Pumps and Systems, January 2007
Picture a manufacturing enterprise with plants in multiple locations around the world. Using a single automation platform that handles discrete, process and motion control with common programming, human machine interface (HMI) and standards-based networks, a night shift operator gathers and logs data on product quality from his production line.
Realizing that the line is drifting away from optimal operating parameters, the plant engineer on the other end of the facility examines diagnostic information that is gathered and logged by the system and operators.
The next morning, a team led by the director of manufacturing, who is located on another continent, begins analyzing the metrics and historical trends associated with both the line and the overall process. As a result, the team rolls out an updated preventive maintenance schedule and several process changes designed to keep the lines running smoothly.
Changes are made to the production schedule to compensate for the preventive maintenance, and information is passed to the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system so that raw materials in the supply chain can be rerouted to other locations.
Meanwhile, a sales executive, in the middle of negotiations with several key customers, quickly checks order status and inventories from a Web browser, while another in finance views raw materials inventory and production projections to prepare accurate budget forecasts.
The head of regulatory affairs comes into the office and, with a few clicks of a mouse, is able to confirm the ability to track a product back to the exact date and time it was produced and where the raw materials came from in order to meet an industry standards deadline.
Based on real-time information from manufacturing, sales and finance, the CEO provides an accurate picture of the state of the company's operations to the board of directors and shareholders.
A convergence of new business drivers, the urgency to adhere to emerging industry and government standards and regulations, and the evolution of commercial off-the-shelf information technologies has resulted in an increased focus on the critical value of information generated from the manufacturing environment. Automation developers are making the conversion of manufacturing data into valuable business knowledge a much more attractive proposition - one with a wide range of real business benefits.
An integrated control and information system can help manufacturers drive costs out of production, improve regulatory compliance and respond more quickly to changing market demands.
What's Driving All of This?
Today's factories generate incredible amounts of raw data - whether it be in the number of parts scrapped during a shift or the amount of ingredients used in the most recent batch process. That data, when put into the proper format and into the appropriate hands, can be turned into useful information to improve manufacturing and business processes. Today's new business realities drive manufacturers to seek out the benefits delivered through control and information integration.
Some manufacturers had the foresight to work with their automation suppliers to architect systems that efficiently captured the majority of the various data events in their manufacturing operation, knowing that someday that data was going to be used for more than plant floor point solutions.
Now manufacturers realize the need to create an integrated environment where people can interact with the automation system, and put that data into context - letting users make better, faster decisions by providing plant-wide information in a single format appropriate to the function.
Many manufacturers installed or upgraded their ERP systems to prepare for Y2K. These ERP systems - many of which are now reaching maturity - are only as valuable as the data fed into them. While a large amount of data has come from the manufacturing environment that information has been limited because the custom integration that was used until now has been expensive, cumbersome and inflexible. Customized systems also make the user dependent on a specific outside entity for maintenance and upgrade services.
Compliance: The New Imperative
Environmental regulations, quality standards and tracking and traceability requirements - from both industry and government - are creating a sense of urgency with regard to the need for more and better manufacturing information.
Examples include the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act, which requires automakers and their suppliers to report on defects that cause bodily harm by closely tracking the exact time and shift that a specific part was assembled.
21 CFR Part 11 is a far-reaching pharmaceutical industry specification that calls for electronic data records and signatures for sign-offs through every stage of the manufacturing process. The need for "information-on-demand" is also stemming from global environmental initiatives, such as the WEEE and RoHS Directives, as well as from a growing number of company-specific mandates.
WalMart Stores (Bentonville, AK), for instance, mandated requirement for RFID tagging that has led to numerous other companies announcing similar plans. Even Sarbanes Oxley - once thought to be solely within the purview of the executive boardroom - requires senior management to have access to more information than ever before so that they can attest to the validity of statements provided to shareholders.
There has been a natural progression of commercial off-the-shelf technologies finding their way into the manufacturing environment, along with the significant cost and flexibility benefits they bring. Microsoft® Windows®, commercial network processors from suppliers like Intel, more robust, versatile databases, Web services, service-oriented architectures (SOA) and robust protocols for EtherNet such as EtherNet/IP are changing how manufacturers think about what they can and can't connect to the factory floor.
Data generated on the plant floor can provide significant insight that helps create new products. Both product lifecycle management (PLM) and product data management (PDM) have been used in the marketplace for years, but companies are now realizing that data collected as products are built or manufactured also can be used to both reduce cost and time-to-market, as well as increase innovation.
This data can be derived from various sources, including manufacturing processes, equipment and instrumentation, and can indicate performance, change out and results, such as the performance of supplier parts or ingredients, manufacturing processes and parameters/variable allowances.
Island Connections
The need to deliver on a global basis - once a requirement reserved only for the largest companies - is now a strategic imperative for most manufacturers. In addition, mergers, acquisitions and consolidations within various industries have created a myriad of factories with different standards and production methods.
In the past, factories focused on connecting islands of automation together into a single system. Now companies are faced with connecting "islands of factories" together into a single integrated manufacturing enterprise.
The convergence of business drivers, adherence to regulations and new commercial technologies is raising the consciousness of both manufacturing and IT that there is an urgent need to connect the two environments together - creating demand for a single integrated control and information system that supports the entire enterprise.