by Gary Mintchell | Dec 16, 2014 | Automation, Industrial Computers, Interoperability, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management, Software
OK, the title of this post is also the title of Schneider Electric Software Vice President Tim Sowell’s blog. I follow his blog closely. He offers deep thinking about operations management applications and the drivers, requirements and needs that affect their development.
In his latest post, he’s reflecting on both year-end planning and the evolution of what we have been calling MES.
He begins by noticing, “The labels we have used for years for products, spaces, and roles no longer mean the same thing. We rapidly find ourselves setting up a glossary of labels and what they will mean in 2020-25 in order to gain alignment.”
He starts with the label “MES”, but my involvement with the space goes back to 1977 and something called MRP II. So the evolution began before that, but it started to come together in 1990. “The label ‘MES’ was first introduced in 1990 to refer to a point application at a single site (typically Quality Management). Over the next 20 years, more functionality was added to MES to keep pace with Automation trends.”
MES Platforms, Schneider Electric Software
The next evolution Sowell dates from 2010-2015. There is the introduction of the term MOM which came from the work of ISA 95. Sowell also quotes the definition from Gartner Group in 2012, “For many, MES is no longer a point application, but a platform that serves a dual purpose: integrating multiple business processes within a site and across the manufacturing network, and creating an enterprise manufacturing execution capability.”
Looking at today and tomorrow, “As the industrial computing paradigm shifts to the Internet, the platform is now being leveraged for other assets distributed across the interconnected value chain while extending the rich optimization functionality via new applications to get more productivity in areas outside of manufacturing.”
The problems increasing gained complexity as the requirements moved from a single machine or line went to many lines in one plant to standards to compare across the lines of many plants. “It was then that I realized in the meetings internally I could not use the word MES generically and needed to become specific.”
Sowell rightly concludes, “It is much easier to avoid labels and define the situation scenario / role, and start the meeting or strategy session laying out the landscape for discussion, gain alignment on the ‘desired outcome’ and destination first, it makes it easier!!!!”
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 11, 2014 | Automation, Interoperability, News, Operations Management, Technology
I started another Website called Physical Asset Lifecycle last year to discuss interoperability.
Two things happened. The reason to have a separate Website evaporated into the vacuum of failed business ideas. I also ran out of time to maintain yet another Website.
So, I will be reposting the work I did there and then building upon that work as an Interoperability Series.
There are key technologies and thinking when it comes to interoperability. The foundation is that we want to break silos of people and technologies so that applications can interoperate and make life easier for operations, maintenance and engineering. This will also improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operations. Much of the work so far is led by MIMOSA.
Interoperability demo
Two years ago, the foundation came together in a pilot demo at the ISA Automation Week conference of 2012. Here is the report from then.
After years of preparatory work, the OpenO&M Initiative participants organized a demonstration pilot project of information interoperability run like a real project building a debutanizer. It demonstrated the full lifecycle of the plant including all the facets of plant from design through construction to operations and management. The demonstration was held two days at the ISA Automation Week Sept. 25-26, 2012 in Orlando.
A panel of some of the people who worked on this project presented their work and showed live demonstrations.
One of the most important advances in the project was that now the three major design software suppliers–Aveva, Bentley, and Intergraph were all involved with enabling export of design data to a standard interface.
EPC for the project was Worley Parsons. Cormac Ryan, manager, Engineering Data Management, Americas, explained the development of the P&IDs using Intergraph’s Smart Plant P&ID generator. It produced a traditional P&ID. Not only a diagram, it is a database-driven tool containing lots of reports and data. The data was published in ISO 15926 format and made available to the rest of the team.
Jim Klein, Industry Solutions Consultant from Aveva, used a schema similar to the Intergraph one. It acted as a second EPC duplicating the data with the object-based database behind the drawing. It can store and link to an engineering database that contains much more data. For example, clicking on a pump diagram can show specifications and other important design information. This data was published out to instantiate the object in a maintenance management system or to create new data as it gets revised during the engineering process. Information can communicate to a “MIMOSA cloud” server.
