Have passwords had their day?

MANAGING PASSWORDS has become a major part of everyday life, as individuals we all use them, but in the age of industrialised digitalisation and the increased need for total traceability do they still cut it for managing processes and keeping the operators involved in the setting up and day-to-day running of equipment safe?

Passwords are commonplace and used throughout all modern manufacturing facilities, HMI’s, touchscreens, Industrial PC’s and robot controllers all have login options, access levels, user privileges, etc. and the majority of these are based on passwords.

Strong passwords are an effective security tool as long as they are not revealed, shared or hacked. Lapses happen – just like a person leaving a post-it note with their personal details for accessing their email account stuck to the side of a computer – so it’s quite common in manufacturing sectors, to see passwords or codes used to make significant changes to process parameters on a production line written on a control panel as a reminder for all to see. This tends to become worse as the plant gets older, whereby the only password that matters, and the one subsequently shared, is the one that grants access to everything.

Poor password security can compromise product safety and cause issues if replicated throughout a plant’s production lines, this is especially relevant during the current Covid-19 pandemic when people self-isolating could return to work, have forgotten their own password and borrow someone else’s.

Many systems don’t automatically log users off, and those that do might only do so after a long period of inactivity. This could result in someone taking over operation of machinery using the same access details. If this involves recipe management the safety implications could be significant. If a supervisor with extended access rights leaves a session open this could allow potentially dangerous actions to be carried out.

Electronic key system

An electronic key system offers a solution for not only secure access to machine/process functions and processing data, but also traceability of events through the existing plant control system. A modern electronic key system provides uniquely colour-coded inductive key tags to enable or control multiple processes, from operations to maintenance and including hazardous mode selection, thereby improving safety for both employees and customers alike.

The RFID-based electronic key system from Euchner features the main advantage of being freely programmable and therefore highly versatile. A reader scans the data and forwards this information to the control system. Additional uses for an EKS system include controlling specific functions and accessing encrypted process parameters for an installation.

For example, the EKS can handle the following tasks within a manufacturing or processing facility:

- Assigning individual authorisations to specific persons

- Creating traceability. Who did what and when?

- Saving and calling up recipes, batches, etc

- Electronic signature

- Fast switching between user profiles

- Transferring ergonomic/language data for setting up the workplace individually

- Acquiring data for enterprise resource planning.

EKS has the advantage of fast and secure switching between recipes, user profiles and data, saving operators time when moving between equipment or changing the parameters, both logging in – they don’t need a keyboard – and setting up, where the key can call-up information such as access rights, recipe settings, training records, etc. - minimising the risk of people doing things they shouldn’t.

There are increasingly diverse applications for biometric and machine vision technologies that are focusing on the factory floor as a password replacement. However, a fingerprint reader could be problematic where most operators are required to wear gloves and/or have dirty fingers. An electronic key is a flexible, effective alternative which can phase out human error and provide increased safety for employees, systems and processes.

David Dearden is UK&I country manager at Euchner

https://www.euchner.co.uk/