by Gary Mintchell | Jan 27, 2014 | Operations Management
A couple of Invensys (now Schneider, I’ll wait for the official announcement about how to name it) executives have been blogging some thoughtful pieces. Here is another one from Tim Sowell, VP and Invensys Fellow on Collaborative Manufacturing.
We’ve been discussing this topic for years as the ease of digital communications just keeps improving. Tim steps back and looks at the requirements:
“An effective Collaborative Manufacturing strategy requires business processes to include more inputs and interactions than most traditional processes. To support Collaborative Manufacturing, information systems must integrate and aggregate information from across the manufacturing business and from its suppliers, trading partners, and customers. It must also provide the means to intelligently distribute that information across various business entities.”
So how can small enterprises now leverage the technology previously available only available to larger enterprises?
“Key to me is that fact that small enterprises can now leverage “Managed service” in the cloud that deliver the rich operational business capability of inventory management, operational process and manufacturing, and specification management which was only available to much larger companies. Now an end to end product chain can be developed with aligned a process and enable a product manufacturer to divided up over multiple operations, each operation executed by a small manufacturing entity.”
Sowell concludes:
“A Collaborative Manufacturing strategy can help a company maximizes the effectiveness of its value chain in order to better control profits and address changing market demands.
Is this real, my answer is yes, I was on a plane last week, and two fellow travelers talked about the alliance and the seeking out others to make this ecosystem, combined with the agility of 3D printing, and then assemble these two expected to grow and had a good pipeline due to satisfy the ‘pay on delivery, with small order sizes’ also the ability to have local final assembly close to distribution centers and significant retailers make them more desirable to occupy the ‘shelf space’. Both agree the reality is only now that the tracking and management are common across the plants in a hosted ‘managed service’.”
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 22, 2014 | Operations Management, Software, Standards
I was introduced to the IT/software manufacturing control layer (level 3 of the Purdue model) in 1977. My boss was a VP and wanted to expand his power base. I was his candidate. It was a great early learning experience–in technology as well as corporate politics.
Back then the IT/manufacturing world was transitioning from Material Requirements Planning (MRP) to Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRP II). Then suppliers began referring to their vertical solutions (work routing, batch records, laboratory information, quality, and more) as Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) signifying that one or more of these software solutions would help managers better execute (in the sense of getting it done rather than in the sense of shooting it).
A committee sanctioned by the International Society of Automation (ISA) dubbed “S95” undertook the task of defining all the tasks and intersections and workflows of manufacturing, building a model, and agreeing on common language to describe the lot. The standard is ANSI/ISA95. This standard names the category Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM).
Oh, in the meantime the MES Association (MESA) thought the Execution in the name to limiting, so it has changed to words to Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions.
Back to MRP II. I went off to “IBM school.” Much of what I learned should still be drilled into people today. Such as get your system right before adding information technology. Too often over the past 20 years or so managers have bought a technology (ERP or MES) and then tried to change business processes to fit the “solution.”
Guess what–that didn’t work out all that well. Took years to implement some systems.
Recently on the MESA LinkedIn group (a closed group for MESA members) a discussion sprang up as to whether the industry should standardize on MOM rather than MES (and MESA becomes MOMA???).
Some people don’t see much difference in the terms. I see a lot. You can now join a Webcast next week and see me on a panel with other MESA Technical Committee members discuss the topic. You can register here. The Webcast is live on your streaming Internet connection on Thursday, January 30th at 11:00 AM EST.
My view
Like the automobile advertisement says, “And is better than Or.” MOM actually incorporates and extends MES, so it is the better term and refers to more advanced thinking. This layer 3 stuff is not just about a bunch of vertical solutions. It’s about rationalizing manufacturing business and operations processes and then applying solutions to solve problems.
Meet the Panel
From the MESA press release, “Khris Kammer, MESA’s Technical Committee Chair, will host a panel of four long-time MESA contributors consisting of Dennis Brandl, Gerhard Greeff, Conrad Leiva and Gary Mintchell. We’ll hear opinions from each of the panelists, after which we’ll hold a question and answer session.”
Khris Kammer, Information Partner and Competency Manager
Rockwell Automation.
Dennis Brandl, Chief Consultant, BR&L Consulting, Inc.
Gerhard Greeff, Divisional Manager-Process Management & Control, Bytes Systems Integration Limited.
Conrad Leiva, VP Product Marketing and Alliances, iBASEt.
Gary Mintchell, Founder/Editor, The Manufacturing Connection
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 21, 2014 | Automation, Technology
There is definitely one executive out on the front lines providing thought leadership for what he calls the Manufacturing Renaissance in the US. Interestingly, he is German and CEO of a German company–well, regional CEO anyway.
Helmuth Ludwig, CEO of Siemens Industry USA, just held his second press conference of the year touting manufacturing improvements. First he was at the Detroit Auto Show discussing digital manufacturing. Now, he was promoting an article he has co-authored with Siemens Corp. US CEO, Eric Spiegel. The article was published in strategy+business, a publication of global management consulting firm Booz & Co.
Once again, Ludwig discusses a new wave of software innovation that he says is about to “transform industry—and give the United States the chance for a lasting edge.”