George Grossmann, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Advanced Computing Research Centre, the University of South Australia, explained a transform engine using Bentley Open Plant received in 2 formats–owl and ecxml. These data go to iniSA 15926 transform engine. This engine takes input from all three suppliers, exports in ISO 15926 then to MIMOSA standard exports in CCOM XML.
Next up Ken Bever, with Assetricity and also CTO of MIMOSA discussed the transform from CCOM XML to the Assetricity iomog register, assuring that information was mapped to the asset and then sent to IBM’s IIC application in a standardized way. The information was then sent to OSIsoft PI historian. From PI, data is then accessible to maintenance management and operations management applications. All data references back to the ISO 15926 ontology.
Bruce Hyre, from IBM, explained how the IIC application is a standards-based platform that federates data and provides analytics. It takes CCOM, feeds it into a model server, which then provisions tags in OSI PI server. His demonstration showed the actual live P&ID from the EPC. He added, “But our focus is on the data supporting that P&ID–the tag list/model tree. You can subscribe to a tag, see information from the upstream systems.” Therefore the demonstration showed that data have gone end-to-end from design to the PI server to provision the tags with the live data from the design. 1092 tags were provisioned in this demonstration.
A video of the presentation can be found on the MIMOSA Website.
Program manager is Alan Johnston. Contact him for more information or to lend your expertise to the effort.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 5, 2014 | Data Management, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management, Software
Schneider Electric has released Wonderware SmartGlance 2014 R2 mobile reporting manufacturing software. The updated version includes a host of new features including support for wearable technologies, a modern user interface for any browser, self-serve registration, support for multiple time zones for a global user base and full import and export capabilities for even faster deployment.
“Plant personnel are now mobile so they require immediate access to real-time operations information via their smart phone, tablet or whatever mobile device they carry,” said Saadi Kermani, Wonderware SmartGlance product manager, Schneider Electric. “Wonderware SmartGlance 2014 R2 software delivers highly relevant information coming from industrial data sources to targeted plant workers in the form of personalized charts, reports and alerts. It provides them with the flexibility they need to view and instantly collaborate around real-time plant data on any device so they can make rapid, effective decisions.”
With a small install footprint and no additional hardware requirements, the Wonderware SmartGlance implementation process is fast and simple. MyAlerts, the software’s newest mobile app feature, proactively notifies users of process events so they can stay current with real-time information based on configurable thresholds for tag reports. The software can be used with smart watches to alert mobile and remote field workers, plant supervisors and managers of critical production and process information in a real-time, hands-free manner.
By leveraging the combined power of mobility and Schneider Electric’s cloud-hosted managed services, the software empowers mobile and remote users with the right information at the right time, without disruption or distraction, so they can quickly assign resources and resolve issues. It also features an open interface to connect and push data to mobile devices from virtually any data source, including historians, manufacturing execution systems, enterprise manufacturing intelligence systems or any real-time system of record. It also provides connectors for accessing data from any SQL database and any OPC-HDA-compatible system for better access to third-party data sources and systems. This most recent version also extends connectivity to key Schneider Electric software products, including its Viejo Citect SCADA offering, InStep PRiSM predictive asset analytics software and the InStep eDNA historian.
You might also check out my podcast interview with Kermani.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 4, 2014 | Automation, Manufacturing IT, Networking, News, Operations Management
This announcement came to me yesterday afternoon. ABB is joining the Industrial Internet Consortium.
This announcement is interesting in a couple of ways. First, it reminds us that ABB is a large company that plays in the discrete (factory automation) space, as well as, power and process automation. Second, it is the first I’ve seen that ties the Industrial Internet Consortium to Germany’s Industrie 4.0.
Following is the press release:
ABB has for years advanced the Industrial Internet via the company’s control systems, communication technology and industrial sensors. These help customers use data to optimize operations on offshore platforms, in mining and robotics, aboard marine vessels and in the chemical and paper industries.
