Collaborative discrete automation system study

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jun 3, 2003

Around $115 billion in existing discrete automation systems remain in use today and a significant portion of this is rapidly reaching the end of its usable lifetime.

Around $115 billion in existing discrete automation systems remain in use today and a significant portion of this is rapidly reaching the end of its usable lifetime.

One of the primary functions of the "Collaborative discrete automation system (CDAS)" study is to define the vision for the factory of the future and to provide an architectural roadmap based on the prevailing business drivers and emerging technologies for discrete manufacturing.

The engine that runs the production line is becoming the information itself and this shift is taking place across all of the discrete industries.

From the factory floor to product development groups and extended supply chains, information is shared throughout the manufacturing enterprise.

Production schedules are often based on equipment capability and capacity.

Now, they are optimising manufacturing processes using market intelligence information.

Also, product design used to consider just production machinery, but now is based on information exchanged across the business enterprise.

Companies are moving from solely manufacturing-focused methods and processes to a more extended production environment that involves much more than automated equipment, machinery, and production lines.

"It has become increasingly evident that the manufacturing enterprise cannot continue to operate as a group of independent functional organisations that have separate goals, processes, methods, technologies, applications, and systems", said Senior Analyst Dick Slansky (dslansky@arcweb.com), the principal author of ARC's "Collaborative discrete automation systems (CDAS)" study.

Slansky continued, "Managers with vision understand the necessity of a comprehensive architecture that interprets and defines their manufacturing enterprise and core competitive advantage".

The capability to have access to events as they happen in real-time will become essential to running the factory of the future.

As this change occurs, discrete manufacturing will have the capability to move to an event-driven, real-time system.

Information originating from the factory floor will drive performance management to become holistic and "real-time".

Manufacturing intelligence and visibility enables better management of the assets, the supply chain, quality, productivity and customer satisfaction.

The vision of CDAS architecture provides a framework that spans from the production processes at the equipment level to the business systems at the enterprise level.

It leverages interoperability and common standards.

CDAS presents a view that is both strategic and tactical.

Previously, manufacturers struggled to unify their business and factory operations.

Early enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications offered a top-down approach that failed to deliver on this promise.

Outsourcing, globalisation, lean manufacturing, and time-to-market pressures are the principal factors in continuing the convergence of IT with production systems.