Making, and more

Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 7/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

The emphasis in manufacturing today is to "make what's ordered, and ship what's made." To realize that goal, the journey from customer contact to shop floor execution—via a fully integrated back office—must be made seamless. Plant-floor information systems give business information the granularity needed for execution, and in turn keep the business informed of the fruits of its labor. Manufacturing execution systems, supervisory control, data historians, and information portals are the means by which today's plant floors get fully wired into the information age.

3 Invensys

Real-time data sharing

Bruce Henderson, CEO of Invensys Software Systems, believes the industry-wide movement to collaborative business processes is missing a major point.

"There has been too much emphasis on collaborative planning and not enough on execution," Henderson says. To strike a better balance, he recommends that companies seek software solutions that can incorporate real-time data into their collaborative business processes.

"If you don't have a real-time mentality when you are linking a supply chain, you aren't solving today's business problems," Henderson contends. Of course, Henderson says Invensys Software Systems has assembled the ideal solution set to address these issues. With headquarters in Herndon, Va., Invensys Software Systems is a subsidiary of Invensys—a London-based provider of industrial automation hardware and software. But over the past few years, the Invensys software unit has morphed into a mini-conglomerate itself, largely by gobbling up other software companies.

As a result of its acquisition spree, Invensys Software Systems now has three separate operating units with a broad range of solutions for manufacturing and distribution companies. The three units are Baan, Wonderware, and Invensys Process Systems.

Baan is a former independent supplier of enterprise resources planning (ERP) software that Invensys acquired last year. In addition to marketing its original ERP offerings, Baan also is serving the customers that Invensys inherited when it purchased Marcam Software. Baan sells ERP software for discrete and process-oriented manufacturing companies, while Marcam developed ERP software primarily for process-oriented manufacturers.

Wonderware sells software that allows monitoring and controlling shop-floor activities. Invensys Process Systems is essentially a systems integration firm that specializes in building information technology networks for process manufacturers. Invensys Process Systems also has jurisdiction over technology developed by Foxboro, another Invensys acquisition that specializes in building shop-floor process control systems.

Henderson says these units, although they function as independent businesses, are geared toward satisfying "two overarching demands in the marketplace." First is the demand to shorten the time frame from when a customer places an order to when the product is delivered. Second is companies' desire to get a higher return-on-investment in information systems.

According to Henderson, the demand for shorter product delivery cycles is forcing more manufacturers to operate in make-to-order mode, and that is driving the need for sharing real-time data across supply chains. He says Invensys is reconfiguring the Baan, Wonderware, and Foxboro products so that they support this real-time data sharing.

"The combination of these products allows a company to link its customers into their operations, and then out into the larger supply chain in a way that lets them operate in a much more real-time mode."

9 Siemens

Orsi acquisition bolsters MES offerings

There are some big companies in the Top 100, but Siemens dwarfs them all. The German electronics, engineering, and industrial automation giant generated net sales of more than $78 billion euros last fiscal year. While a relatively small slice of that revenue came from industrial automation software, that slice is growing, thanks to an acquisition in the manufacturing execution system (MES) arena, and the company's emphasis on integrated solutions.

These solutions are offered under the auspices of Alpharetta, Ga.-based Siemens Energy & Automation, known as SE&A, the regional arm of Siemens Automation & Drives group. New for SE&A is the MES software it offers via Siemens' acquisition of Genoa, Italy-based Orsi Group earlier this year. This deal brought the Cube family of MES solutions, which includes Cube Industrial Framework—a business process modeling application that aids integration and event management—into the SE&A fold.

"The Orsi acquisition strengthens our TIA, or Totally Integrated Automation concept and product offering, expanding it up further into the manufacturing IT [information technology] space," says Paul Camuti, general manager of Siemens Industrial Software Business Unit, a unit of SE&A responsible for Siemens' industrial automation software in North America. "We see TIA as a way of bringing greater consistency and productivity to supervisory control, and to reduce the life-cycle costs of automation systems."

SE&A's flagship offering is its Simatic family of automation and supervisory control software, which includes WinCC for human machine interface (HMI), WinAC for PC-based automation, and STEP7, for automation engineering and configuration functions. "WinCC is different from other supervisory control solutions in that it's a database-centric approach to HMI," says Camuti. "It also offers value through its ability to link with heterogeneous controllers."

Even with Siemens' major move into MES through the Orsi acquisition, Camuti says there is more coming from SE&A on the software front. For one, Camuti says, SE&A is formulating software application "industry suites" to complement its long-standing focus on vertical industries.

