Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Top MES questions that will give you insight

Dear Friend of MESA,
 
If you have experience with plantwide software, we need your help to educate the industry on benefits from MES/MOM. Did your project give you what you expected? More? Less?

Please fill out this survey.
  
MESA is partnering with leading IT advisory group Gartner Inc., to conduct a study on the business value of MES.

MESA Members will get access to the final report. You can use these results to support your MES program investment initiatives or to facilitate a change in your company's MES strategy-and compare your experience against your peers!
                           
Please take the survey by June 7th.  You can also click on the link below.
Thank you in advance for your time and for keeping the industry moving forward!

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Press Release: MESA announces the publishing of MESA White Paper #43

Applying Global MOM Systems in a Manufacturing 2.0 Approach
CHANDLER, ARIZ., May 28, 2013 - What is the Global Best Practice for Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) systems and IT architecture? What practices do industry experts recommend for different manufacturing types and supply networks? Is your management thinking and corporate culture outdated for the changing global market? Is MOM technology too expensive and  your IT architecture unable to rapidly adapt to market change?

Manufacturing companies have long been reluctant to adopt the "new" thinking for operations work processes, especially where intelligent systems are making task-level decisions based on operations rules and real-time inputs. While plant equipment evolves continually, work processes supporting intelligent equipment are still primarily based on paper transactions to execute production orders, as if to say, "Our methods have worked for 20 years, why should we change them now?" With this thinking, the world of intelligence technology has evolved rapidly with only few adapting and most manufacturers left behind. The very few best-in-class manufacturers globally use the new developments in intelligent operations methods. The truly progressive ones have adopted these intelligent manufacturing developments most often through a trial and error process over 10-15 years.

So what do end user manufacturing technologists and manufacturing software vendors (MES/MOM vendors) need to change in their thinking?

These groups need to be exposed to the thinking and concepts of Manufacturing 2.0 (Mfg 2.0) as developed by the Gartner Group and then supported by case studies and Global Best Practice studies done by industry organizations such as MESA and the ISA-95 Best Practices Working Group. Once manufacturing companies start asking for flexible MOM systems based on Mfg 2.0 architecture, the vendors will follow.

This paper explores the four main perceptions and obstacles that the above-mentioned "best in class" progressive companies had to overcome to gain enterprise-wide acceptance of their MOM systems architecture as a corporate strategy.

The paper discusses four obstacles or perceptions as proof that end user manufacturing technologists and vendors are not progressive in their thinking, but reactive. These are:
  1. Why MOM and Not MES?
  2. Why Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) in Manufacturing?
  3. Why MDM for Manufacturing?
  4. Is EMI Best Positioned Against or With Business Intelligence (BI)?
For each of these concepts, what they mean and where they fit are explored individually to expose manufacturing technologists to the concepts and the benefits of accepting and working toward this vision. The paper concludes by evaluating the different integration approaches used over the years and comparing them to the current proposed "best practice" and Mfg 2.0 vision.

This paper was produced as part of the MESA/ISA-95 Best Practices Working Group through an international peer review process involving 5 or more subject matter reviewers.  This MESA White Paper is also be published in the methodology best practices collection, The MOM Chronicles: ISA-95 Best Practices Book 3.0 (Published by ISA, February 2013)

All of MESA's white papers are available at www.mesa.org for MESA premium members, who have complimentary access to over 800 white papers, presentations, MOM/MES guidebooks, industry studies and web casts.

Authors:
Gerhard Greeff, Bytes PMC
Charlie Gifford, 21st Century Manufacturing Solutions LLC

Contributing Editor:
Mike James, ATS International B.V.
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About MESA International
MESA International (Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association) is a global not-for-profit industry association dedicated to improving outcomes for businesses and their people through the use of manufacturing information. MESA is comprised of manufacturers, producers, solution providers, and industry thought leaders collaborating to formulate practical strategies to turn plant-floor data into valuable knowledge for enterprise success. We do this by:
  • Collecting, sharing, and publishing best practices to help drive greater productivity and the overall profitability of the manufacturing enterprise. Over 800 webcasts, guidebooks, whitepapers, studies, and surveys are available for download in our Resource Library
  • Educating professionals through our IACET-accredited MESA Global Education Program (GEP).
  • Facilitating collaboration among members in over 40 countries who connect, contribute, cultivate understanding, and exchange strategies to drive business results through real-time enterprise and Plant to Enterprise (P2E) integration.
  • Creating partnerships with other industry associations and experts like the World Batch Forum (WBF). Our 2012 merger broadens our knowledge of ISA-95 related standards like B2MML, and ISA-88 related standards like BatchML.


Monday, May 20, 2013

MESA's Americas Board Chairman, Dennis Brandl's talk on Enterprise Recipe Management at OSIsoft's 2013 Users Conference.

MESA's Americas Board Chairman, Dennis Brandl's talk on Enterprise Recipe Management: ISA 88 Recipe Definitions and Exchange Across the Enterprise at OSIsoft's 2013 Users Conference.                       
 
