The session's presenters represented ARC and the oil and chemical
industries, but these industries frequently deal with issues a few years
in advance of the rest of manufacturing.
Areas that the forum will be dealing with as the days unfold include
energy management, remote operations management, anti-counterfeiting,
cyber security, mobile solutions for manufacturing, project management,
interoperability, and asset management. Questions from the audience and
replies from the panel assembled at the close of the opening session
frequently moved to the topic of standardization. All of these topics
relate to packaging.
Andy Chatha, President of ARC, shared a statement from P&G's 2010
annual report to point to a significant trend that is affecting
industry. One aspect of this statement is about standards that are bound
to affect packaging machine suppliers. P&G's Chairman/CEO Robert A.
McDonald stated in that report:
Another good example of how we're becoming more productive is the
"digitization" of P&G. With digitization, our goal is to
standardize, automate and integrate systems and data so we can create a
real-time operating and decision-making environment. We want P&G to
be the most technology-enabled company in the world.
We are targeting a 20-25% reduction in some spending areas and we are looking for a sevenfold increase in real-time data. By getting the right data to the right decision makers at the right time, we can become increasingly efficient and productive.
Many have questioned why engineering and IT departments want to get
involved in specifying control equipment, networks and data standards
for packaging machines. I think that this statement gives some real
insight into why that is and what is likely to happen, not just at
P&G but at world class manufacturers everywhere.
Standardizing systems and data is where it starts. System standards can
be vendor specific or based upon broader industry standards. Data can
be standardized company by company or via standards such as Pack M/L.
The industry can influence how this is done or they can sit back while
end users create multiple and varied standards which machine builders
will need to deal with one by one.
I believe that machine builders that are already working with industry
standards are the ones best prepared to do business with companies that
share or will develop a vision like that expressed by P&G. Those
companies are also the ones best prepared to provide ongong leadership
to the standards development process. My guess is, that as we get to
Thursday when the OMAC sessions begin, we won't see many of those
companies represented.
Packagers, packaging machine manufacturers and their organizations need
to decide whether these issues are important enough to invest the time
and energy that it takes to develop, update and support workable
standards that will help companies standardize, automate and integrate
systems and data.We are targeting a 20-25% reduction in some spending areas and we are looking for a sevenfold increase in real-time data. By getting the right data to the right decision makers at the right time, we can become increasingly efficient and productive.
