Applying Global MOM Systems in a Manufacturing 2.0 Approach

Phil Black - PII Editor 29/05/2013

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What is the Global Best Practice for Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) systems and IT architecture? What practices do industry experts recommend for different manufacturing types and supply networks? Is your management thinking and corporate culture outdated for the changing global market? Is MOM technology too expensive and your IT architecture unable to rapidly adapt to market change?

Manufacturing companies have long been reluctant to adopt the “new” thinking for operations work processes, especially where intelligent systems are making task-level decisions based on operations rules and real-time inputs. While plant equipment evolves continually, work processes supporting intelligent equipment are still primarily based on paper transactions to execute production orders, as if to say, “Our methods have worked for 20 years, why should we change them now?” With this thinking, the world of intelligence technology has evolved rapidly with only few adapting and most manufacturers left behind. The very few best-in-class manufacturers globally use the new developments in intelligent operations methods. The truly progressive ones have adopted these intelligent manufacturing developments most often through a trial and error process over 10-15 years.

So what do end user manufacturing technologists and manufacturing software vendors (MES/MOM vendors) need to change in their thinking?

These groups need to be exposed to the thinking and concepts of Manufacturing 2.0 (Mfg 2.0) as developed by the Gartner Group and then supported by case studies and Global Best Practice studies done by industry organizations such as MESA and the ISA-95 Best Practices Working Group. Once manufacturing companies start asking for flexible MOM systems based on Mfg 2.0 architecture, the vendors will follow.

This paper explores the four main perceptions and obstacles that the above-mentioned “best in class” progressive companies had to overcome to gain enterprise-wide acceptance of their MOM systems architecture as a corporate strategy.

The paper discusses four obstacles or perceptions as proof that end user manufacturing technologists and vendors are not progressive in their thinking, but reactive. These are:

Why MOM and Not MES?
Why Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) in Manufacturing?
Why MDM for Manufacturing?
Is EMI Best Positioned Against or With Business Intelligence (BI)?

For each of these concepts, what they mean and where they fit are explored individually to expose manufacturing technologists to the concepts and the benefits of accepting and working toward this vision. The paper concludes by evaluating the different integration approaches used over the years and comparing them to the current proposed “best practice” and Mfg 2.0 vision.

This paper was produced as part of the MESA/ISA-95 Best Practices Working Group through an international peer review process involving 5 or more subject matter reviewers. This MESA White Paper is also be published in the methodology best practices collection, The MOM Chronicles: ISA-95 Best Practices Book 3.0 (Published by ISA, February 2013)

This white paper is available at: https://services.mesa.org/ResourceLibrary/ShowResource/f00b70ce-5637-4027-a14d-4bf7c0209eee

All of MESA”s white papers are available at www.mesa.org for MESA premium members, who have complimentary access to over 800 white papers, presentations, MOM/MES guidebooks, industry studies and web casts.

Authors:
Gerhard Greeff, Bytes PMC
Charlie Gifford, 21st Century Manufacturing Solutions LLC

Contributing Editor:
Mike James, ATS International B.V.