Update on Plex Systems, Stand-alone MES and IIoT

I had an opportunity to talk with Ben Stewart, VP Product Strategy for Plex Systems, the other day to get my first deep dive for years. I talked with the company occasionally, but it was primarily an ERP developer with a robust MES incorporated. Much has happened lately.

What has set Plex apart for years is its SaaS, multi-tenant cloud offering. While competitors have only recently found a way to move from the license-based, client-server model to some form of cloud offering using browser-based connectivity with HTML 5 to offer visualization through tablets and smart phones.

Plex has made several moves within the past year to bolster its presence and offering and along the way garnered a Gartner recognition. First, Plex has made its MES available without its ERP so that users of other ERP solutions can add Plex SaaS MES. The second news is the Gartner recognition. And the third news item discusses Plex entering the IoT space through acquisition giving it a robust and comprehensive solution to its customers.

Plex Manufacturing Execution Suite (Plex MES)—a flexible cloud-based suite.

Plex Systems manufacturing operations capabilities are now available as a best-of-breed shop floor-specific offering called the Plex Manufacturing Execution Suite (Plex MES). This cloud-based suite is comprised of packages that satisfy the spectrum of smart manufacturing needs from MES to manufacturing operations management (MOM).

“Plex allowed us to quickly standardize our systems and processes across eight facilities globally, helping the company record production and quality checks in real-time,” said Jennifer McIntosh, ERP Manager of Gill Industries, a world-class supplier of advanced mechanisms and welded assemblies. “With the entire company now working from a single system of record, we are able to leverage MES capabilities to continuously improve our quality standards and optimize processes while reallocating our staff to focus on value-added business activities instead of system and server maintenance.”

Plex MES is designed to seamlessly connect insights from the shop floor up to the top floor, enabling production to deliver relevant real-time, operational information to key roles throughout the organization and empowering everyone to make better business decisions.

Plex MES gives manufacturers access to key capabilities required for smart manufacturing, including:

    Error-proofed control: Choreographed production processes are driven directly from the quality control plan to shorten cycle times and improve efficiency. A unique operator control panel is paperless and easy-to-use, allowing for increased productivity and fewer manual input errors. In-line quality control governs quality activities to ensure check sheet compliance, and real-time production reporting allows for real-time decisions.
  • High-resolution visibility: The full production lifecycle—from raw materials through finished goods—is accessible from anywhere on any connected device. Operations are monitored in real-time, delivering manufacturing intelligence for more accurate decision-making. Compliance risk is mitigated through database-driven traceability information, while increased visibility to asset performance creates more opportunities for continuous improvement.
  • Seamless connectivity: Flexible, configurable cloud MES is connected by design. It is easy to deploy and standardize enterprise-wide while connecting to enterprise systems like a corporate ERP. Edge connectivity to industrial automation ensures at-rate production recording to Plex MES in the cloud. The Plex MES solution is fully unified, reducing the risk of disruptions common with an MES comprised of multiple point-solutions.

“There is an underserved need among large organizations to tap into the invaluable data generated in plants around the world,” said Bill Berutti, CEO of Plex Systems. “Plex MES answers that need by consolidating our 20 years of manufacturing expertise into a highly targeted smart manufacturing solution that enables operational visibility, transparency, and accuracy, helping manufacturers standardize operations across multiple plants.”

Gartner

Plex Systems announced that Gartner has recognized it as a Challenger in the 2019 Magic Quadrant for Manufacturing Execution Systems. For this report, Gartner evaluates vendors on their Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute. Plex is positioned furthest for Completeness of Vision in the Challengers quadrant and has improved its position on Ability to Execute compared to the previous year.

“We feel that recognition of Plex Systems as a Challenger is further validation of our ability to disrupt the MES market,” said Bill Berutti, CEO of Plex Systems. “Our manufacturing expertise is based on decades of helping customers exercise control over their shop floor operations while gaining access to invaluable data. Plex MES is flexible and scalable, answering a growing need among manufacturers to standardize their shop floors anywhere in the world.”

According to the 2019 Magic Quadrant for Manufacturing Execution Systems report, “The global MES market is a key pillar of smart factories and digital business for manufacturers. New technologies are starting to be leveraged, and disruptors are emerging. Supply chain technology leaders should use this research to select appropriate vendors and solutions.”

