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.

MESA Best Practices Working Group Releases White Paper

In industrial batch/continuous production environments, production scheduling is concerned with allocating resources such as tanks, reactors and other processing equipment to production tasks. Scheduling determines what product is to be made, how much is to be made and when it is to be made. Detailed scheduling optimizes the production schedule through describe the production process with a heuristic model to find the best way of allocating the available tasks and resources. Detailed scheduling is a centerpiece of production and closely interlinks with production control, order processing, material and energy control and maintenance.

In order to be able to provide all the necessary information for making logic decisions, it is in some cases necessary to implement data transfers that are not supported by the ISA-95 standard for enterprise to plant integration. One example of production parameters that are not included in the standard are release dates and due dates of products. The release date is the exact time from which on a product can be produced. The due date is equally important and refers to the date that the product has to be available, usually due to a customer requested time.

The integration of a scheduling solution for a steel plant using the ISA-95 standard is described. The application shows one way of benefiting from the already existing elements and expanding the B2MML files using the means provided. The resulting input data contains much more information than ISA-95 was originally designed for because the optimization takes place as a separate module on an MOM level. All input/output information must thus be provided through ISA-95. On the other hand, the output file fits completely to the ISA-95 landscape. This case study also shows that many practical applications only need to implement a small part of provided elements and there are always several options to make this happen.

MESA White Paper #33 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 will also be published in one of two methodology best practices collection, Book 2.0, When Worlds Collide in Manufacturing Operations (Collections published by ISA, 1/1/11).

All of MESA's white papers are available at www.mesa.org for $25.00 per paper for individual papers, or become a MESA premium member and have complimentary access to over 250 white papers, presentations, MOM/MES guidebooks, industry studies and web casts.

Leverage Workflow Technologies in Manufacturing

MESA International has released Whitepaper #32 to educate MESA members on approaches available to leverage workflow-enabled technologies to drive value in their plants and across their extended operations.

Workflows are structured activities primarily involving human-to-human or human-to-machine interactions, all directed toward the realization of profitable operations without compromising safety, reliability and consistency. Workflow technology is starting to move from a purely IT domain practice into the Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) domain as defined by ISA-95. This shift therefore justifies a deep understanding by MESA for its global community.

Charlie Gifford, Chair of the MESA/ISA-95 Best Practices Working Group and one of the paper’s authors noted, "Bill Gates was quoted as saying 'The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.' His point is especially true in production operations, and that’s why MESA is at the forefront of documenting the challenges, approaches, methodologies and best practices to drive value in this area."

The paper explores the globalization and organizational challenges associated with the introduction of workflow technology into MOM by providing examples of workflow technology implemented in production environments. These challenges, and the associated technologies to address them, are applicable across all manufacturing environments, but the paper provides a focus on the continuous process industries. It also provides a global viewpoint with input from North America and Southern Asia constituents.

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 whitepaper will also be published in one of two methodologies best practices collections by ISA, “Book 2.0, When Worlds Collide in Manufacturing Operations”. (Collections published by ISA, 1/1/11)

This whitepaper is available via MESA’s Resource Library.

MESA premium members have complimentary access to over 250 white papers, presentations, MOM/MES guidebooks, industry studies and web casts in the Resource Library. Others can purchase individual papers from the Resource Library for $25.00 per paper.

MESA Holds European P2E Conference

The Plant-to-Enterprise 2010 European Conference of MESA Internation convened on Nov. 8 in Dusseldorf, Germany with the 117 attendees greeted with pre-conference sessions on metrics and key performance indicators. Tuesday Nov. 9 and Wednesday Nov. 10 were full days with parallel tracks for breakouts and another well received "Unconference."

Tuesday's keynote address was delivered by Stefan Rosenwald, sr. manager IT, Powertrain, Daimler Engine in Germany. He spoke on Process Efficiency by Integration. Matthew Littlefield, sr. research analyst, Manufacturing, at the Aberdeen Group, an analyst firm in Boston, delivered Wednesday's keynote on "Enterprise Energy and Carbon Management Initiatives: Achieving Greater Profitability."

Pictures of the event can be found here.

