Manufacturing Executive - September 2008 - (Page 27)

tomation and other nitty-gritty shop floor matters. MES software will now help to rectify that, says Manenti, the author of a forthcoming MES report tentatively called “MES Global Competitive Landscape” and due for release next month. In a virtuous circle, the global supply chain that manufacturers have built up can benefit from the visibility that MES would provide. Without it, Manenti says, “the factory can become the bottleneck of this incredible supply chain if the supply chain is not connected to real-time information about what happens in the factory.” Manenti also predicts that Chinese factories will start to automate more as labor costs rise, creating additional opportunities to deploy MES. What’s more, he says, some manufacturers will start to move production back to Europe, where they are more likely to then deploy software such as MES that they will integrate into enterprise systems. SCALING UP MES Further helping MES in its drive onto the executive radar screen is the maturation into a product that scales across a company’s various plants, says ARC’s Bragg. MES vendors in the past deployed one software program per plant and had to redesign for a manufacturer’s separate facilities. Generally, one MES package can now serve several plants. MES vendors such as Wonderware, SAP, Siemens, GE, Rockwell, and others are all striving in that direction. “You’ll see more examples of this sor t of thing,” Snoeij says. “The large MES vendors are at last working out a solution where the kernel is standardized.” Logica, for example, has been applying the same piece of MES software — Camstar’s Inside — to 10 different Asian manufacturing sites for NXP (the former Philips Semiconductor). Likewise, Dutch solutions provider and MES specialist ATS International is getting ready to deploy an off-the-shelf MES program across 15 Carlsberg breweries. That scaling up of MES has plenty of “corporate initiative” ramifications, as it means that consulting and solutions companies such as Logica and ATS are now focusing less on plant-by-plant software development and more on tying the deployments into corporate initiatives — à la MESA’s five corporate objectives. “Today, we do more with helping with the change management, with the change in the way of working that the MES can bring. We help manufacturers select the right software and then help them to implement it into the proper way into the enterprise,” Snoeij says. Sounds like yet another good reason for some guidebooks. But not everyone is convinced that MESA should be in the guidebook business, at least not as a way to establish standard procedures. A vocal sector of the manufacturing IT industry believes that an International Standards Association (ISA) standard called ISA-95 already addresses the practical intentions of MESA’s guidebooks. “That’s what ISA-95 is all about,” says Alison Smith, research director at Boston-based AMR Research. “ISA-95 is a functional model that describes the flow and exchange of information between various information systems in manufacturing. MESA should be focusing on S95. We don’t need more models. We need to pick one and get on with life. Let’s make progress rather than replicating what we’re already doing.” Nevertheless, Smith says, the guidebooks could, if nothing else, serve as “a great way for vendors to get visibility.” Bauer, Snoeij, and others wouldn’t argue with Smith’s visibility point. But they do take issue with her over ISA-95, which they say MESA recognizes and includes in its corporate initiatives. The guidebooks, they say, are a way of deploying ISA-95 while masking its technical language and appealing to executives in business language. But the guidebooks haven’t been easy to put together. “We took a long time to start down the execution path,” Dyck says. “This is a huge effort. Finding the right definition of terms was a huge challenge up front.” On top of that, Dyck says, MESA initially faced the predictable “butts in seats” problem of finding committed people from its member companies who would devote the time necessary to create the guidebooks. MESA is a voluntary organization whose guidebook project takes people away from their paying jobs, so “that caused some churn,” Dyck says. None of that is deterring the organization, however. MESA is planning to declare more strategic corporate initiatives and write more guidebooks after it launches the first five in Prague. Realistically, no one’s expecting instant results. After all, MESA has been trying to strengthen the role of shop ESOURCE CENTER floor data since the early ARTICLES: 1990s. The guidebooks, with Few Achieve Shop Floor to Top Floor their clear links to corporate Integration (A Rare Breed) strategic initiatives, should www.managingautomation.com/rarebreed help advance the cause. Can MES Play a Lead Role? Note to manufacturing exwww.managingautomation.com/mesrole ecutives: 2010 might be a Industry Update: MES good year to celebrate your www.managingautomation.com/kctumes first Sept 17 IT Union Day. ■ SAP Vs. Oracle: Tackling the Plant Floor Next issue: a preview of the www.managingautomation.com/erpextend November MESA meeting R September 2008 27 http://www.managingautomation.com/rarebreed http://www.managingautomation.com/mesrole http://www.managingautomation.com/kctumes http://www.managingautomation.com/erpextend

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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