See Clearly into Plant-Floor Applications
Users find benefits in connecting automation to their supply chains.
Mark T. Hoske, Control Engineering -- Control Engineering, 11/1/2001
|
Not too long ago cutting edge software integration was linking together silos of information on the plant floor. Now the rest of the organization and its partners in the supply chain realize the value of up-to-date information from and connections with manufacturing or processes.
There's increasing attention being given to the benefits of interconnecting manufacturing to the enterprise. (For a list of related items, see October Control Engineering Online Web Exclusive, 'Connect the plant floor to the supply chain.'
Analysts indicate expanded interest, as well. ARC Advisory Group (Dedham, Mass.) expects the enterprise integration market to grow 20% per year (compound annual growth rate) to $11 billion by 2006. ARC put the market for related software and services revenues at $3.9 billion in 2000 and $4.8 billion in 2001.
'Market growth in manufacturing industries has been driven by the need to accommodate new business models where supply-chain management techniques, partner relationships, customer service, and others make external integration a requirement,' according to ARC vp Bob Mick, author of the 'Enterprise Application Integration Global Outlook' market study.
The benefits of collaboration and consistent business processes have raised integration planning to a strategic level, beyond automating and connecting. This is raising interest in 'integration architectures, technologies, and products that provide consistent methods for leveraging all available resources,' internal and external to the enterprise,' Mr. Mick adds.
Some key applications and related benefits follow below.
Nissan North America Inc. signed a multi-million-dollar
contract with GE Fanuc for a new manufacturing execution
system (MES), which will be modeled after the MES at
Nissan's Smyrna, Tenn., plant shown here. The new project
features design, onsite implementation, startup, and support
as the new Nissan Canton, Miss., facility comes online.
Motoring to the supply chain
Nissan North America Inc. sought a way to integrate manufacturing execution system (MES) and the supply chain at its new Canton, Miss., facility, to cut design time and reduce work-in-process (WIP) inventory. GE Fanuc's (Charlottesville, Va.) Cimplicity Business is providing a multi-million contract for MES, consulting solutions and software (design, onsite implementation, and startup) for the 2.6-million-ft2, $930-million facility. The complex will have capacity to produce 250,000 units per year, including full-size pickups, sport utility vehicles, and minivans.
'We chose Cimplicity's MES because installation of the solution at our Smyrna, Tenn., plant, achieved better inventory management, broader quality control, and faster lead times and inventory turns,' said Mike Head, department manager for plastics and systems engineering at Nissan. 'Cimplicity's MES is a major contributor to making this plant the most productive in North America [according to The Harbour Report, a North American automotive survey], and we're passing those benefits on to our new facility.' Nissan's North American operations include automotive styling, engineering, consumer, and corporate financing, sales and marketing, distribution and manufacturing.
Kevin Roach, vp of the GE Fanuc Cimplicity business, adds, 'The complexity of running the most-productive automotive plant requires an advanced level of real-time visibility and control of the floor. Nissan utilizes the full suite from Cimplicity to reduce inventory, integrate the execution system to the supply chain, and achieve production rates required to meet market demands.'
Weaving in the yarn
Advanced Glassfiber Yarns (AGY; Aiken, S.C.) is tying together MES, visualization, and enterprise resource planning in production of fiberglass yarn for the electronics, construction, aerospace, defense, and industrial product markets. Unifi Technology Group Inc. (Charlotte, N.C.), an e-manufacturing solutions provider, is integrating Camstar's InSite manufacturing execution software for the management and control of AGY's production processes, AGY's Oracle ERP application, and automated plant-floor equipment controlled by Rockwell Software's RSView32 SCADA application.
Integrated automatic data collection, product genealogy, and WIP tracking allow AGY to more easily monitor production, reduce costs, and increase product quality. 'The new system will give us much better visibility into all of our manufacturing processes,' says Rick Schawe, operations solutions leader at AGY.
'With the increased visibility, we'll be able to improve our processes, respond to alarms and unplanned events, reduce costs, and keep product quality high. Unifi Technology provided us with a detailed analysis of the process data we'll need to collect for efficient plant operation, and also the structural design and deployment roadmap for the overall systems solution,' Mr. Schawe says.
Touch points between InSite and the Oracle ERP will be built so that order and completion information will be passed between the two systems in real time. AGY was spun off from its parent company, Owens Corning, in 1998. Mr. Schawe expects the integration to allow quick response to 'customer inquiries, maximize the use of all of our manufacturing resources, and operate smoothly on a 24/7 basis. For that to happen, a robust execution system tightly integrated with our plant equipment and business systems is essential.'
Clear as East Bay MUD
Integration of a SCADA system and an Oracle Enterprise database with a real-time, web-based interface allows East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD; Oakland, Calif.) to provide management and staff with real-time monitoring of water conditions in the San Francisco Bay Area. EBMUD supplies water and provides wastewater treatment for 1.2 million people in a 325-mile2 area.
