Gary Mintchell, CONTROL ENGINEERING

MES Applications Reveal Increased Power

Delta Motors Sees Success with FactorySuite Solution Overview The team developing a Manufacturing Execution System at Delta Motor Corp.'s Corsa manufacturing plant (Struandale, Port Elizabeth, South Africa) chose InTrack from Wonderware (Irvine, Calif.). The team was composed of members from Delta Motors and their integrator, ISIS. Vehicle Tracking System (VTS) is first implementation of InTrack manufacturing execution system in the country. Objective The overall goal of the project was to increase productivity and reduce costs by implementing planning and line optimization on the factory floor. System requirements included: Supply accurate and timely information to all relevant areas of the company's business; Bring about common practices in all plants; Provide real time integrated information with as little human intervention and paperwork as possible; Provide a scaleable system as a foundation for future changes; and Be based upon a commercially available package(s) to reduce development time and costs InTrack from Wonderware was chosen for the factory floor and MES portion while SAP's (Waldorf, Germany) R/2 enterprise resource planning software was chosen for the business system. System Overview Dealer orders for Corsa vehicles input to the Vehicle Distribution System (VDS) on a central mainframe computer with R/2 software located at headquarters about 6 km from the factory.

Is There a Shortage of Engineers?

Feel like there is not enough of you to go around? Maybe it's because there aren't enough engineers to do all the work.The U.S. Department of Commerce has released a study by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) showing a shortage of 70,000 computer scientists and systems analysts per year.