13 ABB Automation

Industrial IT vision, SKYVA tie drive integrated solutions

"It's the most thrilling year I've experienced in a long time," says Hans Holmstrom, an ABB group vice president. The reason? Zurich-based ABB's launch of its "Industrial IT" vision, an approach to industrial automation that stresses a common architecture for real-time integration of automation and information systems. In the U.S., ABB Automation, Wickliffe, Ohio, is bringing this vision to market as the architecture behind its industrial automation applications.

Beginning in September 2000 in Shanghai, Holmstrom says, ABB executives met face-to-face with more than 2,000 global customers to propound the vision, and explain the technology behind it. "I've never experienced such a level of interest or buy-in from customers before—it really is different," says Holmstrom.

The Industrial IT vision—against which real products already are appearing—is a single architecture for ABB's technologies and services. The concept is tantalizing. ABB produces not just software, but huge amounts of the industrial hardware that goes into factory automation systems. At one end of the scale, it manufactures pumps, motors, and controllers; at the other end, turnkey solutions such as automated warehouse and material handling systems. They might all come from different divisions of ABB, and be sold by different ABB salespeople, but in the future, they will be unified by a single architecture—as will the software that drives and integrates them.

It is, of course, a tall order. But ABB has consistently shown, under its former CEO—the legendary Percy Barnevik, a sort of European version of GE's Jack Welch—that delivering against tough targets is what it does best.

The vision has been given added impetus, says Holmstrom, by last October's $130-million investment in SKYVA International, a Medford, Mass.-based collaborative commerce software vendor. The close connection with SKYVA, he explains, will help ABB bring forth solutions that tie real-time plant-floor information with supply chain processes.

"A lot of our customers are struggling with collaborative commerce," says Holmstrom. "They know they want to do it—but they also know they don't want the ERP approach to doing it, which involves throwing out everything you had in place before, making a big investment in something new, and then waiting a year to see if there will be a payback. Instead, customers want to build on what they already have."

14 Emerson Process Management

Focus on tailored process management solutions

Emerson Process Management may be a new name, but it's a company that brings together some of the leading names in industrial automation systems, services, software, and equipment. Formed in April, the company is a renaming and evolution of the former Fisher-Rosemount, a vendor of process automation systems.

The new name is meant to reinforce the company's link to its parent, St. Louis-based automation and industrial equipment giant Emerson. It also is meant to signal that Emerson Process Management is a solutions-focused company that can call upon an array of best-in-class products and services to create industry-specific and customer-specific applications. The company brings together well-known automation brands that include Fisher, Micro Motion, Rosemount, and Westinghouse, as well as the PlantWeb field based control architecture.

According to Jane Lansing, a company vice president, PlantWeb is key to why Emerson Process Management is more than the sum of its parts. "We have invested significantly over the past six years in this architecture to ensure that our broad portfolio of products integrates seamlessly to deliver value," Lansing says. "The architecture supports field devices with advanced diagnostics that can determine if the process is going to fail, along with what to do about it. PlantWeb then gets this information to the right people."

While much of the company's offerings consist of industrial automation hardware, it also offers a significant amount of software. First, Intellution, a Foxborough, Mass.-based vendor of industrial automation software, is part of the company [MSI lists Intellution's revenue and business separately as part of Top 100]. Second, part of the PlantWeb framework is a set of integrated, modular applications that includes software for plant asset management.

"Asset utilization software is a significant product area for us," says Lansing. "In addition to asset management solutions, or AMS—which is the defacto PC software standard for managing plant instrumentation assets—we offer RBMWare to manage the performance of plant rotating equipment, and e-fficciency.com from the recently acquired MDC Technologies to monitor performance of plant equipment. We also have batch and process automation software, software families in advanced control and optimization, and MES [manufacturing execution system] integration."

33 MRO Software

New name reflects MRO e-procurement expertise

The name change says it all for MRO Software, formerly PSDI. The announcement made by the Bedford, Mass.-based enterprise asset management (EAM) supplier speaks volumes about company direction, strategies, and the rapidly changing market for applications that automate the procurement of maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) goods. The name change signifies that MRO Software clearly is comfortable positioning itself as a solutions vendor with as much focus on MRO e-procurement as on EAM.

The growth of MRO e-procurement solutions as a subset of the EAM market is part of a natural extension to reach beyond the four walls of the enterprise, says Walt Vanderlaan, an MRO Software vice president. "In the '80s, EAM was more of a departmental solution, which shifted to a client/server enterprise focus in the '90s," Vanderlaan says. "Now, collaboration among trading partners is key for strategic sourcing and taking inefficiencies out of the supply chain."

