Managing Automation - January 2008 - (Page 28) [ SPECIAL REPORT ] VIA Chooses to Go It Alone hile most manufacturing execution system (MES) software vendors are cozying up with their ERP counterparts, some companies are content to fly solo. Take VIA Information Tools Inc., a discrete-based MES vendor with a specialty in automotive. This 20-year-old company is not lining up to get NetWeaver-certified. Why should it, asks President and CEO Gregory DeLaere, when perfectly good integration methods already exist? “The ERP [systems] we deal with are easily integrated with APIs or middleware,” DeLaere says. “I’m not sure what value there is with ‘extremely tight integration’ beyond what is available already. There are reasons why the ERPs have these APIs and set transactions for you to link into.” Getting certified can be extremely expensive, DeLaere says, and from a functional standpoint, it is not necessary. “We can do it already,” he says. Gregory DeLaere Though DeLaere admits a large multi-national manufacturer may not be comfortable working with a small 40-person MES vendor like VIA, he is quick to issue a cautionary warning that the conglomerates that have gobbled up small MES vendors may be losing their edge. “If you are going to go with larger, more integrated vendors, chances are you’ll get less when it comes to delivery,” DeLaere says. “It sounds counter-intuitive on the surface, but when you look at how these guys deal commercially, they are not geared for sophisticated point solutions.” VIA Information Tools, on the other hand, continues to innovate its offering beyond pure integration. For example, it has a patent-pending technology, called Business Atoms, that allows the software to act — and react — to the customer’s changing needs. More than 400 objects make up VIA’s Business Atoms, enabling the customer to string business applications together in a manner that meets its needs. As a result of flexible technology that helps with lot traceability, process validation, build-to-order sequencing, and business rule governance — and the technology’s inherent ability to integrate with other applications where necessary — most of VIA’s customers are not tiny OEMs, but are large tier-one automotive suppliers, DeLaere says. As a result, VIA Information is going it alone for the foreseeable future. “I love alliances — if they help me do business and the only way they would help me do business is if the alliance, itself, inherently brought value to the customer,” DeLaere says. And as of today, he says he just doesn’t see it. W nect production operations with business operations in order to meet corporate initiatives. In devising the model, MESA International, an industry organization, broke up the monolithic MES monster into valueadded pieces that have a direct impact on whatever key business processes are important to the end user. The hope is that MES will take on new meaning. “ ‘MES’ is still a term that people recognize and can hang their hat on, but when you get down to specifics, it means different things to different people,” says Matt Bauer, director of information software marketing at Rockwell Automation and chairman of MESA International. MESA’s collaborative plant-to-enterprise model focuses on functional areas, such as lean manufacturing, quality and regulatory compliance, PLM, the real-time enterprise, and enterprise asset management. These are all areas that have business impact versus the more technical functions — quality control, key performance indicator (KPI) measurements, and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) — that MES traditionally has performed. “We are starting to talk about [MES] as manufacturing excellence applications that lay across the infrastructure,” Bauer says. For the first time, MES is gaining recognition within the enterprise as a value-added application. “There is a lot of shakeout going on in our space now,” he says. “The lines that used to be drawn between the enterprise and the plant level are history at this point.” MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU and composite applications that are flexible. So ERP is in a leading role and doesn’t have to prove much to its manufacturing audience. Rather, it’s time for the MES vendors to step into the corporate spotlight. The question is, can MES deliver a great performance? It was only a few years ago that industry obser vers and plant managers, alike, described MES as “a mess” — the result of an unruly evolution that led to a complex, monolithic footprint requiring mass-customization. In fact, many companies, Sara Lee included, didn’t even use commercial MES applications, but rather pieced together their own homegrown solutions. Understanding the need to make MES a strategic part of the manufacturing enterprise, many MES vendors are gravitating toward a new manufacturing enterprise model that is based on industr y standards and maps out in very specific terms how to con- Erasing the line that has always stood between the plant and the enterprise requires a great force. In this case, that force is ERP. Enterprise software vendors SAP and Microsoft are both members of MESA, working alongside major automation players, such as GE Fanuc, Invensys’ Wonderware, Rockwell Automation, and Siemens, as well as large manufacturers, including Chevron, International Truck and Engine Corp., and Sara Lee. It’s a community of alliances on a mission to redefine the role of manufacturing operations management within the enterprise, members say. Manufacturing plants are significantly different in 2008 than they were in 1998, says Chris Colyer, worldwide solution director for manufacturing operations at Microsoft. The advent of Ethernet and wireless technology is exposing the plant to the corporate network. “That presents a huge opportunity to drive ef- ma January 28 2008 Photo courtesy: VIA Information Tools Inc.
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