Metso Automation (formerly Neles Automation; Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Helsinki, Finland) and IndX Software Corp. (Aliso Viejo, Calif.) provide insight@Web. The system is 'an 'enterprise dashboard' with an easy-to-use browser interface for management and staff,' says Kevin Wong, EBMUD's 'enterprise dashboard' project manager. 'Real-time data with historical trending and data from our backend systems can be combined and presented graphically to casual users.'
Using insight@Web, EBMUD's staff and management can access live data and analysis, including real-time status, from Oracle. The system combines Oracle data with real-time and historical information from EBMUD's AspenTech InfoPlus.21 historian to enable in-depth analysis of both real-time and historical conditions. Metso Automation is upgrading EBMUD's existing SCADA system to a distributed Oasys SCADA system. As part of this project, Metso has developed connectors that will link the new SCADA system to insight@Web and provide a layer of operations intelligence.
Forging integration
Since 1979, Alfe Heat Treating (Fort Wayne, Ind.) has offered aluminum heat-treating for automotive (and other) industries. The company now the largest independent U.S. aluminum heat-treating contractor supplies aluminum engine blocks and heads to General Motors.
In 1999, at its new Saginaw, Mich., facility, Alfe sought an integrated automated processing system that would improve productivity, quality, and security and decrease labor and training costs. In the old architecture, diagnostics were limited to the systems level, and problems were often hard to isolate and correct quickly. Varying levels of operator knowledge occasionally led to errors. Lifecycle was an issue; an aluminum heat-treating system is expected to last 15 years.
Sister company Alfe Systems designs, manufactures, implements, and services continuous and batch-style heat treating furnaces. Alfe Systems used Creative Control Systems (Fort Wayne, Ind.) to provide the primary control systems for the Saginaw facility.
Process flow
The new Alfe Heat Treating system in Saginaw consists of two parallel, continuous-solution furnaces, each with an in-line quench tank at the exit. After quenching, product moves through a patented, two-level age oven, then proceeds to testing and unloading. It requires approximately 12 hours to transform raw metal into a component capable of withstanding engine temperatures and stresses.
Upon receiving castings, Alfe loads them onto conveyors, which carry the parts throughout the continuous process and feed them into the heat-treating system, raising metal temperature to approximately 1,000 °F. Products move into the quench tank, the age oven, then to the inspection station, for a series of tests to verify metal strength and hardness. After passing the tests, baskets are prepared for shipment, and the products are ready for machining.
Rockwell Automation's (Milwaukee, Wis.) Allen-Bradley ControlLogix provides logic for furnaces, conveyor panel and age oven, and transfers information back to a central server. 'We chose ControlLogix because its highly integrated processing and ease of programming provide an extremely versatile platform for controlling the heat-treating system,' said Bob Bailey, senior systems specialist, Creative Control Systems; 'Without these capabilities Alfe would be limited in its ability to modify and expand the current system.'
ControlLogix uses ControlNet and DeviceNet networks to communicate with field devices, and Ethernet to communicate with the Rockwell Software RSView32 Active Display (RAD) server. ControlNet links the controller and remote I/O chassis, and enables it to talk to the conveyors' Allen-Bradley 1305 variable-speed drives and communicate information gathered by RSView. The PLC checks the drives' status throughout the heat-treating process.
DeviceNet connects four bar-code readers looped to the conveyor panel; ControlLogix provides data to the RAD server. Ethernet provides high-level communication among the server, the clients, and PLC. Temperature controllers also use Ethernet to communicate information to the server via protocol converter boxes.
'Being able to access data from one place on the plant floor has helped us to easily and quickly determine where problems exist,' said Matt Jones, plant manager, Alfe Heat Treating. 'RSView allows our operators to focus on primary job functions, rather than spending time trying to memorize how a control systems is supposed to work,' saving training time, Mr. Jones adds.
Due to experiences at the Saginaw facility, Alfe is looking to retrofit other existing facilities and is finalizing plans for a new facility using this technology.
For more information...
For more suppliers, go to www.controleng.com/buyersguide; for more information, go online at www.controleng.com/freeinfo.
ARC Advisory Group
www.arcweb.com
Creative Control Systems
www.CreativeControlSystems.com
GE Fanuc
www.gefanuc.com
Greco Systems
www.e-manufacturing.com
IndX Software
www.indxhq.com
Metso Automation
www.metsoautomation.com
Microsoft
www.microsoft.com
Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power
www.boeing.com/space/rdyne/
Rockwell Automation
www.rockwell.com
Unifi Technology
www.unifitech.com
Wonderware
www.wonderware.com
View All Control Engineering Webcasts from CTL