Presentation Abstract:

We are living longer than ever before. We are healthier than ever before. We have more doctors, hospitals, medicines and health products than ever before. But, we have a problem with continuing to make these improvements. It still takes too long to get medicines and medical devices from lab to doctor to the patient, especially as we use more outsourcing and supply chain partners during the entire product development lifecycle. This talk presents the concept and examples of Enterprise Recipe Management, a method for the process industries to manage product definitions across their internal production chain and their extended supply chain. Companies using this approach have significantly reduced time and cost of technology transfers and validation. This talk will provide a foundation to understand how to use the ISA 88 and IEC 61512-3 standards for recipe management and the MESA BatchML standards for information exchanges in implementing Enterprise Recipe Management.

Speaker Bio:

Dennis Brandl is the founder and chief consultant for BR&L Consulting, specializing in Manufacturing IT applications, including Business-to-Manufacturing Integration, MES solutions, General and Site Recipe implementations, and automation system security. He has been involved in automation system design and implementation in a wide range of applications over the past 25 years. They have included biotech, pharmaceutical, chemical plants and oil refineries, food manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, and aerospace systems. Dennis Brandl has been an active member of the ISA 95 Enterprise/Control System Integration committee for the past ten years and is editor of the set of standards. He is a USA expert on batch control to IEC, is the former chairman of the ISA 88 Batch System control committee, and is the chairman of the IEC and ISO Joint Working Group on Enterprise/Control Integration. Mr. Brandl has written numerous papers and articles on business to manufacturing integration and flexible manufacturing solutions, has a regular column in Control Engineering, and has authored the book “Design Patterns for Flexible Manufacturing”, available through ISA. Brandl has a BS in Physics and an MS in Measurement and Control from Carnegie-Mellon University, and a MS in Computer Science from California State University.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Press Release: MESA announces the publishing of MESA White Paper #42

The Role of Semantic Models in Smarter Industrial Operations

CHANDLER, ARIZ., May 14, 2013 - The paper investiages the application of semantic model design and technology in industrial operations integration and the evolving role of Semantic Computing in operations management. Semantic (data) modeling as a core component of application architecture is compared to more familiar architectural integration patterns. As operations functions are described, the value of semantic models is illustrated through a series of examples that should be familiar to the reader.

Manufacturing best practices only match what is driven by competition; so to compete by differentiating its performance, each company must judiciously apply leading practices. Semantic Computing now has sufficient industrial application to be considered a leading practice. As such, various ways in which Semantic Computing supplements legacy technologies and possible longer term enhancements are suggested to facilitate operations safety and data integrity.

Three critical elements are often described in discussions around smarter plant solutions, of which semantic concepts are a key element. These three critical elements, the three “I”s as they are sometimes labeled, are “Instrumented,” “Intelligent” and “Interconnected.” These elements support the idea that much data are collected from the world around us and if we use the three “I”s to federate the data, operations intelligence is derived and with that we drive timely communication, response, and optimization around critical business tasks.

Important in this approach is the ability to interpret data for timely analysis and to derive understanding from a wide variety of sources in a wide range of formats and contexts. With Semantic Computing, the calculations and analysis are generalized to apply them to all instances of similar objects.

Data in the real world are subject to constant change. Therefore, structures need to be self-adapting and not rigidly predefined. This difference is referred to as the “Open World” versus the “Closed World.” Semantic modeling and its technology identify changes in underlying data and the potential interactions of those changes.

However, for the most part, the role of semantics is to alert a human promptly and in the appropriate context so that responses to those changes can be identified and appropriately acted upon.

Implemented semantic models can federate data from any connected data store into an agile, adaptive, fit-for-purpose model that leverages and extends industry standards and ontologies. When semantic models are coupled with applications that perform analysis, logic, reports, views, etc., which are easily and consistently applied and adapted, manufacturers are truly evolving to an global environment in which business and operations personnel are directly in control of their data, business and operations rules, and business and operations processes.This evolution is refered to as the “evolving ubiquitous computing model,” since computing power has become highly distributed and pervasive.

Industrial architectures must be designed to handle ever-changing, disparate data and implied, actual relationships between the data. Data sources include structured and unstructured data, sensor data (current value and historical), images, audio, and video. In addition, interactions of proposed data changes must be identified so that coordinated change is the rule and discovery is minimized. Not only does current data handling not fit well into standard relational persistence structures, but there is also the challenge to make sense of this data in context and adapt to additions, deletions, and changes with validation but without undue complexity.

This paper was produced as part of the MESA/ISA-95 Best Practices Working Group through an international peer review process involving 5 or more subject matter reviewers. This MESA White Paper is also be published in the methodology best practices collection, The MOM Chronicles: ISA-95 Best Practices Book 3.0 (Published by ISA, February 2013)

This white paper is available at: https://services.mesa.org/ResourceLibrary/ShowResource/cd41c356-ca0d-4128-93eb-25471b8c7508

All of MESA's white papers are available at www.mesa.org for MESA premium members, who have complimentary access to over 250 white papers, presentations, MOM/MES guidebooks, industry studies and web casts.

