April 1997, Volume 14, No. 4 CIIMPLEX Project Aims for Plug-and-Play MES Solution

Modern computer and information technologies have enabled the automation of several aspects of manufacturing, including enterprise information systems geared towards management and long-range planning, and equipment control. More recently, manufacturing execution systems (MES) have evolved to automate the processes in between -- namely, to track, manage and schedule jobs on the shop floor in real-time.

While MES provides manufacturers with critical functionality, the technology to integrate these applications with each other and throughout the enterprise is conspicuously absent, placing robust manufacturing automation solutions out of reach for 90% of the country's manufacturing sites. The U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has set out to do something about this technological disparity.

Under the auspices of NIST's Advanced Technology Program (ATP), the Consortium for Integrated Intelligent Manufacturing Planning and Execution (CIIMPLEX) has been formed. Participating companies include Berclain Group (Schaumburg, Ill.), IBM (Somers, N.Y.), Ingersoll Rand (Woodcliff Lake, N.J.), Intercim (Burnsville, Minn.), and QAD (Carpenteria, Calif.).

CIIMPLEX's goal, broadly speaking, is the development and prototyping of the integration solutions related to enterprise resource management required to satisfy customer demands.

Agility in manufacturing is seen as a key to the success of U.S. companies, particularly small and medium-sized manufacturers, who are competing with lower-cost foreign producers. While developing flexible frameworks to integrate manufacturing information and control systems is a necessary first step, the CIIMPLEX group argues it is not sufficient. Current manufacturing planning processes are too inflexible, operating on a weekly or monthly basis, while true agile manufacturing requires dynamic scheduling and planning on a daily or hourly basis. The agile factory must link real-time manufacturing information with both planning and execution systems.

This consortium will develop the basic algorithms and technologies for linking agile planning systems with the wealth of real-time, factory floor information provided by MES. The two main objectives are to develop a self-configuring plug-and-play MES framework based upon intelligent software agents, and to develop the basic enabling technologies for Integrated Intelligent Planning-Execution (IIPE) applications using this framework.

The framework will require developing the largely experimental technology of intelligent software agents (programs that interact with each other to configure themselves into a working system with a minimum of user involvement) into something robust and reliable enough for the demands of a real-time manufacturing control system.

The IIPE will require similarly robust and reliable algorithms and software to assimilate a wide variety of inputs on the current state of the factory, resource needs and deadlines, and develop a plan to optimize the use of existing resources. The IIPE framework and applications will be designed with the needs of small and mid-sized manufacturers in mind, by providing a solution that is both affordable and low-maintenance. The successful adoption of IIPE, say consortium members, could increase manufacturing efficiency by 30%, reduce work-in-progress by 30%, and if fully implemented, would save the manufacturing industry billions of dollars.

The ATP program fosters industrial R&D on potentially far-reaching technologies that would offer all manufacturers affordable plug-and-play solutions to MES integration.

The ATP provides cost-shared funding to industry for high-risk R&D projects with the potential to spark important, broad-based economic benefits for the U.S. The ATP does not fund product development; rather, it accelerates, and in many cases enables, potentially important R&D projects that industry otherwise would not undertake, or would not devote significant resources to, because of the technical risks involved.