Maybe a recession is just a good time to integrate. How else to explain, during one of the worst economic recessions in memory, the fact that both U.S. and European manufacturers are continuing to integrate their plant floor systems with higher-level business systems?
And not only is the integration work continuing, but also some progress is being achieved in the extent to which factory floor devices are being interconnected. In the United States, for example, more manufacturers this year are saying they have linked a higher percentage of devices than last year, not a small feat, considering the difficulty of the work required and the economic context in which companies find themselves.
More important, perhaps, there are far fewer project delays this year due to issues around complexity and organizational and cultural challenges.
These are just some of the findings of the latest Managing Automation reader poll on plant floor to enterprise business systems integration, the magazine's seventh study since 2001. Nearly 250 readers in the United States and 100 readers of MA's sister publication in Europe, Manufacturing Executive, voiced their opinions on the state of integration in their companies, their business and technology goals associated with integration, and the challenges they face in accomplishing the work.
Last year, in this magazine's first comparison of U.S. and European manufacturers' integration activities, European industrial companies reported greater progress in plant floor to enterprise business systems integration than their U.S. counterparts, but similar business and technology goals as well as organizational and cultural challenges.
This year, that greater progress is still evident. One-quarter of European poll respondents indicate that their integration work is substantially complete, down about three points from last year, compared with 16% of U.S. companies saying so, statistically equal to last year's 15%. But what has surfaced in this year's survey is some indication that anticipated work completion time frames have stretched out, most notably in the United States Chart 1.
On the question of when they anticipate integration work to be completed, nearly 38% of U.S. poll takers projected a time frame of one to two years, up five points from the 32% who said so last year, with 15.5% saying within six months, compared with 12.6% last year. In Europe, though, the numbers, while different, raise a red flag Chart 2. Although nearly 43% of European manufacturers say the work will be completed within one to two years, down about five points from last year, a huge drop-off in the percentage indicating six months has occurred. Now, only 5.3% of Europeans say six months, compared with nearly 19% last year. Moreover, nearly one-quarter of Europeans this year say they simply don't know, compared with 17% in the United Sates.
The bottom line may be that while the recession has not stopped integration work, it appears to be slowing things down and reducing the scope of projects. Uncertainty is always the handmaiden of an economic downturn.
Nevertheless, integrating plant floor systems with enterprise systems continues to be a strategic goal for manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic, and the methods by which they are doing so are becoming more defined.
When asked to describe their factory floor to enterprise systems plan, respondents placed a greater emphasis on linking control layer data to manufacturing execution systems (MES) and then to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. This year, 28.6% of U.S. respondents indicated this method as their preferred integration plan, up about three points from last year. In Europe, a greater emphasis was in evidence, with 27% this year picking this method, compared with only 17.8% last year Chart 4.