Plex delivers cloud MES and ERP to nearly 700 global process and discrete manufacturers. As a multi-tenant SaaS solution, manufacturers can easily implement, scale, and standardize operations with Plex across their plants throughout the enterprise.

Plex is also rated on Gartner Peer Insights, an online platform of ratings and reviews of IT software and services written and read by IT professionals and decision-makers. Verified, anonymous reviews provided by members of the Plex worldwide customer base include:

Plex Systems releases Industrial Internet of Things (IoT), a suite of solutions designed to solve business challenges generating from the shop floor.

Plex Systems released Plex Industrial IoT, which connects machines to the cloud, manages the resulting data streams, and contextualizes the information in real time. The first available offering will focus on asset performance management (APM), helping companies avoid manufacturing disruption caused by common problems like unplanned downtime, diminished machine performance, and substandard quality output.

Plex’s new solution enables manufacturers to implement and leverage connectivity in the era of Industry 4.0, breaking down siloes created by varying protocols and data types used by equipment and sensors by simplifying the connection to machines and the contextualization of data. Plex Industrial IoT grants access to the underlying machine intelligence, delivering to manufacturers timely and accurate insight in a single solution, eliminating operational surprises.

Plex Industrial IoT delivers:

  • Continuous improvement through access to historical IIoT data: The first solution within the suite focuses on asset performance management (APM), starting with an understanding of current and historical activity. This real-time assessment empowers shift supervisors and plant managers with the data to understand behaviors, trends, and diagnose root cause of common challenges like machine failures, efficiency dips, or substandard quality output.
  • Improved productivity with real-time asset dashboards: Plex Industrial IoT helps manufacturers monitor what is happening with any asset, in any facility, from any connected device with comprehensive pre-built dashboards. Customizable and real time, these dashboards deliver access to up-to-the-minute metrics and analytics. The information delivered by the dashboard enables manufacturing leaders to respond to live data immediately and accurately to improve operator performance or overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) mid-shift.
  • Minimized operational disruptions by predicting and preempting unplanned downtime: Data collected over time with Plex Industrial IoT, analyzed against historical trends and contextualized against MES and ERP data from the same facilities, will expose an unprecedented quality of shop floor to top floor insights. This reduces operational disruptions to help manufacturers better plan for the previously unanticipated.

This is Plex’s initial Industrial IoT offering following the acquisition of IIoT leader DATTUS in July 2018.

ABB Updated MOM

ABB Updated MOM

Suppliers of manufacturing software, some from surprising places, are putting sizable investments into products that will help customers reap the rewards of digitalization. Today, I’m looking at both ABB and Emerson Automation Solutions. Previously I checked out GE Digital and Rockwell Automation. Each has taken a slightly different course toward the goal, but notice the common thread of enhancing software products to help customers prosper.

ABB enhances manufacturing management technology

The new version of ABB Ability Manufacturing Operations Management will offer new features including:

  • Enhanced user experience based on new HTML 5 web client;
  • A new smart interactive dashboard application that provides greater visibility and collaboration;
  • A new statistical process control (SPC) application, to determine if each process is in a state of control;
  • A new Batch Compare application – for advanced batch analysis.

“ABB Ability Manufacturing Operations Management is a comprehensive, scalable and modular software suite that optimizes visibility, knowledge and control throughout the operations domain,” said Narasimham Parimi, Head of Digital Products – Product Management, Process Control Platform. “This release provides a range of rich new functionality and a new enhanced user experience that enables operations to become more productive and responsive.”

ABB Ability Manufacturing Operations Management is designed to simplify production management by enabling performance monitoring, downtime management, and maintenance support, as well as providing statistical production analysis tools. It provides solutions and tools to facilitate the collection, consolidation and distribution of production, quality and energy information via the plant’s web-based reports, trends, and graphs.

A new, self-service dashboard application promotes increased collaboration, providing visibility from shop floor to top floor and spanning IT and OT environments. It increases data connectivity to all apps and modules within the MOM suite, combining historic and manufacturing data and providing the user with improved customization capabilities. Dashboards can be shared amongst users, further promoting collaboration between teams. Trends and events are displayed together, which enables customers to identify issues and opportunities enabling informed and timely decisions.

