The Instrumentation, Systems and Automation Society (ISA) and the Open Modular Architecture Controls Users’ Group (OMAC), announced recently that Make2Pack, a joint working group sponsored by World Batch Forum (WBF), the OMAC Packaging Working Group, and the ISA SP88 committee, is working to leverage ISA-88 batch standard principles and the PackML state model to help develop ANSI/ISA-88.00.05.
The Make2Pack workgroup is harmonizing the ISA standard and OMAC guidelines to develop conceptual models, terminology and examples for industrial automation that can be applied to the total manufacturing process. The focus of the workgroup is on batch processes, packaging and converting machinery.
Going Modular
“Our goal is to apply ISA’s SP88 modular philosophy and define a library of component behaviors and techniques that apply to the automation needs of all manufacturing,” says Dave Chappell, section manager for batch technologies at The Procter & Gamble Co., in Westchester, Ohio, and chair of WBF's Make2Pack initiative. The group plans to issue a preliminary report or guideline in the 2005/2006 timeframe with the ANSI/ISA standard expected to follow in 2006/2007.
When applied within industry, this standard will increase the profitability, flexibility and efficiency of manufacturing and packaging processes, backers say. Through uniform machine design, it will also improve maintainability.
“The increasing need for manufacturing agility demands that we cut across the different silos and departments, speak the same language, and model processes the same way. If we can merge our process and discrete manufacturing operations, we will generate great efficiencies for our corporations,” explains Thinus van Schoor, OMAC member and Automation Manager for London-based SAB Miller.
The group is chartered with better integrating “making” and “packing.” In addition to the ANSI/ISA-88 standards implications, there are also clear ties to the forthcoming ISA-95.00.03 standard, which covers manufacturing operations management activities.
ISA-95 Advances
That activity got a boost recently, in fact, with the March 8 announcement by Microsoft Corp. Redmond, Wash., of its support of the ISA-95 series of standards as a key element of its plant-to-enterprise interoperability initiative. The Microsoft move followed a similar announcement of support in 2004 by SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany. The Microsoft and SAP support underscore the widespread and growing recognition and use of the ISA-95 standards across manufacturing industries, the ISA said.
ANSI/ISA-95 will consist of the following standards under the general title, Enterprise-Control System Integration: Part 1: Models and terminology; Part 2: Object models and attributes; Part 3: Activity models of manufacturing operations management; Part 4: Object models and attributes of manufacturing operations management; and Part 5: Business to manufacturing transactions.
The goal of the standards is to reduce the risk, cost and errors associated with implementing enterprise systems and manufacturing operations systems in such a way that they interoperate and easily integrate. The standards may also be used to reduce the effort associated with implementing new product offerings.
ISA-95 Parts 1 and 2 were published in 2000 and 2001 respectively. Drafts of Parts 3 and 5 have recently been issued for committee ballot.