From an integration standpoint, EAM systems have evolved beyond a need to link to financials and enterprise resources planning systems for accounting and inventory control purposes, to also integrate with industrial automation systems and hardware to facilitate predictive maintenance. MRO Software has an alliance with Rockwell Automation, West Allis, Wis., for integrated EAM and industrial automation solutions.

Vanderlaan explains how manufacturers can reduce inventory and better plan demand by combining procurement and preventative maintenance processes. If a company knows it will need certain materials for scheduled maintenance in six months, it can inform its preferred supplier or distributor as to how much it will need. "The manufacturer benefits by better planning production, while the distributor can reduce inventory by aggregating demand," he says.

Ease-of-use continues to be a focus for the company. One recent improvement—applied images technology—offers exploded views and diagrams of equipment and parts. "Instead of shipping manuals about maintenance procedures to buyers, companies can access diagrams and documents on their Web sites, or use our hosted solution," says Vanderlaan.

MRO Software is moving toward pure Web-based applications and a Java component architecture over the next year. The technology will give users the tools and confidence to conduct more on-line bidding and sourcing using Internet-based trade exchanges, says Vanderlaan.

34 Honeywell Hi-Spec Solutions

Unites and enhances pieces, including POMS MES

Since its acquisition last year of manufacturing execution system (MES) supplier POMS Corp., Honeywell Hi-Spec Solutions, the Phoenix-based advanced applications business unit of Honeywell Industrial Automation & Control, has been busy developing and launching new MES software and functionality.

"We've had very positive response from POMS users and sales are good," says Tracy Glende, a vice president at Honeywell Hi-Spec. "Strategically, we wanted to get into the pharmaceutical, food & beverage, and related industries market, and POMS was the best choice for acquisition. We now have a much broader portfolio of products."

Last fall, the vendor added POMS MES 4.2 to the suite of Honeywell Unified Manufacturing Solutions that manage entire product life cycles. The MES controls and tracks all aspects of plant-floor production, including materials management, asset management, production order management, dispensing, electronic batch records, and reporting.

"We're committed to an aggressive and ongoing enhancement program to maintain clear product leadership," Glende says. "As a result, customers will be able to more effectively manage their manufacturing processes."

This past spring, Honeywell Hi-Spec introduced the POMS eSpec electronic specification system; and POMS MES Express, a modular, packaged solution. The company also continues to add functionality to its solutions serving the refining, chemical, and pulp & paper industries.

One of these solutions is Uniformance, a real-time historian and plantwide data infrastructure application that manages and presents data from real-time processes and relational databases. Last fall, the company announced it has used Microsoft's Digital Dashboard, Office, and Web browser technologies to create Digital Dashboard capability for its Uniformance Desktop software.

37 Indus International

Stresses partnerships, next-generation EAM concept

Many software suppliers find themselves walking a delicate balance between answering users' needs for new functionality, while also not pushing the limits of their core competencies by trying to be all things to all people. In the enterprise asset management (EAM) arena, Indus International, San Francisco, is aware of the increasing emphasis on integration issues, particularly regarding e-Business.

"We have made a fundamental shift in direction," says Bob Hofer, a company vice president. "We used to be a rather insular company, but today's users want integrated solutions. Data is moving faster and smoother than ever before, and you will be left behind if you don't start the collaboration process soon." The results of the company's partnerships include functionality for enterprise applications integration and buy-side e-commerce.

The IndusBuyDemand solution uses an alliance with Commerce One—a Pleasanton, Calif.-based e-commerce and sourcing software vendor—to integrate with public trading exchanges, such as Pantellos.com, a marketplace for the utilities industry.

Companies using trading exchanges for indirect procurement are more interested in value-added services than an outlet for quick and easy buys, Hofer points out. "Low prices typically are not the reason users go to an exchange. Rather, users are looking for strategic sourcing, where they can receive such data as aggregated usage projections, which will help run plants more efficiently, and possibly allow for price cuts. For instance, a group of paper manufacturers can tell their supplier the total number of parts they will need over the next six months. Then, a manufacturer can be sure to produce enough to meet delivery time frames."

Although Indus traditionally has focused on Tier 1 companies, it recently increased efforts to break into the Tier 2 market. Indus is working on ways to address the special needs of this market, including development of Passport Light, which essentially includes all the functionality present in the EAM system, with certain unneeded features turned off.

39 Rockwell Software

Plant-floor information for enterprisewide decision-making

Rockwell Software is perhaps best known for its RSView32 human-machine interface (HMI) software—an integrated, component-based HMI tool used to monitor and control machine and process automation—and RSView32 WebServer, an application for viewing RSView32 projects via the Internet. But the West Allis, Wis.-based company no longer centers its attention solely on the plant floor.

