Managing Automation - April 2008 - (Page 9)

environment,” said Julie Fraser, principal of analyst firm Industry Directions. “In my mind, it is the combination of all three that is so exciting.” While some vendors have started to blend MES and MI, deep quality integration has not happened, Fraser said. MES has been able to track quality, she explained, but it has not managed the full process, which is to create a framework of quality-oriented business processes that can find a non-conformance pattern and take the necessary steps to correct it. Perhaps companies have not attempted total quality integration with MES because reengineering these applications around Web parts and BPM — to orchestrate services and deliver end-to-end processes — is not a trivial undertaking, Lokas said. Camstar increased its R&D investment by 125% and hired quality specialists in order to fulfill the vision of a quality execution system, he said. The hard part, he said, was not applying the technology, but rather defining the processes at the right granular level. Mini-processes are strung together through Web services that synchronize role-based processes end to end. It’s a complicated orchestration from a development point of view, he noted, but for end users, everything is easier — including interoperability between the Camstar product and other systems, such as ERP and PLM. “There is a significantly greater level of adaptability than historically would have been possible,” Lokas said. “It has the ability to adapt to processes, allow for rapid deployment of solutions, and empower line-of-business people.” The intelligence module is also a vital component of the overall solution because it provides the ability to identify non-conformances and potential problems — before they happen. “The platform provides an early warning system,” said Chris Parsons, Camstar’s director of marketing, “and allows effective root cause analysis with inherent access to manufacturing data, which enables proactive closed loop enforcement.” The ability to identify, fix, and then enforce rules around a specific non-conformance is a big deal because, according to AMR Research, about 50% of preventive actions recur, which means companies are chasing the same problem over and over again. The other element of Camstar’s Platform for Manufacturing Quality Intelligence is a scalable architecture that enables visibility across the multiple plants and business operations. When a non-conformance occurs at one site, the product’s holistic approach offers a glimpse at the effect it will have across the enterprise. Of course, integration is an important part of any plant-to-enterprise approach, and every automation vendor is tackling that in some way, shape, or form. But the groundbreaking aspect of the Camstar platform is the closed loop between MES, quality, and intelligence and the enforcement of rules to prevent a problem from recurring. Manufacturers can accomplish this, to some degree, with integration, but the architecture and shared data models that Camstar has developed solve problems more quickly, produce higher-quality goods, and accelerate product rollouts, the company said. “That’s what a manufacturer needs today,” said Industry Direction’s Fraser. “To compete, they need to do all of this as fast and seamlessly and coherently as possible.” Scan C Back inMA MA APRIL 2007 onceived as a broad method for managing all product-related information, PLM proved to be slow to permeate manufacturing enterprises. Despite pioneering efforts such as Boeing’s design and manufacturing plan for the 787 Dreamliner, manufacturers appeared to be hamstrung by legacy systems they weren’t ready to replace, integration projects too daunting to take on, and the extensive organizational and cultural changes required to make cross-functional, enterprise PLM a reality. MA APRIL 2003 I SAP REVAMPS MAINTENANCE, RAISES FEES 29% AP’s recent decision to revamp its support and maintenance offerings — a move that will mean higher fees for some customers — will help the software provider deal with increasingly complex, multi-vendor customer environments, SAP officials said. “We’re seeing an evolution of customer landscapes,” said Mark Cordrey, vice president of SAP Active Global Support, in an interview with Managing Automation. “They are more complex, with many other third-party products being integrated into SAP.” SAP’s Enterprise Support offering includes a new version of the company’s Solution Manager and a new operational methodology, RUN SAP, which, among other things, allows customers and SAP to track down and fix problems that crop up when third-party products are integrated with SAP applications, Cordrey said. The new Enterprise Support offering includes tools and services that support root cause analysis of those problems. Enterprise Support also includes service-level agreements (SLAs) for problem resolution and a 24-hour-per-day, seven-day-per-week support adviser service. Enterprise Support, which will carry an annual price of 22% of net licenses fees, effectively replaces two other SAP support program offerings for new customers. SAP’s Basic Support S ntegrating factory floor systems with enterprise information systems had been the holy grail for years, and manufacturers were finally making progress toward the goal of ubiquitous data access. Generally, the effort required first integrating and automating plant operations, which meant capturing data automatically using PLCs and other devices rather than manually inputting it. Those devices then had to be networked to share operational data with ERP systems. And then, there were the change management issues to tackle. M A A P R I L 19 9 8 A new class of software for advanced planning and scheduling was emerging to help manufacturers synchronize incoming customer demand with manufacturing constraints. With this dynamic view of real-time customer and plant floor data, manufacturers gained a tool to help them “squeeze the waste out of their supply chains.” The software let companies better address lead times throughout the supply chain and respond to changing customer demand. M A A P R I L 19 9 3 T hough expectations for flexible manufacturing systems failed to materialize in the 1980s, flexible manufacturing persisted as a viable, if scaled-back, production concept. Companies were applying the systems selectively to respond to market demand with shorter product life cycles, faster order turnaround, and lower costs using machines that kept running through rolling changeovers. GM’s Saturn subsidiary developed automatic and manual transmissions similar enough to share production equipment so that the company could adjust the manufacturing mix to the demand. 9 April 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managing Automation - April 2008

Managing Automation - April 2008 Contents Take 1 Camstar to Introduce Software that Combines Quality, MES, and Intelligence SAP Revamps Maintenance, Raises Fees 29% New TAGSYS Chief Sees Opportunity in Broader Approach Siemens Turns to Security Weaver for Compliance Supply Chain Company Takes Next Step in U.S. Notes Cover Story: The Long Climb Special Report - Undertanding Enterprise Performance Management Caught Between Supply and Demand Taking Off the Blindfold No Room for Error Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - April 2008

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