Paper On Manufacturing Operations Mangement Published

MESA announces the publishing of MESA White Paper #28: "Lifecycle of Service Creation using the ISA-95 MOM." The white paper details the lifecycle of Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) Service creation using the ISA 95 MOM standard for services oriented architectures (SOA) for manufacturing. It discusses the process of decomposing the ISA 95 Part 3 core functions from the global and strategic levels of the manufacturing enterprise to the atomic level of the plant’s manufacturing operations. The outcome of this process is 1) the MOM atomic functions are mapped to manufacturing reusable Services across different manufacturing types or forms and 2) an MOM Functional Services Gap Analysis is applied to identify manufacturing automation and operations gaps.
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 will also be published in one of two methodology best practices collection, Book 2.0, The MOM Chronicles, or Book 3.0, When Worlds Collide in Manufacturing Operations (Collections published by ISA, 10/1/10).
This white paper is available here. All of MESA's white papers are available for $25.00 per paper for individual papers, or become a MESA premium member and have complimentary access to over 250 white papers, presentations, MOM/MES guidebooks, industry studies and web casts.
The content of this paper is part of an open discussion in the below UnConference Session at MESA 2010 North American Conference held June 21-23 in Dearborn, Michigan. Register here for the Conference.
The Unconference session is "Beyond Standards--Unlocking Your Operations Potential" held on Wednesday, June 23, 2010, 9:00am-12:00pm.
Potential specific topics include the following with final conversations determined by the participants' requests:

• ISA-95 Maturity Model Assessment and Migration Strategies
• Architectures for manufacturing operations master data. And, who and how should it be governed?
• Applying SOA to manufacturing operations architectures
• B2MML Integration Patterns and Data Mapping
• Integration PLM, ERP and MOM in a Discrete Manufacturing Environment
• Integration of Manufacturing Intelligence with MOM
• ISA-95 Contextualized Operations Workflows for Industrial BPM

Facilitated by:

Charlie Gifford
Chair, ISA-95/MESA Best Practice Working Group
Chair, MES/MOM Ask the Expert Committee for Managing Automation Magazine
Chief Manufacturing Consultant, 21st Century Manufacturing Solutions LLC

Dr. Thomasma / Capgemini Americas / Detroit
Projects & Consulting

Michael Grasley, P.Eng.
Director, MES Consulting
ASECO Integrated Systems


Share and learn not be spoonfed

There are two tracks on Wednesday morning, June 23 of the MESA International North American Conference where you can participate rather than sit back and listen to presentations. Leaders of these areas want active feedback and discussion from interested and knowledgeable thought leaders and practitioners of manufacturing operations management applications.

Beyond Standards--Unlocking Your Operations Potential

The first track will be led by industry expert Charlie Gifford, who is Chair, ISA-95/MESA Best Practice Working Group and Chief Manufacturing Consultant, 21st Century Manufacturing Solutions LLC. Co-facilitators include Dr. Tim Thomasma, Capgemini Americas and Michael Grasley, Director, MES Consulting, ASECO Integrated Systems. The general topic is "Unlocking Your Operations' Potential."

Potential specific topics include the following with final conversations determined by the participants' requests:

• ISA-95 Maturity Model Assessment and Migration Strategies
• Architectures for manufacturing operations master data. And who and how should it be governed?
• Applying SOA to manufacturing operations architectures
• B2MML Integration Patterns and Data Mapping
• Integration PLM, ERP and MOM in a Discrete Manufacturing Environment
• Integration of Manufacturing Intelligence with MOM
• ISA-95 Contextualized Operations Workflows for Industrial BPM

Learn more about operations management at workshops

The MESA International North American Conference June 21-23 in Dearborn, MI is shaping up nicely. Speakers and sessions have been defined and the learning opportunities abound. Much is practical advice you can use to move your organization ahead--making it more flexible, agile, productive and profitable.

The conference itself begins with an opening keynote by the renowned leader Lou Holtz on Monday evening June 21. He'll be sharing ideas garnered from a successful career in American football that you can use to become the leader your organization needs.

If you budget time to come to town early there are extra opportunities for advanced learning. Choose from a series of pre-conference workshops and dig into your biggest challenges with direct access to some of the most experienced practitioners and thought leaders in industry.

There are five workshops scheduled for Monday, June 21st. Each promises to share breakthrough approaches and valuable know-how in the specific topical area listed. There is no added fee required with payment of a full conference registration.

Here is a quick summary of our expert presenters and the content they will share:

Justifying Manufacturing Operations Management to Business Leaders
Charlie Gifford, Chief Managing Consultant, 21st Century Manufacturing Solutions

MESA Education Program: Real-Time Enterprise, 11 Function Model & MES Product Selection
Co-presenters
Mike James, Group Managing Director, ATS International BV, and Peter van Vliet, Director Business Development, SAP

Working Session for MESA's Quality & Regulatory Compliance Guidebook Working Group, Khris Kammer, Sr. Information Solutions Consultant, Rockwell Automation

Performance Management Benchmark, Practices & Roadmap
Mitchell Weisberg, Managing Director, Lumen Inc.

Survive to Thrive
Jon Snoeij, Principal Consultant, Logica

Advanced registration is required, so sign up today.