"We still focus on plant-floor solutions, but we also realize that as manufacturers shift to e-Business, they must link manufacturing and other enterprise solutions," says Rich Ryan, Rockwell Software's president. "Improving decision-making capabilities throughout the enterprise relies on accurate and timely information from plant operations."

To be sure, the company has been having a busy year as it follows that plan. Rockwell Software expanded its RSBizWare suite, furthered its ViewAnyWare strategy, and now offers extensive consulting and services.

Since its acquisition of Pittsburgh-based Systems Modeling—a developer of plant-floor scheduling, simulation, and modeling software—Rockwell Software has integrated RSscheduler, based on Systems Modeling's Tempo solution, into the RSBizWare suite. It also is about to launch Arena for Manufacturing, a simulations and modeling software package, based on Systems Modeling's Arena.

Last fall, the company also acquired the batch execution and management software and services business of Phoenix-based Sequencia. Since then, Rockwell Software has introduced five process software modules to the RSBizWare family: RSBizWare Batch, BatchERP, eProcedure, MaterialTrack, and BatchCampaign.

"Historically, the RSBizWare suite was targeted at discrete manufacturers. Now it suits batch and hybrid environments, which has become a common business model," Ryan says.

Rockwell Software continues its ViewAnyWare strategy, which combines its hardware and software expertise to offer a complete HMI solution. Products within the suite are platform-independent, share common attributes, and are built on Microsoft's Distributed interNet Architecture.

Rockwell Software also is increasing its services. "Manufacturers don't have spare information technology resources, so they need outside help," Ryan says. "Plus, return-on-investment goes up at least 30 percent when some form of consulting has been involved."

42 Kronos

Frontline labor management improves the bottom line

Its growth rate may have slowed compared to the Y2K-inspired boom of 1999, but 2000 still was a strong year for Kronos, a Chelmsford, Mass.-based supplier of frontline labor management solutions. Indeed, revenue for the company—which counts Georgia Pacific, Dell Computer, and Subaru-Isuzu Automotive among its customers—grew from $254 million to $270 million in 2000, and Kronos has now posted 54 consecutive profitable quarters.

"We're bullish on the future, and we expect profitability and growth to continue. Manufacturers now realize the importance of changing labor from an expense to an asset," says Paul Hoy, a Kronos vice president. "Our solutions enable them to track the entire labor force, as well as measure productivity and efficiency."

The company's Workforce Central solution, for instance, offers enterprise scalability that enables manufacturers to apply labor management throughout the entire workforce. "Today, it's essential for managers to understand which jobs, products, people, and teams are profitable—and those that aren't," Hoy says. "Hourly shop-floor workers make up about half of a company's workforce, so it's vital for manufacturers to track professional labor as well—such as hourly professionals, engineering, purchasing, and salaried professionals—to understand total labor costs."

When labor is proactively managed, it becomes a resource that managers can leverage to improve competitive advantage and profitability, says Juliann Grant, Kronos' director of manufacturing marketing. The company has revamped Workforce Central, its suite of frontline labor management applications. Release 4.0, a Web-based version, features a roles-based, configurable user interface; and push technology for exception management.

"Users want speed and ease-of-use, and the ability to exit the application quickly and cleanly," Grant says. "Understanding the big difference between a Web-based solution and one that's simply Web-enabled, we completely re-architected Workforce Central to allow enterprisewide use."

Kronos' ShopTracPro solution now runs at more than 85 sites. The labor-focused manufacturing execution system increases managers' visibility into production plans, with an emphasis on capturing and tracking time and labor activities on the shop floor.

"Successfully competing in today's Internet-driven economy requires tracking work-in-process," Hoy says. "It also requires real-time information from the plant floor about labor, resource allocation, and other issues, as well as the ability to analyze that information."

46 Mincom

Experienced to expand into multiple industries

Enterprise asset management (EAM) system vendor Mincom, based in Denver, historically has focused on the mining vertical, but more recently, has expanded into solutions for other capital-intensive industries. Mincom plans to take the experience it has gained from the mining industry and apply it to other markets, including utilities, transportation, and aerospace & defense.

Mincom's applications address two levels of support, including core business management of digging and processing materials, as well as enterprise-level support. Since Mincom also offers human resources and financial functionality, it competes directly with many of the large enterprise resources planning vendors.

Another core process is scheduling mobile assets throughout large facilities, which often cover expansive acreage. "To maintain profits and margins, our users must know what their trucks are doing at all times, including when pick-ups and drop-offs are scheduled," says Paul Eastwood, a company vice president.

