Managing Automation - January 2009 - (Page 25) DEEPDIVE act to shop floor events and exceptions. In June, Intercim sealed a joint development deal with product lifecycle management software provider Dassault Systèmes that will create a tight integration between the two companies’ products. That integration will let manufacturers easily model and visualize plant equipment and processes in real time, with Dassault’s V6 PLM platform providing the 3D modeling and visualization capability, and Intercim’s MOM software providing real-time plant floor data. Using 3D plant models, managers would be able to easily see whether a machine on the shop floor is working and the status of a given production process in a local or remote plant. Managers would be able to instantly provide work instructions to a specific plant cell to resolve nonconforming situations. LeVault, who calls the concept a “manufacturing control tower,” says the project started with a request from Boeing, a Dassault and Intercim customer that wanted to eliminate paper-based plant floor processes as a way to become more responsive. “What we’re really talking about is agility through visibility,” LeVault says. Other vendors are also embracing new technologies that will permit real-time plant floor visualization. Rockwell Automation, for example, recently enhanced its FactoryTalk View plant visualization software by enabling it to work with Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, a Web browser plug-in and set of programming tools that allows for the delivery of rich video and visualizations over Web browsers. The technology, Rockwell says, will allow managers to visually track plant events remotely. In a similar way, other software vendors are working on improving real-time visibility into and visualization of other parts of the manufacturing enterprise. ERP software provider QAD Inc., for example, is one of several vendors beginning to offer secure, shared online portals that manufacturers and their suppliers can use to track and visualize events in real time. QAD’s Supply Visualization module allows manufacturers and suppliers to share demand, shipping, and other information. “When a supplier has just released an advance ship notice, their manufacturing customer can instantly see that and track it in real time,” says Gordon Fleming, QAD’s chief marketing officer. “A few years ago, agility meant responding to customer needs from within the four walls of the enterprise. Now it means responding quickly throughout the supply chain.” Enterprise software provider Lawson Software also has launched technology that provides real-time supply chain visibility, but with a slightly different spin. The company’s M3 Trace Engine 3.0 is designed specifically for food, beverage, and other process manufacturers that increasingly are expected to guarantee product safety by providing up-tothe-minute information on product content, origins, and transportation. Built around a rules engine, M3 Trace Engine pulls product and production transaction information out of Lawson and other ERP systems and makes it available online to customers and regulators. The tool also lets manufacturers visualize internal production processes in real time, quickly tracing the origin of product quality problems. While Lawson is focusing on providing realtime visibility to support specific processes in particular manufacturing verticals, several vendors of ERP, MES, and business intelligence (BI) software are delivering tools that provide real-time visibility into a wide range of processes by layering data extraction, analysis, and visualization tools on top of existing transaction systems. Infor and Epicor, for example, recently unveiled plans to tightly integrate BI tools with ERP systems, making it easier for manufacturers to display reports — via dashboards and key performance indicators — that reflect up-to-the-minute data generated by purchase orders, material receipts, and other events. The embedded business intelligence in Epicor’s new Epicor 9 ERP suite, for example, includes pre-packaged analytical cubes and content and tools that manufacturers can use to create their own real-time KPIs. MINING PLANT INTELLIGENCE On the plant floor, vendors of manufacturing operations management (MOM) software are taking similar steps. Wonderware, for example, has begun integrating manufacturing intelligence (MI) tools on top of its MES applications to give managers real-time access to key operational information. Similarly, SAP AG is adding real-time analytics, dashboards, and alerts on top of its Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (MII) platform. Specifically, SAP is building tight integration between its Business Objects BI tools and MII, an integration and manufacturing intelligence platform. The combination will provide real-time analysis of both business data and plant floor data. “The idea is to provide a holistic and realtime view of the enterprise,” says Siddarth Tapria, a manufacturing industr y princi- agility 25 January 2009
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