If you are in the market for a manufacturing execution system there is one number to keep in mind -- 95. S95, that is.
This standard, defined by the Instrumentation, Systems and Automation (ISA) Society, fills the communications gap between manufacturing and the enterprise. It's not new, but it's now gaining traction as more vendors put research and development and marketing muscle behind it in order to create a common way for very different systems to communicate.
In brief, S95 defines the terminology between an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and a MES framework. Part of that framework relies heavily on the World Batch Forum (WBF) standard, called the business-to-manufacturing markup language (B2MML), which serves up the appropriate context around the data. As long as the ERP system and the MES system both comply with these standards, they speak the same language. The benefit: low-cost, quick deployment of a real-time information exchange.
For years, manufacturers have been striving to achieve sensor-to-boardroom data sharing. To date, that dream has been attainable only with custom interfaces and integration techniques that are expensive to develop as well as to maintain. But companies continue to plug away at engineering a solution because it hits at the heart of the manufacturing problem.
DOING IT YOURSELF
"We've always had a situation where some data was resident in the enterprise system, but it requires data on [work-in-progress] and movements from the manufacturing system," says Chuck Wallace, vice president of information technology at SUMCO USA, a silicon wafer manufacturer in Phoenix, AZ. "We've always been faced with having to figure out how to get the data from here to there. We wound up developing our own interfaces and our own intermediate databases to store information."
The MES vendors understand the problem, but it wasn't until ERP vendor SAP AG stepped back to take a hard look at its own offerings that movement around S95 began to pick up steam. That's when SAP rallied MES vendors to participate in the cooperative effort to help customers.
Manufacturers, regardless of the industry, need to address quality, traceability for regulatory compliance, and global operations management. Looming in the background is always the issue of integration, first in the enterprise and then the supply chain. More recently, companies are trying to figure out how to tie product lifecycle management (PLM) applications together with manufacturing operations.
MANUFACTURING NEEDS MOM
All of these requirements are ushering in a new wave of MES -- so new, in fact, that the term MES is now passé. The ISA S95 working committee that is defining the manufacturing side of the standard decided to stay away from using the traditional acronym. "Everyone thinks they know what MES is, but it's [usually] different," says Jay Jeffreys, director of third party channel programs at Wonderware and a member of the S95 working group. "We chose instead to call those parts of the standards 'manufacturing operations management.'" So MES is now MOM.
Most MES vendors have reengineered client/server products around Web technology using Microsoft's .Net technology or the J2EE development platform. This allows the MES application to scale to accommodate worldwide use as well as to invoke Web services that add functionality. As part of the Internet-enabled redesign effort, most MES applications are also tapping into ISA's S95.
"The classic MES in the 1990s never lived up to its promise," says Jeffreys. "Doing it right could be a half a million dollar project, even in a medium-size company. We are trying to make it more affordable, and ISA is trying to define it better so that people can control the scope and keep the cost down."
The rally around S95 and B2MML is a huge step forward in solving the issue of integration. But as the vendors all embrace the same standard, the question for customers becomes: Which vendor is right for me?
"At the high level the messages are the same," says Karsten Newbury, general manager, process automation and manufacturing execution business, at Siemens. "In the end the difference is in execution."
Companies such as Siemens AG, Rockwell Automation and GE Fanuc International Inc. are building a comprehensive horizontal strategy that offers MES as a platform that aligns control, HMI, batch and other base products.
"Many customers have a wet and a dry side, [meaning] both discrete and process," says Kevin Roach, vice president of Rockwell Software. As a result, "customers are looking for multi-industry capable platforms. These include solutions that accommodate mandatory requirements in the IT world, such as reducing the number of applications, reducing service and eliminating the cost of integration."
Never, however, can a vendor lose sight of the needs of an industry. And having a vertical focus does make a difference in terms of the depth of functionality. While automation giants such as Siemens, Rockwell and GE Fanuc incorporate breadth, MES-specific vendors give applications vertical depth.
Brooks Software, for instance, launched its business as a supplier to the semiconductor and high-tech industries. Others, such as Intercim Inc., iBASEt and HMS Software Inc., are known in aerospace circles, while Camstar Systems Inc. continues to build a business around medical devices and life sciences. Each industry has its own special needs regarding quality, regulatory requirements and terminology, so it's good to have an application that is specialized -- meaning it takes tailoring to make the software function. But, again, the Web-based architecture upon which the applications are built today will allow all of these vendors the flexibility to move into new markets -- and all of them are.
"There is no one-size-fits all," says Carter Johnson, vice president of strategy and business development at Visiprise Inc., a three-year-old company that built its manufacturing application around electronics and hi-tech and now reaches into aerospace, automotive and medical devices. What that means, however, is that the nature of MES is changing. "Visiprise is trying to get out of that MES paradigm ... which has been a practical disaster for a long time, with different definitions for different things. We are a manufacturing platform system of record for as-built information," he says.
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE
With a Web-based, standards-driven foundation fully embraced by vendors across the board, the way companies differentiate their product offerings is through features and functionality. Depending on the manufacturing needs -- regulatory compliance, key performance indicator (KPI) analysis and PLM integration, among others -- there are very specific solution sets available.
"In our industry, the front end of semiconductor, we have issues with traceability," says SUMCO's Wallace, who is using Brooks Software's FactoryWorks MES. There is also the need for this global company to increase visibility into manufacturing, regardless of location.
MOVING OUT
In the United States, SUMCO has three factories, but FactoryWorks currently runs only in the company's Phoenix headquarters. Since Brooks Software recently announced its Enterprise Interoperability Hub (EI Hub), which provides real-time transaction between Brooks MES and SAP ERP, Wallace says he will be moving FactoryWorks out to the two other U.S. locations over the next few years.
EI Hub is an important step in the evolution of manufacturing operations. "Not only does this provide a basic link, but there are a host of interesting possibilities that have to do with having real-time information," says Phil Walker, who leads Brooks Software's business development and new initiatives program.
One of the emerging opportunities is in PLM. Having the ability to take a 3D product design simulation from a CAD/CAM package, for instance, and move it directly to the factory floor as a reference model can streamline the process between engineering and production. This can remove unneeded information from the process.
"A great example is taking an 80-page document stored electronically in PLM ... if only three pages of that 80-page document are applicable to an operation, that is what is shown [to the operator on the production floor]," explains Joe Vinhais, Camstar's vice president of regulatory compliance. "It's all about getting the right, accurate information and not bombarding an individual with peripheral information that is not required."
The problem with uniting MES and PLM at the moment is there needs to be communication standards -- similar to what is happening with S95 for ERP and MES. Establishing the definitions and data relationships can be a lengthy process, but for the vendors and the customers willing to give their time to help push the process along, creating standards is the best investment for manufacturing operations management.
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