Brooks Software unveils enterprise interoperability hub

Brooks Software has announced its Enterprise Interoperability (EI) Hub, which enables information exchange between manufacturing and enterprise business applications.

By Control Engineering Staff June 2, 2005

Brooks Software has announced its Enterprise Interoperability (EI) Hub, which enables information exchange between manufacturing and enterprise business applications. Compliant with ISA-S95 and Open Applications Group (OAG) standards, EI Hub uses Brooks’ Smart Adapters to link its Factoryworks manufacturing execution system (MES) to enterprise applications, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and supply chain management (SCM). Brooks Software provides real-time applications for complex manufacturing operations, and is a division of Brooks Automation Inc.

The first Smart Adapter to be made available was developed in partnership with SAP and integrates mySAP ERP and Factoryworks, and contains components that are certified through SAP’s “Powered by NetWeaver” program. Additional Smart Adapter configurations for SCM, CRM and other leading ERP applications will be announced in the future.”In today’s complex manufacturing environment, global companies are trying to anticipate and more effectively respond to fluctuating market demands and changes in the supply chain,” says Joe Bellini, Brooks Software’s executive VP and GM. “Forecast-driven planning is no longer a viable way to run a company. Production planning must be demand driven and the best way to achieve that is to seamlessly connect enterprise business systems to manufacturing applications. With the Brooks EI Hub, manufacturers can now integrate their enterprise systems with MES for true‘shop-floor to top-floor’ interoperability.”

In an earlier release, Brooks Software released its first SAP-certified Integration Gateway, which is the architectural framework of EI Hub. Integration Gateway provides a Web-service integration solution that is aligned with Enterprise Service Architecture, which is SAP’s blueprint for service-oriented architecture, and uses ISA-S95 standards.

—Jim Montague, news editor, Control Engineering, jmontague@reedbusiness.com