Authors:
Dave Noller, IBM
Tim Hanis, IBM
Michael Feldman, Savigent Software
Charlie Gifford, 21st Century Manufacturing Solutions LLC


Contributing Editors:
Jimmy Asher, Savigent Software
Bill Bosler, P.E., Texas Consultants, Inc.
Eyad A. Buhulaiga, Saudi Aramco


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About MESA International
MESA International (Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association) is a global not-for-profit industry association dedicated to improving outcomes for businesses and their people through the use of manufacturing information. MESA is comprised of manufacturers, producers, solution providers, and industry thought leaders collaborating to formulate practical strategies to turn plant-floor data into valuable knowledge for enterprise success. We do this by:


  • Collecting, sharing, and publishing best practices to help drive greater productivity and the overall profitability of the manufacturing enterprise. Over 800 webcasts, guidebooks, whitepapers, studies, and surveys are available for download in our Resource Library.
  • Educating professionals through our IACET-accredited MESA Global Education Program (GEP).
  • Facilitating collaboration among members in over 40 countries who connect, contribute, cultivate understanding, and exchange strategies to drive business results through real-time enterprise and Plant to Enterprise (P2E) integration.

Creating partnerships with other industry associations and experts like the World Batch Forum (WBF). Our 2012 merger broadens our knowledge of ISA-95 related standards like B2MML, and ISA-88 related standards like BatchML.

Friday, May 10, 2013

MESA ISO TC184/SC5/WG9 Meeting, May 13-15

The  ISO TC 184/ SC 5/ WG 9 will meet May 13-15, 2013 in Frankfurt, Germany. The ISO TC 184/ SC 5/ WG 9 meetings will start at 9:00 AM each day.  These meetings will include discussions on key performance indicators for manufacturing operations management. 

The meeting will be hosted by the German Engineering Federation.

Location:
Haus des VDMA, Lyoner Strasse 18
Frankfurt, Main, Germany



For more information, please review the meeting agenda that is linked on the MESA events page.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

New Versions of B2MML and BatchML Released

Companies interested in following ISA-95 for integration projects may use B2MML to integrate business systems such as ERP and supply chain management systems with manufacturing systems such as control systems and manufacturing execution systems. B2MML is a complete implementation of ISA-95.

The ISA-88 standard is recognized worldwide as the standard for the batch processing industry. BatchML provides a set of XML type and element definitions that may be used in part or in whole for batch, master recipe, site and general recipe, production record and equipment data. BatchML is an excellent tool to use when exchanging ISA-88 based data. Any company may use BatchML royalty free, provided credit is given to MESA.

Any company may use B2MML and BatchML royalty free, provided credit is given to MESA.

New in B2MML V0600:

Support for ISA-95 Part 4 which was released by ISA in 2012.

Support for the soon to be released updates to ISA-95 Parts 3 and 5. These updates were completed by the committee in March 2013 and will be released by ISA shortly. These updates are to make Parts 3 and 5 match the new Part 4.

All B2MML V0500 errata items have been included.

B2MML V0600 is up to date with the latest updates to the ISA-95 standard:
  • ANSI/ISA-95.00.01-2010 Models and Terminology
  • ANSI/ISA-95.00.02-2010 Object Model Attributes
  • ANSI.ISA- 95.00.03-2013 Activity Models of Manufacturing Operations Management (approved by the ISA-95 committee, soon to be released)
  • ANSI.ISA- 95.00.04-2012 Objects and attributes for manufacturing operations management integration
  • ANSI/ISA- 95.00.05-2013 Business-to-Manufacturing Transactions (approved by the ISA-95 committee, soon to be released)
New in BatchML V0600:
BatchML V0600 is up to date with the latest editions of the ISA-88 standard per this list:
  • ANSI/ISA-88.00.01-2010 Models and Terminology
  • ANSI/ISA-88.00.02-2001 Data Structures and Guidelines for Languages
  • ANSI/ISA-88.00.03-2003 General and Site Recipe Models and Representation
  • ANSI/ISA-88.00.04-2006 Batch Production Records
  • ANSI/ISA-95.00.02-2010 Object Model Attributes (In the Batch Production Record Schema)
  • ANSI.ISA-95.00.04-2012 Objects and attributes for manufacturing operations management integration (In the Batch Production Record Schema)
The release notes provide more details on the changes in this release.

B2MML-BatchML V0600 - All Files
Copyright 2013 | Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association (MESA International) | All Rights Reserved


Starting with V0401, the BatchML schemas were integrated into the B2MML namespace and BatchML now uses the B2MML common and extension files. Therefore B2MML schema and documentation downloads include BatchML files.

The MESA XML Committee maintains B2MML and BatchML. It is fully staffed by volunteers and is open to all interested parties. To join the committee or to send feedback on B2MML or BatchML, send a request to b2mml@mesa.org.