MANUFACTURING IN THE CLOUD: PART VII: Infrastructure as a Service

By Goran Novkovic, MESA Member, CQA, CSQE, ITIL, APM, PMP, PEng

This blog is part of a series called Manufacturing in the Cloud. This series aims to assist manufacturing organizations to evaluate how they can overcome challenges and maximize cloud computing benefits. As cloud computing services mature both commercially and technologically, this is likely to become relatively easier to achieve.

Cybersecurity – No Silver Bullets

By Alan Grau, Member of MESA International’s Cybersecurity Working Group

Cybersecurity continues to be a focus of concern for manufacturing and industrial systems. It is critical to find solutions for protecting the plant floor.  The threat landscape, as described in the March MESA cybersecurity blog, continues to evolve.  Attacks are becoming more focused and more sophisticated and unfortunately, more successful.

The Smart Manufacturing Elevator Pitch, Literally!

By Rik Geerts, member of several MESA International working groups and member of the International Board of Directors. 

I was wearing my MESA International pin this morning in the elevator and one of my colleagues, John the Lead of the Chicken Business Unit, asked me what I was working on at MESA. I told him “Smart Manufacturing.” With big eyes he looked at me and said, “I’m curious, what is Smart Manufacturing?” … I struggled … the elevator door saved me. John said while walking out, “Lets catch-up later Rik!” 

5 Elements of KPI Lifecycle

By John Horst, MESA member, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

and Barry Ezell,Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) 

Humans go through distinct phases of life: from dependence to learning to producing to sharing and back to dependence. We call this a lifecycle. The phases of life keep repeating as new persons are born and the elderly complete their lives. 

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) also have a lifecycle with a similarly cyclic pattern: from definition to collection to set composition to implementation to assessment and back to definition. 

Manufacturers who use KPIs naturally implement this lifecycle, but there is some real value to clearly and carefully articulate the elements of the lifecycle. 

An accurate and detailed model of the KPI Lifecycle:

• Enables efficient and effective performance management 
• Enables a cottage industry of performance methods and software tools
• Provides a basis for open standards on KPI use

Assuming the target proceses have been identified, here is an outline of five elements to consider to successfully use KPIs in your manufacturing process throughout their entire lifecycle. 

Smart Manufacturing: What if they threw a revolution and nobody came?

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member and MESA-Recognized Practitioner

Pizza party at your house, I went just to check it out

Nineteen extra larges, what a shame, no one came

Are Your Manufacturing Operations Obsolete?

By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member and MESA-Recognized Practitioner

How can you determine if your manufacturing operations are no longer competetive? There are telltale signs if you know how to look for them.  The following excerpt from "Seven Warning signs that your Manufacturing Operations Are Becoming Obsolete" give one example.

Antifragility and Plant Floor Systems

 By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

Few words strike fear in manufacturing operations executives as do “enterprise system software upgrade”.  Once uttered, there is an almost instantaneous demand to IT for assurances that all existing processes will still function after the upgrade has been completed.  In many cases, the existing platform has been customized, tweaked, interfaced, and personalized beyond anyone’s ability to fully know.  Clearly, the current state of enterprise-level systems is “fragile”.

Is Your Businesses a Leader in MES/MOM? Now You Can Prove It.

By Marc Leroux, Chairman of MESA's Education Committee, International Board Member, and Americas Board Member

MESA has just launched a new, two part recognition program. The first part is geared towards individual practitioners, the second is for organizations. In a previous post I talked about the individual recognition program for practitioners, in this post I’ll talk about the  MESA Recognized Business program.

3 Requirements Prove MES/MOM Professionals Are Ready For Any Project

By Marc Leroux, Chairman of MESA's Education Committee, International Board Member, and Americas Board Member

MESA has just launched a new, two part recognition program. The first part is geared towards individual practitioners, the second is for organizations. In this post I’ll talk about the MESA Recognized Practitioner program.

Are Your MES/MOM Skills Recognized?

 By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

Plant floor systems used to be simpler things: relay-driven machine logic, counters and gauges that human operators could read and record values on their clipboards, control panels with numerous indicator lights showing what was happening at any given time.  But automation has evolved from those roots: industrial controllers have replaced relays, graphical HMIs with touch screens have replaced the lighted panels, and networks now exchange information between production equipment and enterprise systems – eliminating the need for a human with a clipboard, but also enabling new capabilities throughout the entire value chain.  This evolution has led to the development of a new body of knowledge, often referred to as Manufacturing Operations Management, or MOM. Many of today’s industry initiatives – such as “smart manufacturing”, “digital thread”, “real-time enterprise”, “connected enterprise”, and “Industrie 4.0” – are deeply rooted in MOM.

Strategy, Culture, and Breakfast

 By Patrick Weber, MESA International Technical and Education Committee member

"Culture eats strategy for breakfast."

In spite of all the Internet attributions of this quote to management guru Peter Drucker, there is some question as to whether he actually said it.  Although the phrase doesn't seem to appear in Drucker’s books, one source traces it to Mark Fields of Ford Motor Company where it’s said the quote hangs in the company war room.  Regardless of whether Drucker actually uttered these words, understanding the context of the idea is critical because it can be easily misinterpreted.

Join the development of the Smart Manufacturing Strategy?

By Conrad Leiva, MESA International Board Member

The governments of China, India and the United States have all identified “Smart Manufacturing” as a strategic lever for long-term economic growth.  Similarly, the government of Germany has Industrie 4.0.  All these countries are looking to define how to leverage the advances in modern Information Technologies to make manufacturing a cog in their economic engines.

Three reasons “Tribal Knowledge” is not effective in decision-making

By Gerhard Greeff, MES/MOM Proponent and Facilitator, MESA GEP Contributor and Trainer, Chairman - MESA Southern Africa


 
A comment on one of my on-line posts was that the post focused too much on data, did not question if the correct measures are used and glossed over the fact that there is a load of information at the shop floor known as “Tribal Knowledge” that is important. This statement is undoubtedly true and I have had first-hand experience regarding the value of “tribal knowledge”. In another post a person was offended as an operator that I stated that an HMI can lead to incorrect actions or decisions by operators, as it implies that as an operator he doesn’t know his plant. This person undoubtedly knows his plant and would make good decisions. The quality of the “good” decisions however will depend greatly on the “bias” introduced by “tribal knowledge” and the scientific basis of the related “tribal knowledge”.

Big Data in Manufacturing: Is the Emperor wearing clothes?

By Patrick Weber, MBA PMP, MESA Member

Today I attended LNS Research’s “Global State of MOM” webinar; quite a bit of good information that I’m still digesting (kudos to Matt Littlefield & company). There is a bit I find hard to swallow though – Big Data in manufacturing. Perhaps I’m just so far out of the loop on this that I’m just not comprehending the obvious, but I can’t see a real business case for Big Data in the manufacturing environment, nor can I see plants investing in the infrastructure required to support Big Data solutions.