by Gary Mintchell | Feb 4, 2015 | Automation, Internet of Things, News, Operations Management, Software, Technology
Predictive technology in the asset performance arena seems to be the trend of the week. I wrote yesterday about a solution. Today brings another announcement. I think I’ll learn more about this one next week at the 2015 ARC Forum in Orlando. (By the way, if you’re there, please look me up.)
The headline for this article came from GE. I’ve heard of predictive maintenance (which many aspire to and few achieve) and condition-based maintenance (similar but, I guess, different). Here they combine the two. Check it out and let me know what you think.
GE’s Measurement & Control business and Meridium Inc. introduce Production Asset Reliability (PAR), an integrated Asset Performance Management (APM) offering for an all-in-one view of equipment health. Combining GE Measurement & Control’s System 1 condition monitoring and diagnostic applications with Meridium’s suite of enterprise performance management and asset strategy solutions, PAR provides a holistic and quantifiable view of operations, maintenance, availability and overall operating performance for production assets.
System 1, GE’s patented condition monitoring software, helps users quickly diagnose potential equipment and instrument health issues which can lead to equipment failure. Meridium’s applications provide structured processes and analytics to identify critical assets and failure modes, calculate equipment reliability and determine downtime impacts. The integrated PAR solution provides an end-to-end process that connects the machine diagnostics to the business context and execution to drive optimized maintenance practices and production loss management for all asset-intensive industries.
“Today’s measurement, monitoring and management systems are disconnected, and, as a result, organizations fail to leverage quality data for actionable insights,” said Art Eunson, general manager for Bently Nevada, GE Measurement & Control, a GE Oil & Gas division. “GE and Meridium’s integrated PAR offering empowers our customers with the ability to connect identification, evaluation and execution for greater asset optimization and productivity.”
Asset intensive organizations are challenged to maximize production, minimize costs, follow regulations and manage risk. To balance the demanding requirements, operators require a more cohesive system that assesses equipment performance and manages the resulting data. GE and Meridium provide this comprehensive solution for customers to effectively measure, monitor and manage each connected asset.
“With greater availability of big data and connected assets, there is an end-to-end picture of plant operations waiting to be tapped by organizations from the plant floor to the corporate office in order to stay competitive on a global scale,” said Bonz Hart, Meridium Founder and CEO. “PAR measures performance, quantifies risk and delivers analytics in real-time, providing customers with the insight needed to effect real change, improve efficiency and reduce maintenance costs.”
The Oil & Gas industry demand solutions that can grow with business demand and adapt rapidly to changing technical environments. That is why GE’s industrial solutions such as System 1 are standardizing on GE’s software platform for the Industrial Internet, Predix.
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 4, 2015 | Leadership
One thing about living most of my life in the same small city, I have seen many people grow from stage to stage in life. I remember when a bunch of guys were in their 30s and 40s. They were posturing for importance. Living an upscale and hard-driving lifestyle. Now they are 60s and 70s. They, for the most part, have come to see what’s really important in life—relationships, service, being comfortable in who they are.
Lure of Lifestyle
My friend Jim Pinto, who has turned his attention from automation (since he doesn’t write for me anymore) to thoughts on how to live, reminds us to focus on what’s important. In Lure of Lifestyle, he says, “Now, I don’t feel particularly miserly, but I really don’t understand the rationale of the luxury lifestyle. In fact, I remember the remark of a guy who ignored the champagne at a fancy reception and asked for a beer. “Hey!” he said, “I’m rich enough to drink what I want, not what looks good.”
These days, when I see somebody posturing beyond their means, I remember a Texas cattleman’s wisecrack: “Big hat, no cattle!” This was the name of a song by Randy Newman.”
Fits a Career
I think this fits a career, too. Most of the time I’ve been in leadership (I wish I had been this good all the time), the important question became, “How can I help you?” After defining roles and hiring the best people (I’ve missed a few times, much to my downfall—one guy turned out to be quite the political manipulator), that is the best approach to management.
I’m reminded of a story about a guy who was trying to impress neighbors in an upper middle class neighborhood. One neighbor was actually quite wealthy, although you’d never know it from the way he lived (with simplicity).
Seems the guy seeking to impress through a party for his “friends” in the neighborhood. He gave the guests a tour of his wine cellar–his pride and joy. Then he showed the big prize–a very expensive bottle of wine.
The rich guy said, “Well, let’s just pop that thing open and see how good it is.” I’m saving it for a special occasion was the reply. “Heck,” continued the rich guy, “you’ve got all your friends over here for a big celebration. This is a special occasion.”
