Intelligent Manufacturing € October € 1996 € Vol. 2 € No. 10
Intelligent Manufacturing € October € 1996 € Vol. 2
€ No. 10
Any buzzword technology worthy of being reduced to an acronym
inevitably reaches the point where it has to put up or shut up.
Potential users no longer are fascinated by the novelty of the
concepts and need real-world answers that will satisfy the corporate
bean-counters who ultimately will decide yea or nay on implementing
the trendy technology.
Manufacturing execution systems, or MES, have reached that point. As
we reported several months ago (see Intelligent
Manufacturing, July 1996), MES systems hold out the promise
of closing the gap between a manufacturing company's front office and
the factory floor. This is accomplished by integrating real-time data
with other information systems, such as production planning and
distributed control systems.
MESA International (Pittsburgh, Pa.), a trade association devoted to
furthering the development and application of MES systems, held a
roundtable conference earlier this month in Chicago to address this
very issue: Who is using MES, and how successful have they been?
According to Bernard Asher, president of RWT Corp. (Mount Prospect,
Ill.), "MES supports the owner/operator in real-time and provides the
architecture and infrastructure to enable change." For instance, an
MES system can:
Typical benefits of MES, Asher explained, can include: reducing cycle
time; improving quality; reducing work-in-process and scrap; reducing
set-up and changeover time; improving on-time delivery; improving
responsiveness; reducing non-value added activities; and improving
the utilization of assets.
Brooke Banbury-Masland, worldwide manufacturing industry manager for
Microsoft Corp. (Redmond, Wash.), cited a number of successful
implementations of MES. Johnson Matthey Electronics (Spokane, Wash.),
for instance, is a manufacturer of precision products for the
integrated circuit fabrication industry. The company's production
requirements included semi-custom products and short turnaround times
to meet the just-in-time inventory requirements of its customers. By
implementing an MES system, Johnson Matthey had as its goals to
reduce overall production cycle time, yield variance and
administrative overhead, while at the same time integrating order
entry and planning functions and supporting global open systems.
To achieve these MES goals, Johnson Matthey used the InTrack MES
solution from Wonderware. With InTrack, the process model and all
data are maintained in a relational database. Seamless integration
with a man/machine interface (MMI) facilitates the acquisition of
process data in real-time. Furthermore, the data can be accessed
anywhere within the network.
Similarly, Chesebrough-Ponds (Jefferson City, Mo.), a supplier of
toothpaste, has implemented an MES solution based on Intellution's
FIX BOS open database system. FIX BOS provides Chesebrough-Ponds with
immediate access to batch recipes and histories that allow it to
continuously improve the process. As a result of the MES application,
the company reduced supply chain costs while maintaining high process
quality. In addition, improved line allocation has allowed for more
efficient and streamlined production.
Networked Business Objects
According to a survey undertaken by Advanced Manufacturing Research
(AMR) (Boston, Mass.), a whopping 84% of those manufacturers and
vendors survey believe their customers will connect to their business
systems via the Internet. What's more, this connection to an
electronic commerce environment will take place by the end of this
decade, and most think within the next two years.
For those manufacturers wondering how in the world they can react so
quickly to their customers' Internet needs, Bill Swanton, AMR's
director of research, plant operations, offered a possible solution:
networked business objects (NBOs). An NBO, he explained, is an
encapsulated application that communicates via message passing. It
models processes rather than data, and features dynamic application
configuration and true distributed computing.
The most important benefit to manufacturers is the "need for speed,"
since NBOs can be implemented quickly, and match up well with modern
manufacturer's agile requirements. "With NBOs, inter-company supply
chain integration becomes a reality, providing more choices with less
pain," Swanton said.
By taking advantage of Internet as well as intranet (internal
corporate networking) opportunities, a manufacturer can reduce the
total cost of ownership, added Microsoft's Banbury-Masland. "You can
maximize return on your technology investment because the Net
provides competitive breakthroughs and improves information
management and use," she said.
For instance, FACTORYworks from FASTech Integration (Lincoln, Mass.)
provides integrated production reporting, equipment control and
statistical analysis to the desktop (see Intelligent
Manufacturing, August 1996). This MES workflow solution
features intranet capabilities that enable operators to view lots on
the entire factory floor and eliminate bottlenecks. As a result, more
efficient management of manufacturing operations is made
possible.
Other manufacturers present at the MES Roundtable included Sara Lee
Knit Products (see article in this issue), ABB Industrial Systems,
Caterpillar, Compaq, IBM, ITT Night Vision, and Rockwell Automation.
The promises of implementing MES solutions have generated a lot of
interest in the technology, while the pitfalls inherent in the
complexity of these solutions have frightened a number of
manufacturers away. MES doesn't work in every situation, but the
benefits already achieved by numerous manufacturers are opening the
industry's eyes to where its future may lie.
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