As a company with 53,000 employees and multiple plants across the globe, Chevron Corp., of Ramon, Calif., accumulates a mammoth volume of structured data—an estimated 180 terabytes per year. Research, exploration, production, oil refining, transportation and marketing all use that data. The company wanted to connect that data to operate more efficiently. Chevron adopted Microsoft’s latest tools, including Microsoft Office 2007, Office OneNote 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007. The goal was to improve the quality of business decisions, improve productivity, share information and meet regulatory demands.

Before the adoption, employees would store critical plant information in their desktop files or e-mail accounts, which made it inaccessible to others. There was no central location for data, and the data was created in multiple formats. The net result was that Chevron plants could not easily share information. “The plant floor has changed in the past 10 years,” says John McGlynn, industry solutions director, Microsoft Corp., in Redmond, Wash. “
Vista helps address those changes in the plant environment,” he says, in reference to Microsoft’s latest Windows operating system.

Microsoft has addressed a wide range of manufacturing needs with Windows Vista and Office 2007. The visualization tools are a sizable step forward for Windows. Another big change is the ability to integrate easily with manufacturing and corporate information technology (IT). That integration also supports greater interoperability with other systems. The integration and interoperability provide greater levels of collaboration. Using
Vista, plant managers can now share search engine results, which were difficult—if not impossible—to share using past versions of Windows. Excel spreadsheets can now be turned into Word documents for easy exchange among teams. This increased ability to share data and documents is supported with increased security. The ability to collaborate will no longer leave companies vulnerable to malicious attacks, Microsoft says.

Security

Security is one of the biggest concerns when data gets shared widely across the plant and into corporate enterprise systems. “When we think about
Vista in manufacturing, the big area from the client side is better manageability and security,” says Microsoft’s Colyer. “The new security gives them the ability to relay data within the manufacturing space.”

Security allows manufacturers to take the final step in connecting data that has previously been isolated in individual personal computers (PCs). “Ten years ago, all of the PCs were stand-alone. Then they were locally networked together,” says Microsoft’s McGlynn. “Today, those PCs are connected to the Internet. We opened up Internet access to employees, but there was a concern about security and protecting assets.”

Manufacturers have been very reluctant to share plant data across the Internet. There has been legitimate fear that disgruntled employees or other malicious hackers could enter the plant’s systems and alter settings or corrupt data. “In the past, security was done very carefully. So plants either broke the outside connections or added security,” says Bob Mick, vice president of enterprise architecture at ARC Advisory Group Inc., in
Dedham, Mass. “With Vista, security is part of the solution. It’s a more secure environment than previous editions of Microsoft.”

Industry experts are expecting the added security in
Vista to prompt more sharing and collaboration. “Security has a big impact on how people share data,” says Rashesh Mody, vice president of HMI and SCADA business at manufacturing software vendor Wonderware, in Lake Forest , Calif. “Security is
Vista’s biggest plus in the factory arena.”

3D visualization

Another key feature of
Vista is the improved visualization tools. Russ Agrusa, president and chief executive officer at Iconics Inc., another manufacturing software supplier based in
Foxborough, Mass., views the enhanced graphics as a direct result of Microsoft’s deep investment in research and development. “Microsoft spent $20 billion in the last five years in R&D (research and development). I don’t think the auto companies all together spent that much,” says Agrusa.

Those companies that build manufacturing systems are encouraged by the strength of
Vista’s visualization tools. “Some of the HMI (human-machine interface) ...