Think he knew that that bottle of wine was just for show? Only there to impress people?
Management style
As we lead and manage, we should check to see how much display we have around us meant only to impress. This can be changed to thinking about how much we can help others so that we together accomplish awesome results.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 30, 2015 | Automation, News
Control system integrators and industry suppliers from around the globe will gather in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 29 – May 2 for the CSIA 2015 Executive Conference. This is a conference I’ve never been able to work into my schedule, but reports from many people testify that this is a worthwhile conference. I know that the association has been working hard to promote integrators and to boost their skills.
Economist Alan Beaulieu, president of ITR Economics, will open the conference with his latest economic outlook for manufacturing. This year, Beaulieu will be joined on the stage by Nick Setchell, CEO of Practice Strategies, for a “stump the experts” session, during which attendees can ask the speakers questions on external and internal financial influences on their business. Their presentations will be the first of more than 20 educational sessions offered throughout the three-day event.
New this year are two workshops that will be held in conjunction with the conference. The Best Practices Training workshop will be offered Tuesday, April 28 – Wednesday, April 29, for those who are interested in learning more about the application of CSIA’s best practices to improve their system integration businesses. The training will focus on the management areas that are most challenging for growing integration companies.
A second workshop created for project managers, control engineers and designers will be held concurrently with the Executive Conference. A Commonsense Approach to Automation Upgrades and System Migrations will be offered Thursday, April 30 – Friday, May 1. Workshop participants are invited to participate in all conference social events.
Those attending the conference will have multiple opportunities for networking, including an industry expo, awards banquet and a closing reception during which Executive Director Bob Lowe will be honored. Lowe is retiring in June.
Last year, a record-breaking 538 people attended the conference, including more than 80 system integrators, partners and guests from outside the United States. See the complete details and register at the CSIA 2015 Executive Conference website.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 29, 2015 | Data Management, Manufacturing IT, News, Operations Management, Software
This press release from a company new to me came from a PR person whom I have known for years. So, I trust him to not feed me much BS (as some try to do). This is from an MES developer called Critical Manufacturing whose product is cmNavigo.
The software sounded interesting, but some words were used in the release that raised my “meter” level. The phrase, “the most modern, comprehensive and unified MES system available for complex manufacturing operations”, just laid there inviting questions. So, I asked. Here is the answer by way of introducing this company and its latest product.
I asked about “most,” “modern,” “comprehensive,” and “unified.” Each of those words are important, but beg for explanation. Here is the response. “Key to the argument is the fact that their system is designed for complex processes used in manufacture of high technology products such as semiconductors, electronics and medical devices. cmNavigo is modern in that it is built on the latest Microsoft platform; it is comprehensive in that it integrates more than 30 MES functions; and it is unified in that all of this functionality is native to cmNavigo, not relying on third parties. They know of no other MES vendor designing for this market that can make all three of those claims.”
That is fair.
By the way, there is a webcast with Julie Fraser moderating February 19th webinar. Register here.
Press release
Critical Manufacturing, a supplier of integrated manufacturing execution systems (MES) to empower operations of the global high-technology manufacturing industry, introduces cmNavigo 4.0, the industry’s first comprehensive MES software with embedded finite scheduling. By tightly unifying scheduling into critical MES functions in a modern, Microsoft-based operations management system, cmNavigo 4.0 software improves on-time delivery, shortens total cycle time, and makes better use of plant resources.
“As margins in global high-technology manufacturing shrink, many manufacturers are finding that their legacy MES systems don’t have the flexibility and functionality to meet the demands of today’s volatile markets. The new scheduling, quality control, warehouse management, and shift handoff capabilities we are announcing today reflect our commitment to provide the most modern and unified MES solution available,” said Francisco Almada-Lobo, CEO, Critical Manufacturing. “This new functionality will help manufacturers improve cost control, better manage inventory, and boost productivity of advanced, discrete production operations.”
New Scheduling Functionality Optimizes Production to Meet Customer Demand
cmNavigo 4.0 scheduling models plant floor resources and defines the role of each in fulfilling a mix of orders in an optimal near-term time frame, driven by customer demand. Schedules can be weighted around multiple production criteria and key performance indicators, such as minimizing delivery delays, maximizing machine loads, and reducing cycle times.
Built on Microsoft application development layers, the new scheduling application integrates with more than 30 extensible MES applications. These provide visibility and traceability, operational efficiency, quality management, factory integration, operations intelligence, and factory management. The modern architecture empowers operations managers to configure and extend models and define workflows without the need for programming.