The new common services platform features an HTML 5 web platform that runs across all suites ensuring customers have a seamless user experience, so that applications can be viewed on different devices right down to a 10-inch tablet.

Statistical data process control (SPC) is used in manufacturing to determine if each process is in a state of control. The new SPC application works across all the different apps and modules and helps the user to improve quality and production related performance.

In addition to the existing Batch View and Batch Investigate features, a comparison option has been added to the platform’s batch analysis applications, allowing different types of comparison.

Cyber security remains one of the key issues in the advancement of Industry 4.0, and the new features in MOM include enhanced security.

Emerson Expands Analytics Platform

Plantweb Insight platform adds two new Pervasive Sensing applications that manage wireless networks more efficiently with a singular interface to the enterprise.

Emerson has added two new IIoT solutions to its Plantweb Insight data analytics platform that will enable industrial facilities to transform the way they manage their enterprise-level wireless network infrastructure.

As digitalization and wireless technology adoption continue to rapidly expand in industrial facilities throughout the world, the need for greater visibility of network infrastructure performance is key. These new Plantweb Insight applications provide a quick-to-implement, scalable IIoT solution that helps customers advance their digital transformation strategies and achieve greater operational efficiencies.

The new Plantweb Insight Network Management application provides continuous, centralized monitoring of WirelessHART networks. This first-of-its-kind application provides a singular, consolidated view of the status of all wireless networks in a facility, with embedded expertise and guidance for advanced network management.

A key feature of the Plantweb Insight Network Management application is a configurable mesh network diagram, providing visualization of network design and connections along with device-specific information. It also provides an exportable record of syslog alerts, network details outlining conformance to network best practices and more.

While the new network management application provides a holistic look at wireless networks, the Plantweb Insight Power Module Management application drills down to the device level, allowing facilities to keep their wireless devices appropriately powered so they can continuously transmit key monitoring data. By aggregating power module statuses, users can evolve traditional maintenance planning and implement more efficient and cost-effective practices.

“We were able to infuse a decade of experience with wireless technology into these new offerings,” said Brian Joe, wireless product manager with Emerson’s Automation Solutions business. “Our customers will now be able to manage and improve hundreds of networks through a singular interface, realizing significant efficiencies in individual network and wireless device management and maintenance.”

These new applications further enhance the Plantweb Insight platform, a set of pre-built analytics primarily focusing on monitoring key asset health. Other applications in the platform include pressure relief valve monitoring, heat exchanger monitoring and steam trap monitoring.

Market Research Firm Says Digital Transformation to Drive Adoption of Manufacturing Operations Management Software

Market Research Firm Says Digital Transformation to Drive Adoption of Manufacturing Operations Management Software

‘Tis the season—for market research reports. This one again from a firm I don’t know (but quite European centric)—by Transparence Market Research attempts to gauge the size and growth of the Manufacturing Operation Management (MOM) software market. I did not get a chance to chat with the company, but I find the list of companies “surveyed” interesting. Note, this software was previously (before ISA 95) Manufacturing Execution Solutions (MES), and when I did work in the space Manufacturing (prior-Materials) Resource Planning.

According to the market report, the global manufacturing operations management software market is projected to reach a value of US$ 17 Bn by 2027. The MOM software market is projected to expand at a CAGR of about 10% from 2019 to 2027. Growth of the market can be attributed to the shift of manufacturing toward digitization. [Note: I propose that as companies have acquired other companies, the MOM of choice—Microsoft Excel—became to cumbersome and not scalable. Add to this thought, the burgeoning data available through the Internet of Things.]

Asia Pacific is anticipated to dominate the manufacturing operations management software market at a CAGR of about 11% during the forecast period. In terms of revenue share, the manufacturing operations management software market is dominated by North America, followed by Europe. In 2019, the software segment is estimated to be valued at about US$ 5 Bn in the global manufacturing operations management software market, and see an opportunity of about US$ 10 Bn in terms of revenue from 2019 to 2027, reflecting a CAGR of about 9% during the forecast period.

