Finally getting some respect

Plant information management systems help drive collaborative manufacturing

By Paul Mann, Contributing Editor -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 2/1/2002 7:00:00 AM

Plant information management and control furnishes aggregation points for data generated by control automation or process control systems, or for work done on plant floors. Control, in this sense, refers to solutions that manage plant data, rather than process control itself. This diverse space includes applications for supervisory control, enterprise manufacturing intelligence, and manufacturing execution system solutions. Thin clients, portal technology, and Web-enabled devices have changed plant information management in ways that weren't foreseen until recently—providing functionality for automating, monitoring, and controlling plant-floor operations; as well as for establishing bi-directional data transmission throughout the enterprise. All this points to convergence of information technology, and specifically of production management, with plant automation.

The Rodney Dangerfield of the enterprise software business is finally getting the respect it deserves. After years of quietly improving quality, cutting scrap, and improving asset utilization, plant information management and control systems are grabbing the spotlight.

Credit this increase in stature to an intense interest in the emerging notion of collaborative manufacturing. After all, how can manufacturers forge a highly integrated value chain without real-time input of manufacturing data? Quite simply, they can't.

"There has been a real change of focus in this area," says Greg Gorbach, director of e-manufacturing at ARC Advisory Group, a technology assessment firm based in Dedham, Mass. "Until recently, the emphasis has been on implementing supply chain applications like advanced planning and scheduling, transportation management, and warehouse management systems. Now we're starting to see a broader focus on the notion of collaboration.

"Once you move from having real-time control at the plant level to having real-time control at the enterprise level, things really begin to change for the better," Gorbach continues. "You begin to synchronize business processes that span your own company, across multiple plants and beyond to customers and suppliers. That's where the big payback can be found."

The last several years have witnessed rapid evolution in what can be described as plant information management and control systems. This broad category includes Windows- and browser-based supervisory control applications, plant historian software, plant information portals, as well as many manufacturing execution system (MES) functions. Proponents of plant information management solutions say this class of software gives manufacturers and their supply chain partners the information they need not only to fine-tune production itself, but keep it better synchronized with overall supply chain processes.

"The current economic situation is driving a renewed focus on the complete process," says Karsten Newbury, business manager of MES for North American markets at Siemens Energy & Automation, an Alpharetta, Ga.-based vendor of MES and other plant information management solutions. "Manufacturers have put in ERP [enterprise resources planning] and CRM [customer relationship management] systems and they've got plant information coming up from the shop floor, but now they're looking to make a good handshake between the systems and across critical processes. It's surprising how many companies don't yet have a good grip on critical processes, such as order management, flow across the entire supply chain."

The first step, for many manufacturers, is implementing core functionality around broken processes in the supply chain. "It's not enough to automate the process of handing over orders to production," Newbury says. "What you want is a framework that coordinates with logistics so you have the right raw materials and components available."

Extend that kind of collaboration outside the enterprise, begin sharing information, and start coordinating operations across the value chain, and you've got the basics of a collaborative manufacturing environment. Then you improve product quality, cut labor costs, reduce material waste, slash inventory, and shorten manufacturing cycle times.

But sharing information and coordinating operations is no simple task. "The trick for manufacturers is to have a vision of how all the pieces fit together in the end and build an infrastructure that effectively connects all the various areas," Gorbach says. "The good news is that the cost of the infrastructure piece has come down dramatically over the last couple of years. Where you might have spent 80 percent of your budget on the infrastructure piece, now you might spend about 20 percent."

Savvy manufacturers are making those investments today, despite the slumping economy. "We're seeing cautious investments in getting one's house in order," says Ian Stone, executive vice president at CIMNET, a Robensonia, Pa.-based MES vendor. "They're making sure the systems and efficiencies are in place so they'll benefit when things do turn around. They see collaborative manufacturing coming and they know they need to have an infrastructure in place. Without the right systems, collaborative manufacturing could be very painful.

"In this integrated factory of the future, how can you be responsive to your customer's changing requirements if you don't know what you factories are doing?" Stone continues. "How can you run out and ask someone what's happening on the floor when the manufacturing is taking place in Singapore?" You can't, of course, which is why manufacturers are turning to MES solutions that can track work-in-process at multiple locations.

Having a common backbone for up-to-the minute plant intelligence is another aspect of plant information solutions. Plant historians, for instance, hold a wealth of data in formats that can be easily accessed, and that provide actionable, timely information.

"What can you do with the data you get after the fact?" asks Pat Kennedy, president of OSIsoft, a San Leandro, Calif.-based provider of plant information systems. "You can punish the guilty, but you're going to be constantly reacting. If you get the manufacturing data in real time, then you'll truly be able to participate in a collaborative environment and help the plant make money more efficiently."

One key to faster response to real-time data is the expansion of wireless communications. "Realistically, what we're talking about is a vice president of manufacturing getting paged at the airport," Kennedy says. "He's going to receive an alert that says there's a problem that requires his immediate attention. As an added benefit, the message provides all the relevant information to make a decision."

Remote access to information is just one advantage to wireless. Equally important is timely access to manufacturing data. "If you see something drifting out of tolerance, you can take action before the problem actually occurs," says Newbury. "That means you will see more consistent quality and better on-time performance. In turn, you can shorten production times and respond faster to customer demands."

But the real key isn't more and more raw data. "People can't deal with all the data coming from the shop floor," Kennedy says. "There is incredible value in real-time data that has been aggregated and organized, so you get the one piece of information you really need. The vice president of manufacturing with 10 plants needs to receive a real-time pop-up that says plant number three is low on raw materials. He doesn't need to see the 2.5 million datapoints and the 16,000 changes per second coming off the floor."

More organized data, more timely data, and more access to data are all good things, but not enough to help plant information management and control systems live up to their true potential.

"What we're talking about here isn't just making some marginal incremental improvement at the plant floor," says ARC's Gorbach. "What we're talking about is helping manufacturers become more agile. We're not there yet, but manufacturers are moving toward creating value networks that will be able to compete as single units—and that can quickly deliver quality products at low cost. We're talking about finding more effective ways to do business, to get and please customers, and to make more money. This is about fundamentally changing the way we do business."

That's pretty heady stuff for what's long been the Rodney Dangerfield of the software business.

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