Alliance yields collaborative manufacturing
GE to deploy Datasweep solution in facilities, market it to select verticals
By Kevin Parker, Editorial Director -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 11/1/2001 12:00:00 AM
GE Fanuc Automation and San Jose, Calif.-based Datasweep have reached an agreement whereby GE Fanuc will deliver to the automotive and process industries Datasweep's collaborative manufacturing solution, called Advantage. Integrated with GE Fanuc's plant automation products and Cimplicity software for supervisory control of industrial processes, the combination, the two companies say, constitutes a complete manufacturing solution.
Sometimes described as a manufacturing execution system (MES), Advantage—which will be marketed by GE Fanuc as Cimplicity Advantage—allows manufacturers to collect, control, share, and analyze real-time manufacturing information, making use of an integrated data mart. According to Vladimir Preysman, Datasweep president and CEO, the system—unlike a data historian—excels at tying process data to specific product units.
GE Fanuc, a division of GE Industrial Systems, a $6-billion GE business headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., also has its own MES product—called Tracker—resident in automotive plants for more than 10 years.
"What we are seeing in this agreement," says Ken Brant, a research director with analyst firm Gartner, "is a potential convergence, in terms of data management and analytics, of production management and process controls. Gartner has predicted this development in its 'integrated plant systems' concept. GE Fanuc and Datasweep bring different data models and views to the combined system. Supervisory control is concerned with time-series process-data aggregation. MES is about aggregation of product data."
Reconciling views
The combined solutions already are in use at one GE manufacturing facility, and plans are underway for at least one additional implementation.
While much about the GE plant implementation is confidential, says Kevin Roach, GE Fanuc vice president of Cimplicity solutions, "Users were able to find a correlation between key process parameters and variations in yield by tracking products and their genealogies. Parameters included raw materials, process automation, manual step, and visual inspection data captured by means of bar code readings, as well as through data acquisition."
Preysman says the GE implementation is an excellent example of the unified information flow the combined solutions can provide, "from shop-floor sensors all the way up to the enterprise. It's time-phased, but mapped against specific batches or units."
Execution systems, such as Advantage, often are cited for their ability to transmit shop-floor data to the business enterprise, while bringing work orders and routings down into the plant. This MES intervening layer between the process control systems and the enterprise system furnishes a granularity of detail not found in an enterprise system.
"The integration of Cimplicity [supervisory control] with Advantage provides the real-time data set that allows the MES layer to be more accurate and more cost-effective," says Preysman. "There are no data structures in ERP for sensor-level data, product genealogies, test data, or work instructions."
Interface imperatives
GE Fanuc and Datasweep say that in particular instances, either the supervisory control or execution system could be the user interface of choice, or more likely—based on the users' roles—both could be in play.
"There are a lot of people around talking about a single interface," says Preysman, "but what's important is a seamless flow of information, and then to see that information in a 'native' environment."
Gartner's Brant, however, says, "The OEM, in this case GE Fanuc, will need to maximize the value of this arrangement. To create synergies, there might be instances where the product view and the process view will need to be reconciled and correlated, or at least both will need to be conveniently presented in a 'dashboard' with user-specific views and analytics. GE's six sigma quality management discipline might work as a frame for this kind of plant information 'collage.' The challenge, of course, is the complexity that this might entail."
Roach says GE's own facilities have been a great proving ground for the value of close integration of MES functionality with supervisory control and process automation. "It goes without saying that GE knows manufacturing," he says, "and this is going to deliver great benefit in many of our facilities, and enable us to measure return-on-investment. Automotive-wise, GE will be providing exclusive implementation of this solution in the automotive supply chain, where we have tremendous credibility. We will not partner in the same way with any Datasweep competitor."
Finally, when asked if the agreement was a preliminary to GE Fanuc eventually buying Datasweep, Preysman answered flatly, "We haven't talked about that."
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