The report does rightly point out that “MOM plays a vital role in integrating information systems on the shop floor, with business systems in corporate offices, leading to a gradual phasing-out of traditional paper-based systems.” They expect demand for manufacturing operations management software to increase during the forecast period due to these advantages offered by these systems.

Asia Pacific is one of the fastest growing markets in the global manufacturing operations management software market, as this region is witnessing increased adoption of new technologies. The manufacturing operations management software markets in North America and Europe are also expected to expand rapidly during the forecast period. [Gary’s note: have you ever seen one of these reports where the line on the graph did not reach upward from lower left to upper right?]

The research study includes the profiles of leading companies operating in the global manufacturing operations management software market. Key players profiled in the report include Siemens AG, ABB Ltd., Dassault Systems SA, Emerson Process Management, Honeywell, International Inc., General Electric Co., and Invensys plc. [Note: I’ll give them Invensys for historical data, but the software is now aggregated under AVEVA. I’d suggest a few additional players in the space.]

Rockwell Automation and PTC Launch Collaborative Offering

Rockwell Automation and PTC Launch Collaborative Offering

Wondering what Rockwell Automation is going to net out of its $1B investment in PTC that also netted John Genovesi a major promotion within the company? I have been. And here is the first release.

The companies have launched FactoryTalk InnovationSuite, powered by PTC, a software suite that enables companies to “optimize their industrial operations and enhance productivity by providing decision makers with improved data and insights.” The new suite delivers visibility of operations and systems status from one source of information inside the organization. The collaborative offering is the first to integrate technologies from both companies following the strategic partnership announcement in June.

FactoryTalk InnovationSuite, powered by PTC, improves connectivity to operational technology (OT) devices on the plant floor, natively supporting the rapid, scalable, and secure connection of the most commonly used industrial equipment. Combined with data from information technology (IT) applications and systems, decision makers can now gain a complete digital representation of their industrial equipment, lines, and facilities from anywhere in the enterprise.

“Our offering is unique in its ability to improve how companies capitalize on the IIoT by combining expertise from industry, technology, and plant-floor professionals,” said John Genovesi, incoming senior vice president, Enterprise Accounts & Software, Rockwell Automation. “Now we’re bringing innovative solutions from PTC together with leading analytics and Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) from Rockwell Automation for a differentiated industry solution.”

“We’re moving the needle on how leading-edge technology is applied in industrial environments,” said Catherine Kniker, Head of Strategic Alliances, PTC. “Manufacturers have seen digital technology rapidly change, but their execution continues to follow practices established for the legacy business. This bundled offering will help organizations accelerate time to value and reinvent how they compete by breaking down barriers across their operations through a comprehensive approach to operational intelligence.”

Included in this collaborative offering are the FactoryTalk Analytics and MOM platforms, as well as PTC’s ThingWorx Industrial IoT Platform, which includes industrial connectivity from Kepware, and the Vuforia augmented reality solution.

Key features of applications within the new collaborative offering include:

Intuitive, user-friendly interfaces that give users a view of the operations by combining data from multiple IT and OT sources and tailored to their role. An operations manager, for instance, can view overall performance of a facility, or multiple facilities, before researching the performance of specific equipment or factors impacting OEE.

Automated advanced analytics of IT and OT sources transform massive amounts of raw data into actionable or proactive information to improve performance and reduce the impact of downtime. Leveraging powerful artificial intelligence (AI) technology to simplify complex analytical processes, users can now proactively respond to issues ahead of any critical failures.

Augmented reality (AR) delivers more efficient and effective ways of looking at digital information within the physical world. AR enables more efficient training, wider knowledge sharing, and better first-time fix rates. Through the bundled offering, maintenance, for example, can receive digitized work instructions containing real-time performance and service history information so technicians can better diagnose and fix equipment correctly the first time.

FactoryTalkInnovationSuite.com

Schneider Electric Software Boosts Asset Performance, New Pricing Model, and Cloud Offering

Schneider Electric Software Boosts Asset Performance, New Pricing Model, and Cloud Offering

Schneider Electric Software boosts Asset Performance, pricing model, and cloud offering. They called it a Schneider Electric Software Innovation Summit in San Antonio a couple of weeks ago. But as we know, that part of Schneider Electric is moving over to the new AVEVA which will be 60% owned by Schneider Electric. So, is this the last Schneider Electric Software summit, or will all the new company be absorbed at the conclusion of the buyout period?

