Automation World: How did you manage to involve so many people in this book?
Bianca Scholten: I started writing articles about ISA-95, manufacturing execution systems (MES) and system integration in 2003. Over the years, I have interviewed many people, such as SP95 committee members, end-users, consultants and software vendors. I thought it was a good idea to include their viewpoints and experiences in the book, as an extension to my own experiences and viewpoints.
AW: The ISA-95 standard covers manufacturing broadly. What was the composition of the committee that enabled such a broad definition?
Scholten: The committee included a mixture of representatives from software vendors—some are enterprise resource planning (ERP) suppliers, but most are control system vendors, system integrators, consultants, universities and end-users. End-users represent several different industries, including food, pharma, chemicals and consumer electronics.
Scholten also is a member of the SP95 committee of the Instrumentation,
Systems and Automation Society (ISA), and the author of “The Road to
Integration: A Guide to Applying the ISA-95 Standard in Manufacturing,”
a book published by ISA. This book is a comprehensive explanation of
the standard with specific application examples. The ISA-95 standard
describes and models the integration of information from manufacturing
processes to enterprise systems. She recently spoke with Automation
World Editor in Chief Gary Mintchell.