Collaboration Provides Virtual Workplace

Thanks to the Internet, you can now have more input into your company’s automation systems without attending a lengthy meeting. With the advent and spread of collaborative manufacturing tools, you can share design, development and maintenance of an automation system without calling a meeting or having to travel to another town. Collaborative tools boost efficiencies on existing processes, and they also let companies spiff up automation in ways that are simply not possible using conventional communication. The result is greater efficiency in all stages of the manufacturing process, and higher quality systems.

One system designer finds that using collaboration can help eliminate manufacturing bugs before they occur. “We used to get involved in a project and immediately get behind the eight ball. Then we had to work our way out,” says G. Duane Grob, vice president and engineering manager at Total Systems Design Inc., an automation integration firm in West Chester, Pa. “Now, we discuss all aspects of what the project needs up front.”

Total Systems Design uses collaboration tools from Paris-based Schneider Electric to test its manufacturing systems before it begins to build them. “We collaborate on the design and detect pitfalls,” says Grob. “It solves problems before they happen rather than after.” The collaborative process helps Total Systems Design in doing the same old tasks faster, but more importantly, the collaboration allows the company to develop new areas of planning. “At this point we’re being exposed to parts of the process that previously, we didn’t usually get into,” says Grob.

Though collaboration is already providing benefits as an internal tool, Grob notes that he expects the benefits to increase once he begins to extend it outside the company’s walls. “It’s not a true tool yet,” says Grob. “It gives us a tool internally, but we’re not yet bringing people in from the outside.”

According to ARC Advisory Group Inc., in Dedham, Mass., collaboration is gaining traction among manufacturers. “Collaboration is hugely on the increase. It’s happening more and more,” says ARC’s Greg Gorbach, director of collaborative manufacturing. As for defining collaboration, Gorbach takes a wide view. “It’s any way you work with customers electronically, and it’s internally knitting together different business processes.”

From design to supply chain

Collaboration involves a range of areas important to manufacturers, including product design and the configuration of the automation setup for discrete or process manufacturing. Much of this collaboration involves internal staff, but manufacturers are also bringing in suppliers and customers to work together on supply chain issues such as demand planning, inventory levels and order management.

Manufacturers can use the same system for both plant and supply chain collaboration. Rockwell Automation, in Milwaukee, works with manufacturers on numerous areas of

collaboration. “We have two elements of collaboration,” says Ralph Kappelhoff, business manager of software development and solutions marketing at Rockwell. “One focuses on collaboration in laying out an automation

scenario. The second is collaboration in the supply chain, which includes sharing information on plant reliability and performance for promise schedules and automated sharing of product data and recipes.”

When it comes to collaborating on manufacturing design, there are a variety of aspects to Rockwell’s tools. “We have collaboration tools that share information on control and design systems, computer-aided design (CAD) drawings and specifications for the system and controls,” says Tim Reckinger, director of design business for Rockwell.

Schneider Electric has recently released a collaborative tool that allows engineers to share a centralized design. “The new Unity Studio is a collaborative software environment for industrial automation and all disciplines needed to design a process or a plant,” says Robb Dussualt, Unity project manager. “Our customers also use collaboration to install and maintain their plant automation.”

Schneider’s Unity Studio facilitates interlocking portions of an automation system. “With large plants or processes, there is complex interlocking from one machine to another,” says Dussualt. “With Unity Studio, you can develop interlocking systems between different pieces.”

Dussualt notes that, in the past, making alterations in the interlocks between machines has been a manual burden that usually involved a number of professionals. In the collaborative environment, the interlocking is configured automatically and shared with all who need to see any alterations. “Now, a single person can define up to ten interlocking variables, and everyone is updated simultaneously.”

In explaining Unity, Dussualt describes a system that was initially set up for use within an organization, pulling together various personnel from different disciplines and allowing them to share information in ways that were not possible in the past. But this technology can be extended to the manufacturer’s partners. “It’s so new we’re not sure how it’s going to spread beyond the four walls,” says Dussualt.

How it works

The collaborative process is often done in a central shared environment, where designs can be reviewed and changed. Different team members both inside and outside the organization can access the shared environment according to their individual areas of clearance and responsibility. “We have a central repository for each member of the design system to navigate,” says Rockwell’s Reckinger. “The person doing the CAD drawing or doing the HMI (human machine interface) will log into the system, check out a portion, archive the old version and put in a new change.” All of the changes are logged, and if the changes affect other parts of the system, it will show in those areas.

The collaborative work is more than just the big picture. “It’s down on the component level of different parts of the design,” says Reckinger. “We break it into smaller objects that represent parts of the machine.”

Schneider’s Unity collaboration tool is centralized, but portions of the design can be checked out for specific work by individual engineers. “Within the Unity Studio, a process control engineer or plant design engineer can build a graphic representation of the conveyers and process to show a plant level drawing and a CAD drawing,” explains Dussualt. “Once the plant level is developed, it can be divvied up to plant engineers and they can design the next level.”

Yet even while engineers can check out portions of the design and tweak them, when they are reintroduced, the central file is updated for all participants. “The intention is that all of the files can be stored on one server so the mechanical engineer who assigns a motor, or the information technology (IT) professional who assigns an IP address, lets everyone see the change,” says Schneider’s Dussualt. As an alternative, they can operate on local files, and then bring these elements together under one roof, but Dussualt notes that is less practical since it’s less collaborative.

Who gets involved?

“We’re seeing internal and external components to the collaboration,” explains ARC’s Gorbach. “Customers are increasingly participating in the design, and suppliers can also be included.” The advantage of going outside the organization for participation in designing products is that customers and suppliers have knowledge and a stake in the outcome and efficiency of the product. “The customers may have a specification and the supplier may be able to suggest alternatives that can reduce costs and

production time.”

Gorbach notes that collaboration is becoming more attractive as companies outsource more of their manufacturing. “Collaboration is necessary in outsourcing. The manufacturer still has the relationship with the customer,” says Gorbach. “Even if it makes sense to outsource production, the only way manufacturers feel comfortable is if they’re in touch with what’s being produced,” says Gorbach. He notes that collaborating between the customer and the outsourced production operation helps reduce the risk inherent in outsourcing.

Though most industries are now including a degree of collaboration in design, manufacturing and supply chain activities, some industries are a few steps ahead. Automotive usually gets cited as the industry with the most advanced design sharing activity, though biotech is catching up. In the supply chain, the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry has a long history of sharing supply chain information.

In product and plant design, collaboration is entering a number of new industries. “It really isn’t industry specific any longer,” says Rockwell’s Reckinger. He notes that each industry has its own way of collaborating. “Different industries have different standards and regulations,” explains Reckinger. He says that biotech is picking up strongly, using collaboration to validate automation systems.

Power too

One unlikely industry for collaboration is power. Yet these old-world companies are using collaboration to help assess grid needs as well as pricing. “We’re providing collaboration for major power companies,” says Kevin Tock, vice president of solutions development for Invensys’ WonderWare division. “Through sharing information collaboratively, energy companies get enough data to make decisions on how to optimize price and distribution.”

Invensys is helping process manufacturers across a number of industries. “We’re providing collaboration for customers in the food and beverage industry as well as the chemical and gas industry,” says Tock. “We’re using the same framework, tying together different operating plants.”

Analysts expect collaboration to increase in the coming years as tools proliferate and the benefits become clear to manufacturers. In an IT environment in which investments are still ruled by measurable returns, collaboration technology vendors know they must prove their claims in bottom-line benefits. So the vendors are very clear about how collaboration tools can not only save capital, but can also improve the quality of the manufacturing process.

See sidebar to this article: Collaborating along the supply chain