The integration from the plant floor to the company’s business brain begins with the field instrumentation and bus network, and ends at the enterprise resource planning (ERP) software system. Advanced batch automation involves a combination of fieldbus networking and OPC (an open communications standard) connectivity, which allows for a tight integration of software and subsystems. The software controls actions for procedures, unit procedures and operations. “OPC is a data exchange standard between the control device and the fieldbus,” explains Martin Hannssman, director of the vertical products group at Brooks Automation Inc., in Chelmsford, Mass.
Moving upward from the plant, the data flows through an Ethernet network that is typically configured using an ISA-95 standard data protocol. The standard has been widely adopted by manufacturing execution system (MES) and ERP vendors to accommodate the flow of data from plant automation systems. “The controller is sampling a device; it’s reading and writing data,” explains Michael Bryant, executive director of the Profibus Trade Organization, in Scottsdale, Ariz. “That data becomes available as information when it’s passed up via Ethernet to the MES. The MES uses it as information, not data.”
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