From Reactive to Proactive: Applying Data Analysis and Automation to Mitigate PLC Communication Disruptions General Motors, LLC

Format:

Book

Conference/Event

Author/Creator:

Jan, Jonathan, author.

Preston, Joshua, author.

Conference Name:

WCX SAE World Congress Experience (2026-04-14 : Detroit, Michigan, United States)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Production.

Hardware.

Transmissions.

Personnel.

Traceability.

Local Subjects:

Production.

Hardware.

Transmissions.

Personnel.

Traceability.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Warrendale, PA SAE International 2026

Summary:

PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) are critical devices in manufacturing, enabling the functioning of machinery and the transmission of build data to other systems in a production facility. Thus, maintaining uptime of these devices is crucial for ensuring that a facility can keep its line running, as even a few minutes of downtime can cost a company thousands in lost units and revenue. One particular pain point that causes downtime is broken communication between the devices and downstream applications, especially those that track orders and traceability. While advances in computing and digital technology have enabled the quick detection of lost signaling and the quick restoration of communication channels, there is much work left to be done in this realm. Besides causing downtime, an incident disrupts the flow of the line, leading to significant effort to restore normal production flow, even after resolution of the incident. In addition, the outage and the post-incident recovery can require extensive IT and Controls personnel, especially at undesirable times of the day. Overall, restoration of communication has been a reactive procedure, where most effort so far has been spent minimizing impact instead of eliminating it. This paper proposes an architectural framework and presents a reference implementation, plc-remedy, demonstrating automated monitoring and remediation via Common Industrial Protocol (CIP). Performance projections derived from IT automation benchmarks suggest a potential 90% reduction in end-to-end resolution time. Empirical validation with production PLC hardware is identified as essential future work

Notes:

Vendor supplied data

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license