I had committed to another conference by the time Schneider announced its software one, so I was not there. They did send news releases and I also talked with a friend who was there in order to gauge a little bit of what was happening. One other thing I find interesting. On the process automation side, they are clearly branding the legacy Foxboro name. On this side, not so much talk about Wonderware and Avantis. So I guess there is still some branding flux on the software side of the business.

Key takeaways: Schneider evidently saw a weakness in its asset performance management offering and has partnered with a European leader to add strength to it. Answering the challenge of a newer competitor regarding pricing for software, Schneider announced expansion of its subscription pricing model. The third larger announcement reflects the growing importance (and acceptance) of the Cloud for IT structure.

Short view of the news: 

  • Extends Enterprise APM Offering through New Partnership with MaxGrip: Schneider Electric has partnered with leader in Asset Performance Management (APM) software, MaxGrip, to deliver a more comprehensive asset lifecycle management offering. This expanded offering will include assessment services and risk-based maintenance capabilities, helping customers define and execute APM strategies for maximum return on assets.
  • Extends Subscription Access Across Industrial Software Portfolio: Schneider Electric has expanded its subscription license model, enabling customers to purchase software licenses a la carte, providing greater value, new benefits and access to more industrial software applications than ever before. Subscription Access is now available when purchasing Engineering, Planning, Operations and Asset Performance, as well as Control and Information software solutions.
  • Expands Cloud Platform with New Performance Module: Schneider Electric has announced the continued expansion of its Insight cloud platform, powered by Wonderware Online. The new Insight Performance Module provides Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) monitoring, asset utilization analysis and downtime tracking in the cloud to enable operational efficiency improvement while reducing total cost of ownership.
  • Enhances Manufacturing Operations Management Offering for Mining Industry: Schneider Electric announced enhancements to its Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) solution for the Mining industry. By introducing real-time production accounting and inventory management, the enhanced solution will improve decision support, planning and reporting capabilities for mining companies, enabling them to meet their digital transformation goals.
  • Powers Roy Hill’s Remote Operations Center to Drive Digital Strategy: Schneider Electric announced the success achieved at independent iron ore operation in Western Australia – Roy Hill. By implementing Schneider Electric’s Mining industry software solution, Roy Hill has been able to consolidate end-to-end operational visibility and optimize its mining value chain.
  • Drives Digital Transformation in Food & Beverage with New Industry Solutions: Schneider Electric announced three new solutions –  Energy Performance, Advanced Process Control and Label Assurance – all aimed at solving industry challenges from growing environmental and sustainability regulations, higher energy costs, consumer demands and product quality and safety standards. The solutions empower F&B manufacturers to simultaneously improve efficiency, quality and performance by delivering real-time visibility, control and intelligence across operations and functional areas.

APM Offering

Schneider Electric announced a new partnership with MaxGrip that will enable a more comprehensive asset lifecycle management offering that includes assessment services and risk-based maintenance capabilities. This expanded offering will be available as part of Schneider Electric’s Enterprise Asset Performance Management (APM) solution.

This solution delivers a comprehensive view of asset health as a first step of an asset reliability strategy that takes into account business context to benchmark current performance and identify areas for improvement. Expert consultants will address a number of key areas of evaluation such as HSE (health, safety and environment), cost control, resource allocation, use of OT/IT systems and asset utilization. These insights will be translated into a pragmatic action plan to optimize production and improve margins while ensuring regulatory compliance.

As a result of this partnership, Schneider Electric can offer enhanced APM capabilities that allow customers to better strategize and optimize maintenance execution according to asset criticality for optimal business results. Risk analysis, what if analysis and asset management strategic review can provide detailed insight into asset reliability and performance, facilitating long-term strategic planning. Users can optimize operations by eliminating reoccurring incidents with root cause analysis, inventory management and strategy simulations to identify hidden inefficiency and drive value across the enterprise. An extensive library of asset reliability data and templates allows up to 90% faster time to deployment.

