MES use helps achieve sustainability goals, Rockwell Automation says

Rockwell Automation releases white papers that explains how MES, SCADA, and other tools help achieve quantitative sustainability.

By Control Engineering Staff June 1, 2009

Rockwell Automation says MES, SCADA, EMS, and OEE & TTP all can help quantitative sustainability. Information solutions help achieve manufacturers’ energy and sustainability goals, according to a white paper, "Manufacturing Executions Systems for Sustainability: Extending the Scope of MES to Achieve Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Goals," presented May 27 at the IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications in Xi’an, China. Changing metrics to reflect sustainability goals is one way to achive that.

"Information solutions often focus on achieving production management benefits," said Jeffrey Soplop, project manager for Rockwell Automation and one of the paper’s authors. "However, as this paper illustrates, these solutions can be used to implement sustainable production to help reduce energy and raw material use; drive emissions monitoring and environmental reporting; and improve worker and product safety."


Convergence, integration, sustainability

Technology convergence and sustainability have been a Rockwell Automation topic

for the past few years, the company says. The business case for sustainability begins with a holistic approach to manufacturing, incorporating the principles of environmental stewardship, corporate responsibility and economic prosperity – tenets of a fundamental sustainability concept known as the triple bottom line, the paper says. From this perspective, the traditional manufacturing requirements for information solutions lead directly to sustainability improvements.

"The traditional goal of increasing productivity directly supports sustainability goals as well; consuming less energy and raw materials; enforcing regulatory compliance through emissions monitoring and environmental reporting; and reducing operating costs by eliminating waste," said Soplop. "The bottom line – sustainable production positions manufacturers for high performance by helping them to cut costs, generate revenue, and mitigate brand and regulatory risks both now and in the future."


Change what you measure; use what you have

To validate the overlap between traditional and sustainability goals, the paper provides case studies on several Rockwell Automation customers, showing how companies already use information solutions in existing operations. This demonstrates that many sustainability goals are achievable simply by changing perspectives or metrics, rather than by implementing entirely new systems and solutions. Soplop and co-authors Jenifer Wright, Khris Kammer and Rafael Rivera point out in the paper "for manufacturers pursuing sustainability initiatives, MES is an ideal tool for changing production processes to meet the demands of the competitive global landscape."

Read the Rockwell Automation white paper, " Manufacturing Executions Systems for Sustainability: Extending the Scope of MES to Achieve Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Goals " (1.31 MB PDF) and related resources.

Rockwell Automation says manufacturing execution systems, supervisory control and data acquisition, energy management systems, and overall equipment effectiveness and total effective equipment performance all can help quantitative sustainability.

A separate

Aberdeen Group study has similar energy management and sustainability advice

.

An integrated approach can achieve quantitative sustainability, says Rockwell Automation in a new Rockwell Automation whitepaper on MES and sustainability. The MES communicates with other critical information systems within the plant and analyzes disparate data into meaningful metrics, Rockwell Automation says.

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

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