Era of Compatibility
Feature article
Era of Compatibility
Networks link factory to front office.
The concept of seamless networking is becoming reality for more companies. Networks that link front office operations, such as ordering, with plant floor equipment are gaining acceptance. This helps companies streamline operations to cut costs and increase productivity. Enterprise-wide communications have been discussed for years, and many large corporations have been developing their networking and data management capabilities for years. However, it’s been expensive, keeping most firms on the sidelines.
“This was a very hot topic around 1997, but then, control systems could cost $500,000, and the MES (manufacturing execution system) had about the same price,” says Skip Hansen, I/O systems product manager for automation supplier Beckhoff Automation LLC, in
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But that is changing rapidly. Hardware and software prices continue to decline as performance rises, fostering a new level of interest. “Now, you can get packages from many vendors for a few thousand dollars,” says Randy Kondor, marketing vice president at Matrikon, another vendor based in
Another try
Things are changing even at the companies that have tied disparate operations together using enterprise resource planning (ERP) and MES for years. At some facilities, there’s a new focus on gaining more benefits from these technologies. “With a lot of customers, there’s a revival of interest. They’ve done some ERP, but often it hasn’t delivered as much as expected. There’s a resurgence in their integration programs as they attempt to unlock the capabilities of ERP,” says Francois Leclerc, product marketing manager at Honeywell Process Solutions, the Phoenix-based process controls supplier.
The adoption of standards is a key factor, making it simpler for different groups to communicate. Ethernet is taking over the factory, helped in part by variants now offering real-time capability. That makes it far easier to communicate with front offices. With that base established, a number of other standards are adding clarity and making it simpler to move useful data throughout the enterprise.
“Within the last two or three years, acceptance of standards like ISA-95 and the World Batch Forum has really risen. MIMOSA is also gaining a bit of steam,” says Kevin Tock, vice president of MES Business at automation software vendor Wonderware, of
Size matters
Many major technology changes occur at large companies, and the adoption of integrated corporate networks follows that trend. Most observers note that the expanse of a company and the amount of cash that it’s generating are among the key factors behind integration. When those parameters are high, it’s far easier to justify the cost of linking front office personnel who handle incoming and outgoing orders with the plant floor personnel who handle the materials tied to those orders.
“Size is a primary factor. In bigger plants, like a refinery or automotive facility where losing minutes means you’re losing serious cash, you almost always see tight links between IT (information technology) and manufacturing,” Kondor says. He adds that facilities that run 24/7 also link the two, since there’s no chance to catch up if there are unexpected shutdowns.
One of the biggest changes for corporations is the staggering number of connections needed to gather data from the plant floor. While front office connections are fairly closely tied to the number of people who have computers, most manufacturing facilities have dramatically more elements to connect.
“Node counts in factories gets into hundreds and thousands of nodes. That’s a staggering amount of new connections that IT has to manage, and they’re non-trivial because they often need to support the plant 24/7,” says Joe Kann, vice president of business development at supplier Rockwell Automation Inc., in
Many companies are now linking operations, both remote facilities and contract suppliers that are located far from each other. That typically adds Internet communications to transmissions across the corporate network. “You definitely need the Internet. The volumes of data can be massive. In building automation, owners want access to surveillance cameras, which generate huge video files,” says Hansen, at Beckhoff.
Layered complexity
Whether ...
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