While electronic procurement and trading exchanges recently have created a stir in other manufacturing sectors, the real challenge for mining is finding purchasing solutions that specialize in high-value items and stress supplier management. "Our users have very unique MRO [maintenance, repair, and operations] needs and supplier requirements," says Eastwood. "Most companies work with 20 to 30 suppliers and have formed tight partnerships with them that they want to preserve and enhance. Since procurement is highly important to their operations, it must be integrated with their enterprise systems."

47 Datastream

Solutions for e-procurement, life-cycle management

Most would agree that e-procurement is making a profound impact on the enterprise asset management (EAM) software market. In fact, if one was to compare the way most companies purchased maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) items 10 years ago with how many organizations handle it today, it would be as different as night and day. Some EAM vendors, including Greenville, S.C.-based Datastream Systems, went full-force into MRO e-procurement in the process, and embraced additional Internet-based applications and services.

"One of our users explained what it took for them to buy a chair, and it was shocking to hear that the entire process took two weeks," says Larry Blackwell, president and CEO. "Today, an EAM system without e-procurement functionality is only a partial solution. Although we've had procurement capabilities from our inception 15 years ago, the Internet now allows companies to buy what they need with just a few clicks."

Blackwell says approximately 50 industrial suppliers and 300 users have registered with iProcure, the company's e-marketplace for MRO goods procurement. iProcure aggregates suppliers to give users enhanced buying power and services. "The Internet gives us a solid structure to offer our technology, and a great vehicle for distributing information," says Blackwell.

iProcure also is integrated with the Datastream Network, where users can access the tools, applications, and services necessary for asset life-cycle management. The Web-based network, introduced earlier this year, addresses four phases of an asset's life cycle: purchase of capital assets, assets location tracking, maintenance and service of assets, and disposal of each asset at the end of its life. Tax management is a related issue since many companies don't know their assets' status, and therefore, only can estimate depreciation figures.

"Many companies use the network to track assets, as it easily allows users to obtain historical information regarding equipment," says Blackwell. "It's often said that data about assets is more important than the asset itself. Companies should be able to manage, maintain, and dispose of assets, and be armed with data to help decide whether to repair or replace equipment."

50 Tecnomatix

Homes in on "e-manufacturing engineering"

Tecnomatix Technologies is in the unfortunate position of having sought exclusivity by heading for the high ground, only to find the landscape crowded with unexpected visitors. Headquartered in Herzeliya, Israel, and with U.S. headquarters in Northville, Mich., the company last year rebranded its collaborative engineering software solutions under the eMPower label.

Ambitiously, Tecnomatix figured on being to e-manufacturing what Microsoft is to operating systems, with names that start with "Windows." But that vision didn't fall into place as originally planned.

"Collaborative manufacturing is a vision we've had for some time," says Marsha Shalvi, a company vice president. "When we came out with the eMPower e-manufacturing brand, it was with the expectation that we would almost own the domain, and that we'd be leading the marketplace. In fact, we found that there were a lot of companies doing things they described as e-manufacturing—many of which didn't overlap with our own views of the concept."

The usurpers, it turned out, tended to regard functions as diverse as e-procurement, Web-enabled product data management, and collaborative design as legitimate aspects of e-manufacturing. Analysts and the media merely added to the confusion. As a result, says Shalvi, Tecnomatix is working hard to redefine its core competency as "e-manufacturing engineering," offering a suite of planning, collaboration, engineering, and simulation tools to take customers' products "from concept to production."

"Manufacturers, beset by demands for greater variety, are looking for planning and production solutions that streamline the relationship between manufacturing and the rest of the supply chain," explains Harel Beit-On, the company's CEO.

Both Boeing and Airbus intend to use eMPower software to collaboratively plan, engineer, and manage the manufacturing processes taking place between their plants and those of suppliers.

52 GE Fanuc Automation

Deliver shop-floor information enterprisewide

GE Fanuc Automation, Charlottesville, Va., views its business quite simply: the goal is to develop and deliver solutions manufacturers need to solve business problems, says Kevin Roach, a senior vice president with the company. "Manufacturers all want to reduce inventory, get product to market fast, and improve visibility," he says. "To do that, they need real-time plant-floor information. GE Fanuc Automation's solutions are the means to capture, add value, and deliver that information."

The company is primarily known for its programmable logic controllers and Cimplicity human-machine interface (HMI) and supervisory control software. However, GE Fanuc Automation has been extending its solution range.

