Managing Automation - October 2007 - (Page 23)

HOLD THE PHONE! Despite the many wireless technology deployments in manufacturing companies, the lack of a unified wireless architecture has resulted in largely tactical applications. The upshot is that many manufacturers are not yet turning mobility into a strategic advantage. BY STEPHANIE NEIL any of us can’t live without our cell phones or personal digital assistants (PDAs). These small devices have become an extension of ourselves — clipped to our belts or stashed in a purse — and have become our personal connections to the rest of the world. So dependent upon these gadgets are we that we feel lost without them. The same can be said for the laptop computer, a travel companion we stow away in a briefcase to act as our work platform while we are out of the office. There’s no such thing as individual downtime. Documents can be reviewed, reports can be written, and e-mails can be read while we are on planes, trains, or in hotels. Because of the convenience of being able to communicate wherever and whenever we want, wireless devices have become integral to our personal and work lives, providing an important tool not only in the enterprise, but also in the factory, the field, and the warehouse. Today, plant managers can be alerted to a problem in production via a digital feed to their PDAs; service technicians can be guided to an off-site service call using a GPS system in the truck; and warehouse workers can track inventory by means of radio frequency identification (RFID). It is an increasingly wireless world we live in, but this untethered world is anything but homogeneous, uniform, or seamless. It is, instead, a mixed bag of technologies — cellular towers, satellite, WiFi, WiMAX, wireless Ethernet, sensor-based networks, and multiple bands of radio waves — that supports a wide variety of early applications in asset management, location tracking, and remote diagnosis of equipment, to name a few. The problem is that wireless has emerged in a slapdash sort of way, unsystematically placed in areas of the organization where only individual groups can Photo: Pujo Agustiyanto 23 October 2007 ma

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managing Automation - October 2007

Contents Take 1 Mailbox New Selling and Fulfillment Product Leads Plan to Transform Sterling Commerce Comtrol Closes Bizarre Chapter Involving Founder New Omron COO Outlines Four-Part Growth Agenda New Mfg. ‘Czar’ Will Have a Full Plate of Issues Lawson Embraces The Trend of Fewer Upgrades Notes Wanted: A Unified Infrastructure Needed: Greater Reliability Special Report: Innovation: Why Are So Many Coming Up Short? Transforamation: Beating the Odds in Global Supply Industries: Metals: Tracking Carbon Footprints Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - October 2007

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