ABB will join the IIC starting in 2015 to foster collaboration among technology companies as they seek to establish global standards for the Industrial Internet. ABB will work with others to ensure that end users reap the benefits it promises: improved efficiency, reduced costs and higher revenue.
“This gives us more opportunities to influence what is happening in the development of the Industrial Internet,” said Claes Rytoft, ABB Chief Technology Officer. “The Industrial Internet holds incredible promise to transform manufacturing, energy and resource industries.”
The Industrial Internet reflects the accelerating application of sensors, software and improved communication technology, allowing engineers to leverage enormous volumes of data from industrial systems to boost efficiency.
The Industrial Internet is at the core of Industry 4.0, Germany’s initiative for increased computerization of manufacturing. ABB has actively contributed to the creation of the Industry 4.0 vision and is actively working towards implementation of this ambitious undertaking.
“The Industrial Internet is transformational – it changes the way we work,” said Dr. Richard Soley, Executive Director of the Industrial Internet Consortium. “The Industrial Internet presents new opportunities for cost savings, energy savings and other efficiencies.”
ABB centrally monitors thousands of industrial robots and for decades and has helped utilities collect data crucial for a deeper understanding of how to make their electricity grids safer and more reliable. And ABB has thousands of software developers dedicated to improving the functionality of the Industrial Internet, leading to leaner operations and faster response times.
Today, evolving communication technology and lower sensor costs, combined with higher performance of computers, offer new opportunities to collect, evaluate and integrate even more information from industrial facilities to boost efficiency, fine-tune maintenance and trim energy costs.
“The Industrial Internet makes it possible to collect and integrate much more information than we ever have before,” Rytoft said. “The question is, what will that lead to going forward? It’s still a bit early to say, but there are many exciting opportunities.”
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 3, 2014 | Automation, Networking, Operations Management, Technology
You cannot attend a Rockwell Automation event and escape an industrial Ethernet discussion. This year’s Automation Fair was no exception. I met with Sr. VP and CTO Sujeet Chand and a host of Cisco people for a half-hour to discuss networking technology and the health of the Cisco/Rockwell partnership (it’s healthy, by the way).
This year we discussed a lot of wireless. And one announcement from the event was the release of a white paper/design and implementation guide, “Deploying 802.11 Wireless LAN Technology within a Converged Plantwide Ethernet Architecture.” The detailed design guidance is designed to help control system engineers, IT network engineers, and system integrators implement standard, IP-based wireless networks in a more robust, secure and scalable way.
The guide provides in-depth information on 802.11 wireless LAN (WLAN) solutions within a “Converged Plantwide Ethernet” (CPwE) architecture, including design considerations for fixed position, nomadic and mobile equipment use cases. It also includes explanations for how to configure, maintain and troubleshoot WLAN for each use case, and detailed documentation on how the architectures were tested and validated by Cisco and Rockwell Automation. With this new resource, network designers can create a small network within a plant using a single autonomous access point, and scale up to create a larger, unified WLAN architecture.
“Wireless has an increasingly important role in the industrial network infrastructure,” said Ashok Patel, network architect at Owens Corning, the world’s largest manufacturer of fiberglass technology. “Managing both data collection and automation control over 802.11 is viable today if you understand and deploy the architecture and design best practices outlined in the new resources from Rockwell Automation and Cisco.”
“Wi-Fi networks (or IEEE 802.11) are incredibly useful in factory and plant applications – so useful that manufacturers must thoughtfully plan their Wi-Fi networks as an infrastructure serving all types of applications,” said Harry Forbes, senior analyst, ARC. “This new and timely resource from Rockwell Automation and Cisco incorporates lessons that many manufacturers learned through experience.”
Rockwell Automation and Cisco are committed to being one of the most valuable resources in the industry for helping manufacturers improve business performance by bridging the technical and cultural gaps between plant-floor automation and higher-level information systems. Through successful collaboration on products, services, validated architectures and educational resources, the two companies help manufacturers converge their network infrastructure, and bring together IT and operations using a secure, IP-based network to help drive the vision of The Connected Enterprise.