Ludwig looks at the numbers and notes, “The industrial sector in the United States is rebounding. Manufacturers are boosting output, building new plants, increasing exports, and creating better-paying jobs that require precise skills—and in the process are helping lead the U.S. out of the long, stubborn slump that followed the market disruptions of 2007. A growing number of political and business leaders, economists, and commentators are taking notice, and talking about a domestic ‘manufacturing renaissance’.”
Ludwig is convinced of the importance of software leading the way. Following are his “Software’s Impact on the Five Steps of Product Development and Production.”
- Product design: Increasingly powerful visualization and simulation software is enabling manufacturers to speed and improve product design, testing, and optimization.
- Production planning: Automation design technology makes it possible to digitally design entire factories or individual pieces of equipment, and then simulate and optimize against a range of production scenarios for cost, speed, productivity, utilization, energy usage, and quality.
- Engineering: Modern production may have hundreds of interrelated automation components. New software makes it possible for engineers to program and coordinate all automation tasks from a single portal, optimizing workflows and improving productivity.
- Execution: Manufacturing execution systems monitor production performance in real time, enabling short-term control of manufacturing output and long-term optimization of production-unit configuration.
- Service: Mobile devices, powerful networking, and “big data” analytics are enabling technology-based services opportunities such as remote monitoring and advanced predictive failure analysis that will reduce costs and improve utilization and productivity.
On the crucial importance of manufacturing to the overall economy, Ludwig says, “Beyond job creation, manufacturing plays a vital role in promoting innovation and long-term competitiveness. Every dollar generated by manufacturing supports US$1.48 of additional economic activity, according to the Manufacturing Institute, compared with $0.54 for retailing. And although manufacturing accounts for 12 percent of U.S. GDP, it provides nearly 70 percent of private-sector R&D and 90 percent of patents issued.”
And finally, he says, “To make the most of the manufacturing renaissance, however, the U.S. will also have to compete as a manufacturing location for high-value-added products designed for export. It is for this reason that the advantages the U.S. offers—as a base for the advanced, virtual-to-real manufacturing that is transforming the global industrial landscape—will become increasingly important. To understand why this transformation is so profound, it helps to look at how today’s advances fit within the historical context of manufacturing technology.”
In all the time since Siemens seriously entered the US market with the acquisition of the Texas Instruments PLC business in Johnson City, TN, quite frankly it has floundered. Market share dropped immediately, but then stablilized.
However, the leadership of Ludwig (and Raj Batra who heads the automation business and several others) has energized the company and made it much more competitive. Interesting times in the automation market in the US for sure.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 25, 2013 | Data Management, Education, Leadership, Operations Management
LNS Research just published a couple of blog posts of some interest. One concerns Operating Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and the other one on 14 Ways to Raise Executive Awareness on Manufacturing Business Impact. The first deals with manufacturing metrics and the latter with operations management.
The OEE post was essentially fishing twitter followers for comments. I’ve long had problems with OEE as a metric. Of course, I remember when OEE stood for Overall Equipment Efficiency. That was maybe more to the point. People have told me that they evaluate one machine builder over another based on OEE. Others evaluate one plant over another.
The main trouble is that there is no standard for collecting the data that goes into OEE. Often it depends upon operator input. And all of us who have actually worked with operators know that they are more concerned with production than with data collection. They will just click the button that is easiest and creates the least work in the future–as in discussions with engineers or managers. OEE can be useful, but only if you’re disciplined.
Mark Davidson wrote the other one. Many of the 14 ways are interesting. A couple are a bit self-serving. But I could boil it down to something I noticed 30 years ago in manufacturing. Leaders are readers. And leaders are inquisitive. The engineers and managers who get things done are the ones who read books and trade journals. They go to conferences to learn and network. They search out people with new ideas.
Speaking of new ideas, I send a special email to subscribers with a little more depth from things I’ve read or experienced. You can sign up by clicking on the envelop icon. I will not spam you–just send something interesting just about every week.
by Gary Mintchell | Jul 22, 2013 | Operations Management, Software
[Updated with corrected analyst information] Infor announced “Infor Business Intelligence (BI) 10x” last week. This new product is designed to modernize data processing and enrich manufacturing decision-making according to the press release.
Senior Product Manager Jan Gahde told me that Infor may not be widely recognized as a Business Intelligence supplier, but he noted that former Gartner analyst Howard Dresner, cited in his recent Wisdom of Crowds study says that Infor is actually ranked pretty highly.
The solution delivers advanced analytics and planning capabilities, self-service dashboards, and social collaboration for a more modern, mobile, and social experience. Core technologies include Infor ION and Infor Ming.le to create “an experience that surpasses the ordinary to maximize real-time visibility and cultivate business development.” The press release called it a “beautiful” user interface. When I challenged Gahde with that rather extreme word, he told me that Infor has a design team focused on creating these modern, beautiful interfaces.
The solution leverages Infor ION, a lightweight middleware, to connect with the Infor ION Business Vault to provide information in real-time, in-context data, and deliver more reliable reporting that is not impacted by operational business application upgrades.
