Collaborative production management market grows

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Feb 25, 2004

The collaborative production management for process manufacturing (CPM-P) market, which exceeded $1.1 billion in 2003, will approach $2 billion by 2008, according to a new study.

The collaborative production management for process manufacturing (CPM-P) market, which exceeded $1.1 billion in 2003, will approach $2 billion by 2008, according to a new study by the ARC Advisory Group.

This gives an 11% compound annual growth rate.

"The demand for CPM-P solutions has been relatively strong for the past couple of years despite the economic slowdown that has plagued much of the world.

This remarkable feat clearly demonstrates the value CPM-P solutions provide to end users", said Tom Fiske, PhD, Senior Analyst and the study's author.

Fiske continues: "Growth of CPM-P systems will accelerate over the next several years as CPM-P systems evolve to support users' growing requirements to achieve exceptional performance-driven manufacturing environments".

CPM solutions are integrated software systems that support and manage production activities by coordinating all manufacturing data related to operations.

CPM solutions provide process manufacturers with the means to plan and schedule, track and analyse, and direct and operate their operations on a continual basis.

Implementation of CPM solutions provide tangible benefits including increased throughput, reduced energy usage, less raw material usage, reduction of waste generated, improved safety, greater manufacturing flexibility and agility, increased efficiency, improved quality, and reduced costs.

Manufacturers are increasingly recognising these benefits and the need to consider CPM solutions or risk a severe disadvantage to competitors that have adopted them.

Adding to further adoption of CPM systems is the continued need for collaboration while optimising supply chain relationships that permit companies to extract greater value from their assets.

Fiske said: "Many manufacturers have invested in ERP, SCM, and CRM applications and are now looking to maximise their ROI.

Granted these systems provide significant value, but without visibility and responsiveness from the plant, they are underperforming.

Manufacturers are realising that without a sound automation and CPM foundation, the plant cannot respond optimally, thus creating lost opportunities".

Organisations now expect CPM solutions to aid in manufacturing execution and help drive business performance.

This solution space is getting increased attention from not only CPM suppliers, but also from ERP and supply chain suppliers.

A major trend supporting the growth of CPM systems is the enthusiastic adoption of strategic initiatives that focus on creating a performance-driven manufacturing environment.

Initiatives such as real-time performance management (RPM) are helping companies optimise their entire enterprise by improving asset and resource utilisation along with their decision-making process.

CPM systems are a critical element to achieve these initiatives and are becoming the vehicle to increase efficiency and gross margins.

Adding to rapid CPM-P adoption is the need for real-time visualisation and performance analysis of process information.

Additional benefits come from timely information used for critical operational decision support.

The foundation of CPM solutions is data collection and distribution.

New performance analysis and visualisation tools are emerging that are changing the way plant personnel perform their jobs.

These tools make information about the production process available to everyone and they associate actionable items to the contextualised information so that each worker in a plant has the information necessary to make decisions at a point in the process where it has the greatest benefit.

These products are not simply visualisation tools - they are "performance personalisation tools" (PPTs).