Collaboration as a business strategy is not unique to the automation industry. However, a merging of technological capabilities more often occurs through acquisition rather than collaboration in the world of technology. So when two companies targeting the same markets work together to deliver new capabilities to those markets, it is of special interest.
A new partnership between Emerson Process Management and Beamex centers on an integrated asset management and calibration offering that combines Emerson’s AMS Suite predictive maintenance software application with Beamex’s CMX calibration software. This integrated package reportedly broadens the scope of production assets that can be calibrated and includes customizable calibration reports to improve analysis and documentation of asset status, thus enabling compliance with industry regulations such as ISO 9001:2000, 21 CFR Part 11, and IEC 61511.
Using the AMS Suite Calibration Connector, the AMS Device Manager populates the CMX calibration software with data gathered from intelligent devices in the plant. Users can then access diagnostic information from these assets to better understand the health of the device and discover if calibrations need to be performed. Upon completion of calibrations, CMX provides pass/fail information to the AMS Device Manager to update the device history.
Don Brady of GlaxoSmithKline in Cork, Ireland, has already put the combined technologies to work. "We've eliminated 21,000 sheets of paper per year and we streamlined our end-to-end workflow, which reduced our calibration time by about 15 minutes per calibration,” Brady said. “We've also eliminated calculation errors and rework because pass/fail calculations are performed in real-time in the plant.”
Brady also noted that the plant has been able to reduce scheduled calibrations 8 percent by migrating data form its legacy system to the combined AMS Suite/CMX calibration software package.