Integrating scheduling and other MES functionality so tightly avoids duplication of master data, allows real-time updates across different areas of the plant floor, and eliminates the need to maintain separate interfaces. Other new cmNavigo integrated applications announced today deliver the following capabilities:
- Lot-based sampling enables automated calendar or time-based sampling of production.
- Document management provides visualization, control, and approval of shop-floor, operations-related documents.
- Warehouse management synchronizes exchange of information and material between the warehouse and the plant floor.
- Durables-tracking simplifies tracking of durable components such as boards, fixtures, tooling and masks, supporting recipe management, maintenance, exception handling, and data collection.
- A shift logbook enhances both performance and safety by regulating exchange of critical information between shifts.
The new scheduling, sampling, factory management, tracking and logbook features of the software combine to address a wide range of MES needs in semiconductor manufacturing, electronics manufacturing, and medical device manufacturing and other manufacturing industries that might have both high mix and high volume lines. cmNavigo 4.0 software is available now for implementation throughout the world.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 21, 2015 | Manufacturing IT, Operations Management, Software
Tim Sowell, Schneider Electric Fellow and Vice President, is always thinking two or three steps ahead of the rest of us. His weekly blog is on my must-read list. This week he tackles the future role of systems integrators—assuming that manufacturing software becomes much more configurable out of the box (therefore requiring much less custom code).
“In a number of discussions this week and last year it was clear that in the next 5 to 10 years the role and way traditional System Integrators work in the Industry Supervisory/ Operational/ Information space, will transform significantly. Especially those serving the smaller to medium industrial market, customers will demand accelerated solutions with a different model of project management, e.g., no RFP, no long project cycle, expect pre canned domain knowledge. They will want setup fast, and results with understandable costs. Similar to Sales Force.com where your CRM system can be set up in days, is the model that early adopters are testing in 2014, and I expect to grow in 2015.”
I tweeted this out Sunday and wound up in an interesting Twitter conversation with Andy Robinson (@archestranaut). A couple of other people chimed in. More on that below.
No offense meant to the sales function, but manufacturing operations software is of necessity much more complex. Sowell implies that there is some beta or alpha testing going on, but it will be interesting to see how that develops. One of the biggest challenges is for the customer to rationalize and understand its operations such that a configurable solution will be feasible.
Sowell continues:
“So what is changing is that users are now wanting:
- Solutions faster, minimal project removal of the project RFP process
- Less involvement
- Expect domain experience built in
- Minimal impact on internal resources
- Minimal risk
- “Good enough” will do if it improves and minimal impact or up front cost
- Minimal up front cost.
“So the new generation of System Integrator in the industrial world will be a “solution provider”. Providing a service of domain solutions hosted and built on an digital industrial platform from vendors such as Schneider-Electric. They will engage the customer in 3 to 5 year service contracts, but projects will be in weeks not months, years, RFPs will go away to selecting modules and completing configuration questionnaires.”
This begins another crucial thought process for systems integrators. I remember the height of the open systems movement from the late 90s through the early 2000s. SIs wondered if open systems would put them out of business. No more custom coding proprietary systems.
I suggested that open systems would require even more work from SIs, because someone would have to tie the parts together. In many ways, I don’t think open systems were as revolutionary as we thought they would be. However, the thought process did yield a number of standard interconnect technologies.
Now onward to operations management software. My next post after this one, as fate would have it, concerns just such a configurable system as Sowell envisions. In that case, much of the work can be done without systems integrators. The process is designed for small-to-medium-sized businesses presently, but it will be interesting to see how far the concept can be stretched.
Here is a glimpse of the twitter conversation I had with Andy Robinson:
@garymintchell – Controversial to system integrator community? “System Integrators Transformation to Solution Providers” http://invensyssysevolution.blogspot.com/2015/01/traditional-system-integrators.html …
@archestranaut – it will take a massive shift in thinking for customers but must start with the software platforms first
@archestranaut – yes bc the current solutions aren’t even close to good enough to just point click configure.
@archestranaut – also until customers are ready to accept 95% out of the box functions ala salesforce or google docs we aren’t there
@garymintchell – yes. How about need to rationalize processes before adding software? You can’t just slap software at a problem?
@archestranaut – agreed. We are light years from even the WordPress model where out of the box gets you 80% +19% with 3rd party themes
@archestranaut – but then again Tim thinks way out beyond what average folks are thinking.
