exchanging information on batch scheduling. It connects to SAP on one side and our DCS on the other. For petrochemicals and refining, we have the PIMS system as the middleware for data exchange with SAP.”

Their PIMS “is the largest middleware product we have. It becomes a platform for what we call our value-added, industry-specific applications such as production accounting, performance monitoring, environmental monitoring and data reconciliation. They are the applications that take raw data and convert them to information needed by IT and executives.”

It isn’t only batch processing that benefits from connecting shop floor processes to manufacturing business applications. Discrete manufacturers also can realize successes, as well.

At Trane’s Tyler, Texas, plant, which manufactures air conditioners, the company wanted to track data on specific assembly-line machines to give plant-floor operators and management real-time information access to production totals, uptime/downtime and machine performance. Also, the company wanted to reduce product or service failure rates to a negligible level, approximately 3.4 failures per million opportunities. That would allow Trane to reach Six Sigma status.

One main challenge was maintaining production levels. As its first focus, the company chose the spine-fin wrapping section, which had the most potential to disrupt production.

The section contains 60 spine-fin-wrapper machines. Each continually wraps and glues a 0.0005-inch by 1-inch band of metallic ribbon around a 3/8-inch pipe, which runs through the wrapping machine’s center. The finished product is a continuous length of pipe with a ribbon edging or fanning.

Control plus HMI

But analog counters, which once measured the length of produced wrapped pipe, could not measure or capture a machine’s uptime and downtime. Instead of standard programmable logic controller (PLC)-based control to provide those data, however, the company and Tegron, a control-system-design company, chose Rockwell Automation’s Allen-Bradley SoftLogix.

This personal computer-based controller runs on a commercial operating system. It takes control functions found on a dedicated PLC and encapsulates them in software. The system also combined human-machine-interface (HMI) programming, control and enterprise integration—all on a single hardware platform.

Through Allen-Bradley monitors strategically positioned at each bank of wrappers, operators have access to system data and monitor the entire system via operator-interface stations running Rockwell Software RSView32 HMI software.

Linking the wrappers is a Rockwell Automation network architecture consisting of DeviceNet, ControlNet and Ethernet. This combination gives seamless integration throughout assembly. And it enables operators, via monitors or the Internet/Intranet, to view devices’ status as well as the entire production line.

This networking system gave operations managers access to real-time information, through vertical integration. It supported transfer and execution of work instructions and information flow from plant-floor devices to the company’s Intranet or Extranet.

That vertical integration, through MES and ERP systems, allows managers to make better-informed business decisions, such as accelerating deliveries if production is higher than expected.

Achieving Six Sigma meant analysis of production data was necessary. To track and analyze it, an RS historian is used to evaluate each process’ performance. Pre-designed data models are optimized for time-series data. The program connects to any database via open-database connectivity. The historian provides machine output, in feet per minute, downtime statistics and reason codes. Data can be used to determine sources of machine-related issues.

An RS transaction manager, located in the engineering department PC, transfers wrapping-machine information into the database for storage and analysis. The software is an interface between controller and a Microsoft structured-query-language or SQL server database.

Running parallel to the controller-transaction manager-SQL route is a controller-transaction manager-Oracle-Web Server route. It allows production information to be posted on the company Intranet.

At every level, through Trane’s vertically integrated data-collection, analysis and transport system, accessible information is now available. On the factory floor, operators can monitor real-time information on displays and HMI stations. Likewise, engineers can view and analyze information from the databases. From wherever they may be, managers and executives can view and analyze information via the Web.

See sidebar to this article: MES and ERP basics

See sidebar to this article: Ethernet switch catalyzes communications