"Today, to enable collaborative manufacturing execution, manufacturers must integrate solutions internally and externally, which requires tools, discipline, and real-time manufacturing expertise," says Roach. "The factory floor is the leading indicator for all business metrics because factors including yield, up-time, and cost ultimately drive all other metrics. We continue to broaden our product line to enable enterprise users to easily and quickly access the real-time plant-floor information they need for decision support."

Last summer, GE Industrial Systems and Internet networking infrastructure supplier Cisco Systems, San Jose, Calif., launched GE Cisco Industrial Networks, also based in Charlottesville. Through that new company, GE Fanuc Automation offers the so-called plumbing—the networking gear, software, and expertise to connect plant-floor controllers and equipment into open, standards-based networks.

The newly introduced Cimplicity Supply Chain solution leverages the company's Tracker work-in-process solution to add manufacturing execution system functionality. "Its core strength is the ability to track products on the plant floor and also note genealogy to delineate where a product came from, what happened to it, and so on," Roach says.

GE Fanuc Automation's enterprise visibility software is called EnterpriseRT. The solution aggregates and presents real-time data from multiple systems.

Taken together, these solutions enable manufacturers to solve business problems and gain competitive advantage, Roach says. "The result is that we're experiencing high double-digit growth while some competitors may have double-digit losses," he says. "We fully expect to soon be the number one HMI supplier in the world."

59 OSIsoft

Name change marks market expansion

Company name changes aren't always major events for a company, but the president of OSIsoft, a San Leandro, Calif.-based vendor of plant-focused information management systems formerly called OSI Software, points out that his company's recent name change is accompanied by new products and market expansion. "The corporate name change reflects our new Web-centric software products, and entry into the discrete manufacturing, information and communications, and trading partner markets," says Patrick Kennedy, OSIsoft's president, owner, and founder.

In addition to the new markets, OSIsoft serves the chemical, oil & gas, power, water & wastewater, pulp & paper, pharmaceuticals, mining & metals, automotive, food & beverage, and semiconductor industries. The company is best known for PI System, a real-time plant information management system that focuses on operations monitoring and performance improvement. Installed in more than 4,000 manufacturing facilities in 70-plus countries, it collects real-time data and monitors operations at all business levels.

This past year, OSIsoft celebrated its 20th anniversary, announced a 25-percent increase in annual revenue, increased its engineering development and technical support teams by 30 percent, and made a number of product announcements.

"It's glitzy to talk about changing the supply chain and moving into e-Business," Kennedy says. "The core element to that approach, however, isn't just to get data from the plant floor. Instead, to be successful, manufacturers need to get data, validate it, organize it, and turn it into knowledge for decision support. OSIsoft is committed to developing and delivering solutions that offer just such capability."

Last April, OSIsoft also announced a major initiative to build a Web-centric, real-time information server for industrial Internet and intranet applications. Code-named ICE (Internet Configurable Environment), the new product will provide a configurable presentation for viewing, analyzing, and reporting real-time data via Internet technology. The company is targeting late 2001 for a beta release, with general availability next year.

61 Intellution

Advances its e-manufacturing lineup

The transformation of Intellution from a vendor of industrial automation software into an e-manufacturing solutions provider made some big strides in terms of product introductions this past year. But in another sense—that of the long-time focus of its applications—the transformation is far from radical, says Steve Rubin, CEO of the Foxborough, Mass.-based company.

"While HMI [human machine interface] and supervisory control applications remain an important part of what we offer, they are part of a bigger picture, and that bigger picture is e-manufacturing," says Rubin.

Solutions for e-manufacturing, he adds, need to manage real-time process information and integrate that information with business systems, thereby improving decision-making. "Our applications support agility and greater responsiveness to real-time conditions," says Rubin.

Some of Intellution's newest products are manufacturing execution system (MES)-level packages. One of these is iHistorian, a plantwide historian due for release this summer. The application is said to be capable of holding 100,000 points of process data for analysis.

Other new MES-level components are iDowntime and iWorkInstruction. Deployed as a component of iFIX, Intellution's supervisory control package, iDowntime collects and organizes equipment and line downtime information. The iWorkinstruction solution, an option of Intellution's batch management application, is an operator workflow control solution that supports compliance with 21 CFR 11, a federal regulation governing record keeping and electronic signatures in certain industries.

According to Rubin, these new applications are in keeping with Intellution's model of developing easy-to-deploy solutions. "We're putting forth modular MES-type solutions," he says. "Companies today want deployments that support an incremental approach to e-manufacturing."

