The recession-inspired move by many manufacturers to scale back big-bang, plant-to-enterprise integration initiatives in favor of targeted, quick-return projects has not gone unnoticed by technology vendors.
"Many of the largest companies out there have shelved broad-brush integration initiatives," says Mark Sutcliffe, president of CDC Factory, a unit of CDC Software that is focused on manufacturing operations management (MOM) software. "Many had justified spending a lot of money under the assumption that if they gathered a lot of data from the factory and applied analytical tools, that a new truth would emerge. Now they're putting that to one side. They want to address specific problems where integration can help drive down costs."
Vendors have begun tailoring their software to better address industry-specific manufacturing pain points. They are also working to make their products easier and quicker to deploy and, therefore, able to deliver ROI faster.
Plant automation vendors, such as Rockwell Automation and GE Fanuc, for example, are accelerating the rollout of industry-specific applications and templates that sit on top of their broad integration and MES platforms and address specific manufacturing problems. Rockwell earlier this year introduced FactoryTalk Pharma Suite, an application that takes advantage of the plant-to-enterprise integration capabilities of the company's FactoryTalk Integrated Production and Performance Suite but focuses specifically on production management and dispensing processes for pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers.
Pharma Suite is just the first of what Bob Honor, Rockwell vice president for information solutions, says will be several such targeted, industry-specific applications to roll out over the next 18 months. Others will target the automotive, food and beverage, specialty chemicals, and oil and gas industries.
"We are accelerating the release of these," Honor says. "Customers want a modular, scalable approach, so we are shifting development to specific applications in certain industries that have a smaller footprint and can be deployed more quickly."
Late last year, GE Fanuc introduced a Water and Wastewater Productivity Pack that sits on top of the company's Proficy manufacturing operations management platform and includes tools and content intended to allow utilities to monitor and improve plant operations. The company also offers a similar set of templates and applications that target energy usage and management by manufacturers. And, currently, says Sheila Kester, general manager of global markets development for GE Fanuc, the company is working with partners and customers to develop similar targeted applications for pharmaceutical packaging. Plans call for more such industry-specific templates.
Automation vendor ABB is moving in the same direction. In fact, in the next release of its Industrial CPMPlus Enterprise Connectivity platform, the company plans to include a series of preconfigured, industry-specific templates that will give manufacturers a head start in building links between ABB's Industrial System 800xA plant automation system and enterprise applications, such as SAP's ERP product and IBM's Maximo enterprise asset management system.
The templates, says Marc Leroux, ABB's marketing manager for collaborative production management, will allow process manufacturers to quickly create processes that, for example, provide real-time production information input to scheduling applications in ERP systems by starting with integration points that are pre-defined and pre-mapped. "Many of our customers are coming to the conclusion that big, holistic integration projects are taking much too long to do and are too costly, and that they are not getting the results they need to run the business today," Leroux says.
On the enterprise software side, market leader SAP is taking a similar approach. The company's manufacturing integration and intelligence (MII) plant-to-enterprise integration and manufacturing intelligence platform is already fairly modular and easy to deploy even at the individual plant level. Now, however, SAP is making it easier for manufacturers to focus MII-based applications on specific manufacturing pain points by introducing a series of deployment templates and methodologies that specify integration points and processes to support specific applications such as work-in-process visibility and traceability. The MII templates are part of SAP's Best Run Now program, which enables a quick return on technology investments by offering tools and financing options.