suite in autumn, 2004. "We had been using various forms of wireless networking for years, and we wanted more of an enterprise-class system. Trapeze was able to make a wireless network work with our existing network, using the same authentication protocols in the back end."
Security concerns
It goes without saying that security of wireless networks has been a hot topic lately.
Last June, British-based networking security firm Red-M reported that 80 percent of corporate networks surveyed are accessible from outside their buildings. For manufacturers, it was 100 percent. All e-mail on vulnerable networks could be intercepted, read, and manipulated.
Wireless access points are where the network is most vulnerable. In fact, some say a hacker with a good antenna stands a pretty good chance of gaining access to the network while sitting in the parking lot. While similar stories raise a lot of concern, good security measures can mitigate most of the risk—assuming they're actually used.
"A wireless network should be using 128-bit encryption," says AberdeenGroup's Jones. "Even so, there is still some risk and nothing is bulletproof." The biggest cause of security breaches, it seems, is that people ignore security procedures, such as turning off firewalls or other protection on a laptop.
The Wi-Fi Alliance, responsible for promulgation of related standards, is addressing security with the 802.11i standard, ratified last summer. Finisar runs a wireless subnet to allow guests to connect laptops or PDAs to the Internet, but not to the corporate network. The company says the wireless network, which is encrypted and authenticated, is more secure from hacking or virus spread than the hardwired network, which still provides a DHCP connection when a laptop plugs into a network jack.
Free to decide
It's a no-brainer that a wireless LAN can eliminate the expense of running 10-Base-T cable throughout a building. But the real benefit of going wireless isn't cost savings. Rather, it's all about what's done with the real-time information that follows from being free of the wired network.
Wi-Fi is a robust, real-world standard widely used in offices, retail settings, warehouses, and plants across the country and around the world. Furthermore, the development of related "11x" standards to address security, greater bandwidth, faster throughput, and specialized wireless applications is indicative of the Wi-Fi standard's viability.
Andris Berzinis, VP of business development at wireless visibility supplier AeroScout, points to coming applications in telemetry, and work being done to integrate RFID and Wi-Fi into PLC networks ubiquitously used in automated production settings. Wireless Fieldbus, a standard for device networking below the PLC level, may be just over the horizon.
Wi-Fi isn't the solution for every application. AberdeenGroup's Jones points out that electromagnetic interference can make wireless networks impractical. In some types of process manufacturing, wireless controllers may not meet safety standards.
But those who have implemented Wi-Fi are convinced. Says John Konopoka, a program manager in IBM's Innovation and Strategy Group, "When that killer app comes out of wireless networking, it's going to totally transform business processes."
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