New reference book: "Design Patterns for Flexible Manufacturing"

Consultant, ISA Fellow, and Control Engineering columnist Dennis Brandl offers a reference to help make flexible batch, continuous, and discrete manufacturing processes easier.

By Peter Welander October 2, 2009

"Design Patterns for Flexible Manufacturing," now available from ISA, reveals a set of design patterns and rules for applying the widely used ISA88 industry standards to batch, continuous, and discrete manufacturing to more easily create and implement better manufacturing processes.

Author Dennis Brandl is the chair of the ISA88 committee, and developed these patterns and subsequent rules while applying the batch series concepts in several projects. This book clearly identifies what elements are defined in the batch series and what elements make up the S88 and NS88 design patterns for flexible manufacturing. The name of the standard is Batch Control, but developers of the standard and users of the standard believe that it might have better been named Flexible Control. The standard is not about batch manufacturing, but rather is a model for flexible control system designs that are robust enough to withstand changes.

This book clearly identifies what elements are defined in the batch series and what elements make up the S88 and NS88 design patterns for flexible manufacturing. The book defines design patterns for control system programming, providing patterns for the organization of PLC, DCS, and other control system application code. Whether you are in a batch, continuous, or discrete manufacturing environment, these design patterns can be applied to a wide range of production systems, making systems easier to design and implement. Order the book at the ISA online bookstore .

Dennis Brandl was named a ISA Fellow earlier this year, receiving recognition from his peers for outstanding technical achievements. You can read his column IT & Engineering Insight in Control Engineering . To read earlier columns, search on Brandl at www.controleng.com .

 

-Edited by Peter Welander, process industries editor, PWelander@cfemedia.com
Control Engineering Process & Advanced Control Monthly eNewsletter
Register here to select your choice of free eNewsletters .