Manufacturing Executive - September 2008 - (Page 25)

tems from the factory floor will help you complete your objectives.” The guidebooks, conceived by MESA in early 2007 and officially announced a year ago, are expected to begin rolling out this month — at least in draft form. “We’ll have a completed draft for each of these by the MESA conference in September,” says John Dyck, global director, software business development, at Rockwell Automation, who heads the working committee for the asset performance management group. As will become apparent to those attending that conference in Orlando, FL, later this month, the guidebooks are taking shape, but are works in progress. According to Dyck, each of the five books will be roughly 50 pages long, including an executive summar y. MESA will publish them primarily online, where they will change as more information comes in about best practices. “These are living documents,” says MESA Chairman and Rockwell Information Software Marketing Director Matt Bauer. “This is the first pass across the fence as it becomes more of a collaborative effort across MESA’s membership.” MESA will also lace the guidebooks with graphs, charts, diagrams, architectural drawings, and user case studies. Dyck describes them as “pragmatic” and as styled after USA Today, the American newspaper known for snappy articles and colorful graphics. The guidebooks are expected to be available to attendees at MESA’s European conference in Prague in November, but it is not yet clear when the documents will be fully completed and formally approved. As this process unfolds, the latest march will begin in MESA’s long journey to generate enthusiasm among manufacturing executives for manufacturing execution systems (MES), product lifecycle management (PLM), and other shop floor software. To get corporate executives to no longer regard software such as MES — if they were thinking of it at all — as some arcane bit of technology, MESA believes it is time to cataHOW THE GUIDEBOOKS WILL pult MES into the BE STRUCTURED pantheon of technologies Say “IT” to a manufacturing CEO and you’ll evoke that executives must deimages of ERP, databases, and telecoms. MESA’s ploy, such as ERP. forthcoming guidebooks should indelibly stamp the After all, that’s why words “factory floor systems” into the picture. Five online books will look separately at feeding MES, MESA, whose roots are in PLM, and other data into asset performance managethe MES software that ment, real-time enterprise, quality and regulatory tracks and monitors faccompliance, product lifecycle management, and lean tory machines, changed principles. Each will contain five chapters: its name several years ago 1. Problem Definition and Cost from the Manufacturing Justification: Identifies the dysfunction between Execution Systems Assothe factory floor and the enterprise, and identifies opportunities to link them with great cost benefit. ciation to the ManufacturA classic example: Toyota saved significantly when ing Enterprise Solutions MES alerted ERP that the shop was using too Association. Nevertheless, much paint. ERP cut paint purchases. MES continues to play a 2. Dependencies: Looks at the various crossstrong role in MESA’s miscompany entities that would link into a factory floor integration project. These include sion. As MESA Europe cultural/organizational and work flow aspects, as members made clear in a well as technology systems. Prague roundtable last 3. Implementation of Best Practices: spring, for instance, MES Lessons learned: A premium “how to” guide, full is the key to extracting of advice ranging from nuts-and-bolts implementavalue out of the €14 biltion to change management methods. lion that Gar tner says 4. Risks: No pain no gain: What could go wrong with the IT implementation, change management, companies will spend on and other aspects of deployment. Why projects fail. ERP this year (for a com5. Success: How to ensure that the project pays mentary on last spring’s off and how to measure its performance. Prague meeting, see “Road Trip,” p. 10). outline basic September 2008 25

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Manufacturing Executive - September 2008

Manufacturing Executive - September 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Opinion By David Humphrey Starters Road Trip Part 1: Innovation or Efficiency? Part 2: The Innovation Gap Opinion By Lisa Bodell Special Report: Great Aspirations Supply Chain: The New Money Machine Product Design: Fruehauf Gets into High Gear with 3D CAD Business Intelligence: Food Distributor Turns Up the Heat on Manufacturers Software: Manufacturers Face SaaS Hurdles Dialogue Opinion By Pierfrancesco Manenti

Manufacturing Executive - September 2008

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