Intellution has continued to enhance iFIX. Relatively new features include iClient TS, which leverages Microsoft's Terminal Services capabilities to provide thin-client access to iFIX screens and functions. However, says Rubin, the biggest differentiator for iFIX remains its flexibility, supported by the product's use of Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications, an embedded development environment.

Also new is iTLink, a piece of Java-based software for aggregation and integration of real-time plant-floor information directly from the process control layer to higher-level execution and planning systems.

"iTLink takes process information straight up into the enterprise, using graphical tools to configure the integration," says Bob Yeager, Intellution's president.

83 Gensym

Expands product scope with e-SCOR

Gensym's corporate motto of "making e-Business infrastructures work" serves as a touchstone for the ways in which the Burlington, Mass.-based company applies its expert systems technology to challenges that span improving production processes, supply chain operations, and network management.

"We try to capture the essence of Gensym in what we are calling ProTelligence, our reasoning engine technology," says Patrick Courtin, CEO and president. "It's a result of the expertise we have acquired through 15 years of technology sales, which has given us the experience for how to apply expert systems."

With more than 15,000 licenses for its hallmark G2 process optimization and modeling software, Gensym has a strong base to sell its expanded products. The challenge, Courtin says, is to take a technology such as expert systems and make a profit from it. "You need to bring the technology to the market in a way that's repeatable and can move forward with legs," says Courtin.

Gensym's product portfolio spans network management, supply chain design, and expert manufacturing. Supply chain design is fulfilled by e-SCOR, a new solution based on the Supply Council's Supply Chain Operations Reference model. The e-SCOR solution allows companies to analyze their supply chains and perform "what-if?" simulations to predict the effectiveness of new supply chain configurations. The expert manufacturing segment consists of three applications, one of which is the flagship G2.

Courtin explains that Gensym's strategy will follow two paths. One is to expand into new verticals by forming partnerships with companies that have specific domain expertise. The second avenue is to create generic, out-of-the-box solutions.

"The partners are dealing with many niche markets and the cutting edge of applying expert systems in process control and material flow," concludes Courtin.

87 GenRad

Unveils next-generation, Java-based MES

GenRad focuses on manufacturing productivity solutions for the electronics industry and contract manufacturers to that industry, referred to as electronics manufacturing services (EMS) providers. To address this market, the Westford, Mass.-based company offers testing, diagnostic, and machine connectivity solutions, but it also specializes in manufacturing execution system (MES) software.

Earlier this year, GenRad launched a next-generation version of its MES solution, called GR Force/SCE, which is built using Java technology, and stresses supply chain execution and collaboration via the Internet. "Clearly, within electronics manufacturing, collaboration between OEMs and EMS providers is an essential part of the business today, and will be even more so in the future," says Ron Lindell, a GenRad vice president. "To accomplish this, Web-based solutions are a given."

GR Force/SCE is the successor to GenRad's Shop Floor Data Manager and Shop Floor Line Manager MES products. According to GenRad, the new name denotes the technical enhancements and supply chain emphasis of the updated MES.

The major technology enhancement for the MES is that its architecture is compliant with Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) standard from Sun Microsystems. J2EE is a standard for building component-based, multi-tier enterprise applications.

According to GenRad, the Java component architecture makes the MES fully Web-based, and deployable in a modular fashion. The MES also is well suited to collaborative functions that support the Supply Chain Council's Supply Chain Operations Reference model. "GR Force SCE enables high-tech manufacturers to further improve the efficiencies of their supply chains," says Lindell.

88 Ci Technologies

Positioned for continued growth

Ci Technologies' growth in the U.S. market in 2000 is attributable to its focus on personnel, channels, and products, says Frank Volkmar, a vice president with the supplier of human-machine interface (HMI) and supervisory control applications. "Ci Technologies isn't the largest vendor, but we're growing quickly because of our focus," he says. "Last year, we grew 10 percent, and we expect 15-percent growth this year."

Ci Technologies is an Australian company, but its U.S. operations in Charlotte, N.C., contribute roughly 40 percent of its profits. The company has lately introduced new solutions, and refined its approach toward integration and distribution partners, Volkmar says.

"The company invested heavily in research and development [R&D] last year, in fact doubling the size of the group," Volkmar says. "That's crucial because many manufacturers already have supervisory control systems in place, so the market is tight. We see opportunities for a big replacement market for supervisory control solutions, and a market for manufacturing execution systems. Our heavy R&D investment enabled us to introduce solutions for both markets."

Earlier this year, Ci Technologies launched version 5.30 of its flagship offering, Citect for Windows, a Microsoft Windows-based industrial monitoring and control solution that includes full ActiveX object support, alarm filtering, and remote I/O monitoring enhancements. "One of the reasons Citect continues to do well is that some HMI/supervisory control suppliers' solutions are unwieldy and difficult to maintain," Volkmar says.

