Best of Standard profits: Make2Pack and ISA88 blog for 2008; how cold is minus 40 degrees?

I have had time to look back on the events of the past two years while here in North Pole Alaska (see the very cold photos at the bottom of the posting), and I feel that we have shared a lot of good information and had good dialog about efficiency in process control and packaging. Here are links to the most-read postings in the blog, "Standard profits: Make2Pack and ISA88," during 2008.

The purpose of the blog has been to help committee members and others increase dialog about, completion of, interest in, and use of Make2Pack ISA88 Part 5. Please join in with your comments or questions to help the standard along, on your way to gaining competitive advantage.

The most-read 2008 posts have been:

1. ISA88 Technical report discussion uncovers new ground for future standards update, Part 1 of 4. July 11, 2008. Over the years of joint effort between OMAC – WBF and ISA under the flag of Make2Pack a lot of new ground was covered that really is not addressed by any current or evolving standards. During the final review of the approved Make2Pack’s ISA Technical Report TR88.00.02 Machine and Unit States which was lead by Mike Lamping of P&G….

2. What is Recipe Control? May 31, 2008. ISA88 devotes quite a bit to Equipment Control. Even with all that has been created in the ISA88 series, the need to add more clarity has lead to the Part 5 Make2Pack effort. The Make2Pack area of scope focuses only on equipment control and where instructions from the Recipe Phase initiate the Equipment Control to carry out the Equipment Task Strategy to satisfy the intent of the Recipe Phase.

3. Bigfoot, Lock Ness Monster sighted! Control types. March 19, 2008. After several years of searching it seems there really may be an additional component to the ISA88 list of control. The Make2Pack effort has been struggling with this often misunderstood concept since its start. Sometimes there seemed to be something between the ISA88 Equipment Phase Procedural Control that is capable of being directed by a Recipe and Basic Control. Like Bigfoot and Nessie this elusive concept between Equipment Phase Procedural Control and Basic Control had many sightings but real proof has been difficult to sustain for the community at large.

4. Getting things done: Technical reports, ISA88/ISA95, rescheduling. July 12, 2008. It seems we have taken a breather and had some fun this summer; I know I have! The July 17 WEB Ex is being postponed to July 24. (Click here and send me an email if you’re not on the list and would like to be involved in that meeting.) There has been a lot of other ISA activity wrapping up, as well. 

5.It’s elemental Mr. Watson: control system terms. January 29, 2008. We have been struggling to find terms that can help in describing the modular Hierarchy of Make2Pack. Using Simple and Complex don’t work well as they can be considered by some as insulting and misleading. Last week we started down a path of finding a way to include physical things separate from the control applied to these physical things, and the hornet’s nest was disturbed!

Here are three postings from 2007 that continued getting very good readership during 2008.

1. Mode is a many-splendored thing. October 20, 2007. Playing off the “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing” theme from the mid 50’s, I’m going into deep waters to try and describe my understanding of where the Make2Pack S88 Part 5 group is in the journey to try to put some definitions around how the term “mode” is being used in the automation industry.

2. What good is a wheel without an axle? Notification offer. December 4, 2007. The Make2Pack effort does not want to reinvent the wheel, it does want to provide a formalized and repeatable way to connect wheels together to improve the construction of the desired end result, a wagon say or even a car? How about manufacturing automation!

3. Oct. 18 meeting notes: Process cell, modes, example planned. October 26, 2007. Part of the standards making process is to meet via phone and Web-based connections. Here are a few notes from the Make2Pack ISA SP88 Part 5 October 18 WEB Ex Meeting. We had a small number of attendees (because many committee members were at the Pack Expo meeting), but a lot of good discussion.

Please add your comments to any prior postings, or below, so that we can continue to work together to streamline information flow from continuous or batch processes through discrete operations, such as packaging. 

Here’s to great 2009!

While spending time in North Pole Alaska, it seems to me we’ve had some good discussions about manufacturing efficiency.

These cold photos are at -38 degrees F (that converts to -38.9 degrees C, without considering wind chill factor!) Did you know that at -40 degrees C & F are the same? You can almost hear the trees shiver.