|
by David R. Brousell, MA Editorial Staff   | Abstract: | There are many steps to plant floor to enterprise integration, and some of the most difficult are cultural and organizational. A new poll of U.S. and European manufacturers shows just how far they have come. |
| Keywords: | plant floor to enterprise integration |
When it comes to integrating their factory floor devices and systems with higher-level enterprise business systems, U.S. manufacturers and their European counterparts share many business and technology goals. But when it comes to actually accomplishing this often-difficult work, European industrial companies are much further along in their integration activities and expect to complete them sooner than U.S. enterprises.
Nevertheless, many European manufacturers, echoing the sentiments of U.S. companies, report that plant floor to enterprise systems integration is often more challenging than they had expected. They, too, have to contend with often-nettlesome organizational and cultural issues, as well as diffuse management responsibility for integration projects in their companies. As a result, integration project delays are even more common in European manufacturing companies than they are in U.S. companies.
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 sixth such study since 2001. This year also marks the first extension of the poll to the European manufacturing market, which has been done under the auspices of MA's new pan-European sister publication, called Manufacturing Executive, that will debut this month. Nearly 300 MA readers in the United States and about 200 Manufacturing Executive readers in Europe weighed in this year on the state of integration in their companies, as well as their business and technology goals and the barriers they face in accomplishing the work.
[Click to continue] |