Connecting legacy equipment to modern frontline operations

Together, Belden and Tulip are helping life sciences and consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers accelerate brownfield digitization by connecting legacy equipment to modern frontline operations applications without disrupting production.

Most legacy equipment was never designed to be connected, making it difficult to capture reliable, real-time data to inform performance monitoring, quality control, process management and traceability. As manufacturers attempt to digitize production lines, their efforts to modernise remain fragmented and hindered by inconsistent data and partial visibility.

Addressing these obstacles requires a different approach to how production data is collected and used. Belden’s secure, vendor-agnostic OT data acquisition and edge contextualisation solution lets customers connect and structure data from thousands of sensors across diverse industrial protocols. Then, Tulip’s Frontline Operations Platform enables manufacturers to transform this production data into connected frontline artifacts that guide operators, digitize workflows, capture traceability records and drive continuous improvement. Performance monitoring, quality optimisation, autonomous process management and track-and-trace compliance come together within a single frontline operations environment.

By unlocking production data trapped in equipment, operations teams can deliver measurable improvements in operational performance, visibility and real-time OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) in weeks. Leaders achieve rapid time to value without large-scale overhauls, optimizing performance of existing systems by extending equipment lifecycles and ensuring return on investment.

So far, early deployments of Belden’s CloudRail and Tulip demonstrate significant gains, including: 

• OEE improvements of between 5% and 15%
• Defect reductions of between 15% and 20%
• Throughput gains of between 10% and 15%.

“Whether they’re running a pharma line or a high-volume CPG operation, most modernisation efforts across manufacturing struggle to bridge legacy equipment with digital applications in a fast, scalable and practical way,” says Randy Romanaux, technology partner manager for Belden. “By working with Tulip, we’re fixing that problem: giving teams a holistic view of performance and empowering those closest to operations to solve problems based on accurate, real-time data without the burden of complex integration.”

“Manufacturers can’t afford gaps between their machines, people and processes,” says Tulip head of partnerships Roey Mechrez, PhD. “Belden’s CloudRail unlocks valuable production data from existing equipment, while Tulip turns that data into connected frontline applications that guide operators, capture traceability records, improve quality and provide real-time visibility into operations. Together, we're helping manufacturers modernize without replacing the systems they already rely on.”

Available through Belden’s technology ecosystem, manufacturers and integrators can source, configure and deploy these integrated solutions through the same trusted providers they already use for critical infrastructure.

www.belden.com