Subscription Access Across Industrial Software Portfolio

An expansion of the company’s subscription license model – Subscription Access – includes greater value, new benefits and access to more industrial software applications. Customers choosing this offering can benefit from reduced upfront costs, ease of license fee management, access to exclusive products, bundled capabilities and a lower total cost of ownership. Subscription Access is now available when purchasing Engineering, Planning, Operations and Asset Performance, as well as Control and Information software solutions.

Expands Cloud Platform with New Performance Module

Continued expansion of its cloud platform, Insight, powered by Wonderware Online, with new Insight Performance module that provides Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) monitoring, asset utilization analysis and downtime tracking in the cloud.

This Software as a Service (SaaS) offering offers the following capabilities:

  1. Light-weight applications that are easier to install, configure and maintain
  2. Virtually no on-premise servers or hardware requirement

Enhances Manufacturing Operations Management Offering for Mining Industry

The company announced enhancements to its Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) solution for the Mining industry. This initiative can help optimize the mining supply chain, drive efficiency and maximize utilization of all operating assets, resulting in better profitability.

This data, when made available to domain-specific decision support tools and integrated with supply chain and enterprise resource planning systems, unlocks new levels of intelligence to drive continuous improvement. Eliminating manually entered production values while breaking down pervasive operational data silos can minimize time, errors and costs associated with manual and duplicate data-entry, further enhancing agility and efficiency.

Select improvements of Schneider Electric Software’s MOM solution for the Mining industry include:

  • User selectable point in time feature for ‘Inventory data reprocessing’
  • Data reprocessing has improved performance by 4X
  • New “Calculated Inventory” feature to define custom calculations on captured inventory data
  • Ampla Planner, Gantt Chart usability and user experience enhancements
  • Client response times has improved performance by 2X
  • Wonderware Online InSight connectivity

Powers Roy Hill’s Remote Operations Center

The company announced the success achieved at Roy Hill, an independent iron ore operation in Western Australia. Roy Hill implemented a Schneider Electric Mining industry software solution to consolidate end-to-end operational visibility and optimize their mining value chain.

Roy Hill built a greenfield iron ore mine and mine process plant in the Pilbara region, a heavy haul railway system from mine-to-port, new port facilities in Port Hedland, and a Remote Operations Center (ROC) in Perth. Each of these infrastructure components were designed to meet its capacity of 55 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) of iron ore.

Most leading mining companies have historically evolved with organizational silos, usually between mines, processing facilities and logistics. In the age of increasing automation, data, and digitalization, these silos often prevent end-to-end visibility and optimization opportunities to realize resource to market potential. Through its efforts, as no small accomplishment, Roy Hill has been able to avoid these pitfalls with the help of its ecosystem partners, including Schneider Electric.

Roy Hill implemented Schneider Electric’s industrial software offering tailored for the mining industry, which included the following specific solutions:

  • Demand Chain Planning and Scheduling (DCPS)
  • Inventory Tracking and Quality Management (ITQM)
  • Delay Accounting (DA)
  • Capacity Simulation Model (Pre-CAPEX Analysis)

Drives Digital Transformation in Food & Beverage

Three new Food and Beverage manufacturing solutions were announced as part of the company’s ongoing effort to drive operational excellence, efficiency and performance while enabling regulatory and food safety compliance.

Food and Beverage and Consumer Packaged Goods manufacturers face a number of challenges, which are potentially impacting profitability. Growing environmental and sustainability related regulations are resulting in higher energy costs. Product yields must continually be improved to meet an increasingly diverse set of consumer demands. Each of these industry challenges must be addressed while maintaining product quality and safety standards to avoid product recalls and ensure continued consumer trust and confidence.

Three new industry solutions from Schneider Electric can help manufacturers to address these challenges:

  • Energy Performance – provides improved visibility into energy usage, enabling opportunities to reduce consumption and costs
  • Advanced Process Control (APC) – allows manufacturers to improve yield and product quality by minimizing unpredictable variations in the drying process
  • Label Assurance – ensures compliance through 100% label inspection checks; reduces recalls

These solutions empower Food and Beverage manufacturers to simultaneously improve efficiency, quality and performance by delivering real-time visibility, control and intelligence across all operations and functional areas.

Follow this blog

Get a weekly email of all new posts.