Ci Technologies also has added three applications to its Plant2Business suite, allowing integration of plant data into enterprise applications, or development of open plant-information systems. Plant2Net, a data warehousing and analysis solution, allows users to access and view plant information from control systems via a browser. Secondly, Plant2Pocket offers real-time access to plant-floor information via mobile phones and devices. Finally, Plant2Oracle, a companion solution for Citect, enables engineering, production, and information technology managers to transfer plant-floor information to Oracle databases.

95 Camstar Systems

CME market focus boosts sales 50 percent

Call it good planning or good fortune, but Camstar Systems, Campbell, Calif., is riding high on the growing demand for collaborative manufacturing execution (CME) solutions. The company, long known as a provider of manufacturing execution systems (MES), changed its market focus, changed its product focus, and saw sales jump more than 50 percent last year.

"Two or three years ago, we sold solutions that focused on problems within plants, often within individual plants," explains Greg Sowle, a company vice president. "We were selling to companies that were producing the same products over a one- to three-year life cycle. Generally, they were making these products to-stock."

Then came contract outsourcing, the Internet explosion, and a host of other factors that dramatically altered the landscape. "All of a sudden, manufacturers needed to have visibility into plants across the extended enterprise," Sowle says. "There was a shift to much shorter product life cycles, and a move to make-to-order products. Manufacturers spent the 1990s investing in new transaction systems, but they still didn't know what was happening at the plant level."

To meet these emerging needs, Camstar has been rolling out more robust versions of its InSite CME product. "InSite targets enterprises that must manage multiple plants, products, and processes—across the enterprise—as if they were part of a single factory," Sowle says. "This isn't just about providing visibility; it's about controlling this very complex process."

The economic downturn hasn't seemed to affect interest in Camstar's CME solution. Rather, InSite remains a strong-selling property in an otherwise chilly software market.

The impetus might be a newfound pragmatism on the part of most manufacturers. "Almost overnight, we've seen the market change," Sowle says. "Last year, manufacturers were focused on building capacity and growing market share. Now they're focused on doing the best they can with what they have. They're looking to us to provide the visibility that gives them better control and ability to respond quickly to changes in demand—up or down."

97 USDATA

Aims at return to profitability

There has been bad news and good news for USDATA over the past year. The bad news was that the Richardson, Texas-based supervisory control and manufacturing execution system (MES) supplier announced annual revenues were $16 million for 2000, down from $25.6 million posted in 1999. The good news is that the vendor is focused on a return to profitability, and has taken the appropriate steps to achieve it, says Bob Merry, president and CEO of USDATA.

"We expected the market to be driven by the new e-Business model that developed rapidly 18 months ago. The fact is, it didn't ramp up as quickly as we expected," Merry says. "Almost every industry analyst and observer predicted that market shift, and we took steps to position ourselves accordingly. If it had happened, we would have been in very good shape. It didn't happen as expected, and we have since taken steps to move forward."

Those steps included a 39-percent workforce reduction last fall, and a heavy investment in product development, according to Merry. "This will be a good year as the investment in those technologies pays off," he says.

This past April, USDATA introduced FactoryLink++, the newest addition to its FactoryLink multi-user supervisory control offering. It collects critical information from plant-floor devices and distributes real-time process knowledge to enterprise decision makers.

USDATA's Xfactory Production Suite MES product is expected to contribute to the company's profitability. "We have substantially enhanced the Xfactory offering, and sales are growing rapidly," Merry says.

98 iBASEt

Timing right for enterprise execution message

Lake Forest, Calif.-based iBASEt has been advocating the value of manufacturing execution system (MES) software for years, and now believes that trends such as e-Business and users' desire for application deployments with high payback are coming together to give its offerings a lift.

According to Michel Gadbois, the company's director of worldwide sales, "Manufacturers know they must find other ways of eliminating non-value-adding processes from their activities."

Gadbois adds that iBASEt's Solumina "paperless" MES is just such a solution. By implementing Solumina, says Gadbois, employees have a single source of production execution-related data, which can lead to significant productivity increases, especially in the complex manufacturing verticals that iBASEt targets: aerospace & defense, industrial equipment, medical equipment/device, and electronics verticals. Solumina also is used by maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) providers to the aviation industry.

"Forty percent of employees in complex industries are spending their time looking for, deciphering, and retrieving data," Gadbois says. "At least half of that time can be cut, and applied to value-adding processes."