Unconference Featured As Part of MESA Gathering

Things are coming together rapidly for the MESA International North American Conference to be held in Dearborn, MI June 21-23. A great keynote on Monday evening, June 21 will get everyone ready for two days of intense learning and sharing about using information technology for improving plant and factory operations.

On Tuesday, high level practitioners and thought leaders will share their ideas and experiences. But if you yearn for more than the usual sit and listen conference, we are providing for an unusual experience for Wednesday, June 23. With the new MESA Unconference, you can directly engage and learn about topics that you pick - and get answers to your most pressing challenges. I have gone from the guy throwing out ideas to accepting the challenge of Unconference Director for the event. I am enthused about bringing something new to manufacturing conferences--something that will raise the energy level and intensity of discussion.

At the Unconference, you can share and learn in an open, participatory environment. It is an intense multi-discussion, multi-room event with no script. Bring your ideas and desires to interact with peers - and test the brains and bounds of the MESA community. Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is invited and welcome!

In this "confer and conquer" environment, you can present ideas or questions and discuss operations topics with other practitioners and subject matter experts in the spirit of MESA's mission - to provide an environment for the sharing of best practices. Leading industry experts, including members of the MESA Technical Committee, will be on hand to help facilitate discussions.

What kinds of topics? Here's an example from a major battery manufacturer - how to deal with the challenges of operational excellence in an ultra high-volume production environment. Other ideas include ISA-95 implementations, cloud computing, virtual machines, Lean in process production environments, and much more.

Do you have an idea for a topic for discussion on Wednesday? Send me an email at gmintchell@automationworld.com.

Participate at the MESA Conference

The MESA International North American Conference, Unlocking Your Operations Potential, is coming soon. Organizers have been working hard to assemble an outstanding program. We believe that many people have experiences and knowledge to share. If you are one of these, we have two ways for you to actively participate.

The first way is to present a formal talk, sharing your knowledge and best practices. We are accepting abstracts through Monday April 12. You'll be in good company - and will share the conference stage with nationally-recognized keynotes and industry leading session speakers!

MESA is looking for the best, most quantifiable case studies and real world presentations on the following topics:

• Tying Operational Metrics to Financial Metrics
• Real-Time Enterprise
• Quality & Compliance
• Asset Performance Management (APM)
• Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)
• Lean
• Sustainability

Here are some tips for presentations that would engage attendees:

• Focus on how your operations management / plant-wide IT systems support implementation of one or more key initiatives. Subject matter may range from planning and implementation to challenges and results.
• Feature Manufacturer/Producer presenters or a joint presentation between a Vendor & Manufacturer / Producer.

Have we missed something? Do you have another topic relevant to industrial companies that isn't listed here - interoperability, SOA in Manufacturing, Industrial BPM, or others? If so, please submit the topic for consideration. MESA is working to facilitate knowledge-sharing on as many of the right topics as possible and we are open to your ideas.

Click here to submit an abstract.

Unconference
If putting a formal presentation together isn't your desire but you still feel like adding in your experiences or engaging speakers and other attendees in greater depth about a topic, the the Unconference program is just for you. Too many presentations can dull your senses. Sometimes you'd like to ask more questions of the speakers and there's no time. Sometimes you see others that share your problems, and you'd like to connect with them.

Rather than hope for a chance meeting in the hallways, MESA has set aside time in the program especially for these meetings. Called an Unconference, attendees can suggest topics they'd like to discuss in more detail. People will self-select into one of these sessions that are led by the attendees themselves with the help of a MESA facilitator. These are all the rage in Silicon Valley. MESA is bringing the concept to manufacturing and production executives.

If you'd like to submit a topic for an Unconference session, please send an email to conference@mesa.org or gmintchell@automationworld.com.

Details Align for Upcoming MESA Conference

Pre-conference events should entice you to Dearborn, MI on June 21 to get warmed up for what is shaping up to be a great learning and sharing experience at the 2010 MESA International North American Conference, "Unlocking Your Operations Potential."

On Monday, prior to the conference, MESA will be hosting workshops addressing best practices in:

• Metrics-driven approaches with findings from the new MESA Research Project
• Eco-efficiency and sustainability in manufacturing
• Improving operations through our Strategic Initiatives covering lean, product lifecycle management, real-time enterprise, asset management, plus quality and compliance.

Then on Monday evening, you'll want to attend the Welcome Reception and Keynote Address featuring Lou Holtz. The famed college football coach and TV sports analyst will present his Game Plan For Success. His message transcends athletics. It resonates - even to those who aren't sports-minded. The focus is on people and the values that make relationships and organizations excel. Once heard, you will have no doubt why Lou Holtz is considered a legendary team leader and speaker on achievement.