Mitsubishi Electric Automation e-F@ctory adds Oracle capabilities

Oracle Manufacturing Operations Center monitors production performance in real-time, integrated with Mitsubishi Electric Automation's e-F@ctory manufacturing solution for all industries, the companies announced at the ARC Forum in Orlando.

Mitsubishi Electric Automation, provider of industrial automation solutions, added the Oracle Manufacturing Operations Center to the Mitsubishi e-F@ctory manufacturing solution for all industries. The announcement was made at the 14th Annual ARC Forum in Orlando on Feb. 8. e-F@ctory is Mitsubishi Electric’s vision for manufacturing that unifies its best-in-class control hardware and networks with enterprise IT systems offered by strategic partner companies, including IBM, Microsoft and now, Oracle, said Mitsubishi Electric. Mitsubishi said it is the first hardware vendor with an Oracle tested and approved connection to the Oracle Manufacturing Operations Center. (See more below.)

Mitsubishi Electric e-F@ctory aims to improve performance of any manufacturing enterprise by reducing total cost of ownership (TCO), maximizing productivity, and providing seamless integration.

"By combining the analytical power of Oracle Manufacturing Operations Center and the integrated architecture of the e-F@ctory solutions, customers now receive real-time information about their plant production," said Bob Miller, solutions marketing manager, Mitsubishi Electric Automation. "Monitoring machine performance can also reduce downtime. By logging the system performance and run-times more accurately, timely intercession and preventive maintenance can be performed."

"Production scheduling also can be controlled more accurately, automatically helping to ensure the best overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and delivery times. Since quality can be monitored for individual parts, if a quality issue arises, changes can be made automatically to resolve root-cause, thereby reducing waste and downtime," said Miller.

Monitoring stock and usage can also increase the efficiency by keeping track of products that have been made and automatically creating new part and product orders according to up-to-the minute on-hand quantities. When information can flow seamlessly between the plant floor and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, production can increase without expensive expansion. Up to a 65% increase in efficiency has been realized when using an e-F@ctory solution, Mitsubishi said.

"Working closely with Mitsubishi Electric Automation for data collection allows us to connect to a broad range of industrial hardware platforms," said Manish Modi, Oracle vice president, applications development. "Having a viable hardware solution provides the ability to reduce the possible points of failure on the plant floor." Modi said with the ease of connection and setup of the Mitsubishi hardware, combined with Oracle pre-built key performance indicators (KPIs), customers will realize a faster return on investment (ROI), "not only on the implementation of the system but on their whole production facility as well."

Mitsubishi said its e-F@ctory’s enterprise connectivity solution offers advantages over traditional data collection methods and is built to handle high levels of data processing and interaction, and future growth. As more manufacturers use IT systems to remain competitive in the manufacturing space, increasing amounts of shop floor information exchange are required, Mitsubishi added; e-F@ctory ensures that the sheer volume of data collection and exchange doesn’t overwhelm the control systems and force costly retrofit or clumsy work-around solutions.

Traditional solutions used today may include open control (OPC) servers, SCADA software, and Excel spreadsheets, or other business applications. Data collection and database connectivity between the business and plant floor was not their intended design. These solutions require complex infrastructures, often with multiple PCs on the floor which need to be constantly maintained and protected. Such multi-layer architecture has many possible points of failure and is can be very difficult to implement and maintain.

Miller said that customers will be able to "test drive" the system.

"We will encourage potential customers to demo the hardware. With assistance from Oracle and Mitsubishi Electric Automation, they can connect up to three machines on their plant floor, and run our partner solution. At the end of the trial period, the customer will then be able to place orders for the needed components," said Miller.

Modi added, "Customers now have the opportunity to test drive a system that includes plant floor hardware along with Mitsubishi’s eF@ctory solution and Oracle Manufacturing Operations Center. This will allow them to experience the full potential of the solution and understand the impact it can have across the enterprise."

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Manufacturing IT channel on Control Engineering .

– Edited by Mark T. Hoske, editor in chief, Control Engineering, www.controleng.com.