Industrial edge computing is software that runs on computers inside the factory, connects to machines of every maker and age, and turns their signals into data that other software can use. Edge means that the computing is done at the factory, close to the machines, and not in a distant data centre.
The problem is that machines use different data formats. Each maker uses its own message format, called a protocol. A factory may have a thirty-year-old controller that uses one communication protocol, and a new machine that uses another. The ERP and the MES cannot read either directly.
An edge platform solves this. It has a connector for each protocol, and it converts every signal into one common format. Standards such as OPC UA are often used for the common format. It also cleans the data, for example by dropping a reading that is clearly wrong, and it gives each reading a name that people understand, such as the oil temperature of press 4.
Here is a typical case. A plant in Pune has a 2008 injection moulding machine and a new CNC machine. The edge computer reads the old machine's output over a serial cable and the new machine's output over the network. It sends both to the MES as the same kind of record: machine name, status, count, time. Without it, the plant would need two separate software projects.
The platform can also run small programs on the spot. For example, it can raise an alert when the vibration of a motor passes a limit, without waiting for a distant server. If the factory's internet link fails, it stores the readings and sends them when the link returns. The plants that buy it are the ones with many machines of mixed age and make, which is the usual case in India. The platform differs from an industrial IoT platform: the edge platform collects and cleans the data inside the plant, and the IoT platform gathers the data from many plants and devices in one place.
Because the computer sits in the factory, it keeps working even if the internet link fails, and it sends only the useful data outwards. That is the point of edge computing. The platform is also a weak point to attack, so OT security covers it. This is the data that industrial IoT projects need, and it feeds the MES and machine monitoring in the same manufacturing operations zone.