By Conrad Leiva, MESA
International Board Member and chair of MESA's Smart Manufacturing Working
Group
In a prior
blog post we discussed that Smart
Manufacturing is not very “smart” if we are not using communication standards
to connect equipment, people and processes in the manufacturing enterprise. In
this blog post we review the reality of adoption of integration standards in
manufacturing based on a recent MESA
and IDC Manufacturing Insights survey. The survey was sent to both
manufacturers and vendors that provide equipment and software to manufacturing,
and the results are shared below.
In early discussions within MESA’s
Smart Manufacturing Working Group, we had general consensus based on
anecdotal data, that manufacturing enterprises are falling short in some areas
to achieve the desired levels of connectivity and orchestration for Smart Manufacturing
goals. Do actual survey results validate our assumptions? Yes. But results also
revealed a real increased interest in adoption moving forward.
Standards for manufacturing are primarily set by standards
organizations and the consensus of the manufacturers, partners and vendors who
will be using them. The adoption of such standards can open new market
opportunities, especially to small and medium size manufacturers. They reduce
the risks for enterprises implementing new technology solutions since they can
rely on multiple vendors that support the standards for new smart equipment and
connectivity methods.
There are four dimensions
of connectivity in Smart Manufacturing explored in this survey:
#1. Machine
Automation Connectivity - Adoption of machine-to-machine (M2M) and
machine-to-application (M2A) communication standards that are evolving around
the initiatives of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and include
standards like OPC UA and MT Connect and the efforts of groups like the Industrial
Internet Consortium (IIC). These standards will enable multi-vendor hardware and software plug and play solutions.
#2. Production
Systems Connectivity - These include application-to-application (A2A)
messaging standards that link business applications dedicated to managing the
shop floor and support functions including Production Control, Scheduling, Inventory,
Quality, Tooling, Workforce Management, and Plant Maintenance. Standards in
this layer include ISA95, MIMOSA, and OAGIS.
#3. Digital Thread
Connectivity - Data messaging standards that create a digital thread of
communications from product definition in engineering systems to manufacturing
and inspection processes. Standards that not only distribute the product 3D
definition but also communicate changes and record production history for
traceability and archival purposes.
These include linking engineering to manufacturing and inspection
systems. Standards in this layer include ISO 10303 STEP, ISO 14306 JT 3D
visualization, and ISO 32000 for PDF archival of product history.
# 4. Value Chain
Connectivity – Adoption of business-to-business (B2B) integration standards
with open integration platforms to the internet for value chain collaboration. The
goal is to move business transactions to structured B2B communications and not
rely on unstructured phone and email communications which are longer to
process, can fall through the cracks, and are subject to misinterpretation. OAGIS
standards are widely used for B2B communications.
 |
| Figure 1. Overall standards adoption results |
The overall results in Figure 1 show that the current use of
standards for integration is low in all four areas. However, the good news is
that going forward there is a clear desire for more standards-based integration
in all areas. Lower targets in the supply chain integration area are expected since
most companies want to get their internal systems connected before moving into
initiatives to connect the value chain.
 |
Figure
2. Manufacturers’ standards adoption results
Over 60% of manufacturers are planning to enhance the
adoption of standards-based integration in the next five years in the areas of
machine integration, digital thread, and enterprise systems integration.
However, the survey confirms that when it comes to the supply chain,
standards-based communications are minimal. This is an area that needs
improvement to deliver on the vision of the connected value chain for Smart
Manufacturing.
 |
| Figure 3. Vendors’ standards adoption results |
The survey
shows that vendors of hardware and software are slightly ahead of
manufacturers’ adoption plans in enabling standards-based integration in most
areas. The area of most mature standards-based integration support is for the
integration among production systems where standards like ISA95 and OAGIS are
currently supported by 28% of vendors. However, vendors seem to be lagging in
the area of supply-chain integration behind the plans of manufacturers. Figure
4 shows some results from a recent MESA-Gartner
survey indicating that there is a lot of interest in supply chain
collaboration.
 |
| Figure 4. Manufacturers show deep interest for supply chain collaboration in this MESA-Gartner survey |
- Acceleration time to market for innovative products
- Future-proofing the IT investment with flexibility to easily switch best-in-class functional modules
- Reducing total cost of ownership with simplified management across the platform by leveraging plug and play integration
- Ensuring tight integration between enterprise applications and operational systems at the shop floor
- Increasing speed and accuracy throughout the extended value chain
- Gaining insight you can act on with metrics acquired directly from transacting the business process model
The
full MESA/Gartner Business Value of MES 2015 Survey can be found here: https://services.mesa.org/ResourceLibrary/ShowResource/b11c77b3-6cfd-4c50-98bc-4158f00ba1cf
About the
Author
Conrad Leiva
is VP Product Strategy and Alliances at iBASEt.
Conrad consults many Aerospace & Defense companies on how to streamline the
paperwork and information flow among Planning, Inventory, Quality, Production
and Supply Chain disciplines. Recently, his work has focused on manufacturing
intelligence and the digital thread between engineering, business, and
manufacturing systems working with PLM and ERP partners. Conrad is on the International
Board of Directors at MESA International and is Chairman of the MESA Smart
Manufacturing Working Group.
References:
“Smart Manufacturing Isn’t So Smart Without
Standards”, Frechette, Morris, and Lu from NIST, at MESA.org, 2016
“IDC Game Changing Tech on the Shop Floor 2015
Survey Overview”, IDC Manufacturing Insights at MESA.org, 2016
“2015
MESA/Gartner Business Value of MES Survey”, Gartner at MESA.org, 2016
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