Managing Automation - September 2008 - (Page 49)

[ SPECIAL REPORT ] badges. That application is useful in campus environments of enterprises. But in July, Motorola and Radicomm Inc. released QuickTalk, a WiFi communications application for use on Motorola’s MC9090 and MC70 rugged scanning devices that are used in warehouses, factories, and distribution centers. “Voice is a very important application,” says Motorola’s Rai. “Traditionally, people have had separate voice and data devices. By converging these applications, you bring down the cost of enabling communications and open the door for new kinds of applications in manufacturing.” Many vendors, such as Microsoft, are beginning to see the value of the convergence of networks, be they wired, wireless, enterprise, or industrial, to create unified communications and real-time, presence-aware networks. That means the network knows where you are — or where you are supposed to be — so that it can escalate an alert or send an instant message. The value-add is the ability to synchronize sales and production, for example, to find out whether manufacturing can handle an RFP about to be submitted to a partner, says Tyler Bryson, Microsoft’s general manager for the U.S. manufacturing and resources sector. “What’s missing is the bridge [from the enterprise] into manufacturing automation, but that’s coming,” Bryson says. Once manufacturers are able to integrate business and operational applications with real-time communications, business as we know it today will change. “It opens Pandora’s box to the imagination,” ConocoPhillips’ Autenrieth says. a tipping point in human behavior. “If you can influence behavior in the right way and eliminate defects, it makes the manufacturing process significantly better,” Prows says. “And if you become better in one area, you get better in other areas.” Today, most manufacturing applications require someone to be stationed at a computer to advance a process. With the introduction of wireless and the concept of unified communications, the network transport becomes transparent. “We’ve been living in two worlds: the automation network and the people [or IT] network,” says Tyler Bryson, general manager of the U.S. manufacturing and resources sector of Microsoft. “What’s happening now is that we are going to connect the automation network with the people network in real time. It will be presence-aware, so it knows your schedule and knows how to escalate [an inquiry].” As a result, mobile devices in the future will be an intrinsic part of the network platform, Bryson says. Within the next three to five years, observers say, manufacturing will experience the mass adoption of wireless technology to enable worker mobility. That will be the catalyst for breaking down the walls between the business network and the industrial network. That, in turn, will unify IT and plant personnel — a chasm that has been difficult to bridge to date. The result of that shift is what some call “the third network.” “IT is the business network. On the operational side, you have the control network. And wireless is the third network,” says Steve Lambright, vice president of marketing and customer services at Apprion. The problem with having two distinct WIRELESS IN MANUFACTURING – PART 3 THE HUMAN SIDE OF WIRELESS Wireless technology is not just a transport mechanism for sending information — it can also alter the way people work and, ultimately, transform business processes. BY STEPHANIE NEIL H uman beings, by design, invent things, produce them, and then maintain what they have built. Therefore, humans, by default, are the root cause of accidents and failures. Is there a way to keep people from making mistakes? John Prows has pondered that question for 20-plus years, in his former role at DuPont and now as vice president of manufacturing excellence for specialty chemical manufacturer Huntsman LLC. Humans, Prows has concluded, make mistakes generally because of a lack of information. “There are lots of tools focused on the plant and equipment, but the key to making plants run better is giving people tools [to obtain] better information,” Prows says. And the key tool for getting that information to a person, regardless of where that person is located in the plant, is wireless technology, be it RFID, sensor-based networks, or WiFi. Until now, wireless technology has not been viable, primarily because of the complexity of the infrastructure and a lack of security. But the outlook for wireless technology in manufacturing has never been brighter. With encryption and the use of a demilitarized zone (DMZ), security has become less of an issue. And networks are becoming easier to install, manage, and maintain, taking the burden off the plant and IT staff. Also, killer applications, from task management to performance monitoring, are emerging in manufacturing. Collectively, these things are coming together to create “The key to making plants run better is giving people tools [to obtain] better information.” — Huntsman LLC’s John Prows networks — IT and control — is that their priorities differ, Lambright says. All networks conform to a model that honors confidentiality, integrity, and availability. But on the IT side, confidentiality — that is, letting a user access specific information — is the most important function. On the control side, availability is the top 49 September 2008

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

Managing Automation - September 2008 Contents Take 1 Letters Tech Vendors Defy Economic Slump by Plugging into Developing World Growth New E2open Chief Outlines Plan to Accelerate Growth Is This Marketing as It Used to Be or Something New? The OMAC Group Attempts to Widen Its Influence Automation Federation Names Chief, Plots Growth Notes Cover story: The Innovation Gap Special Report: Meet the Progressive Manufacturing High Achievers Progressive Manufacturer of the Year Business Model Mastery Innovation Mastery Customer Mastery Supply Network Mastery Data & Integration Mastery Education & Training Mastery Leadership Mastery Operational Excellence Mastery Special Report: Catching the Wireless Wave Part 1: No Clear Infrastructure Winner Part 2: Wireless Apps Take Wing Part 3: The Human Side of Wireless Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - September 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.