MES software has international standards covered

A Siemens Automation and Drives product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team May 30, 2005

The latest version of the Simatic IT manufacturing execution systems package offers complete fulfilment of ISA-95 requirements.

The new version (6.1) of the MES (manufacturing execution systems) software Simatic IT from Siemens Automation and Drives (A and D) now offers complete fulfilment of ISA-95 requirements, the international standard for manufacturing operations.

This is gained by three new software components: Client Application Builder (CAB) is a web-based, zero administration cost MES client development environment.

Data Integration Services (DIS) is an XML-based tool to integrate control and production systems with enterprise transactional systems, ie SAP.

Product Definition Manager (PDefM) is an engineering environment for translating specification into manufacturing actions.

Available from July 2005, Simatic IT version 6.1 comes with a new sales approach, referred to as Simatic IT bundles.

The new Siemens offer is scalable and "solution driven", allowing customers to "start, learn and grow", beginning with so-called "entry point" bundles up to bundles with an high level of functionality.

Simatic IT bundles address customer needs in scalability and transparency, according to typical manufacturing issues.

Their upgrade to a higher level represents an evolution of functionality.

The three new entry point bundles are Simatic IT Manufacturing Information System for data management, Simatic IT Genealogy for material management and Simatic IT Order Management, which addresses order management.

The three entry point bundles can be scaled to a higher level of functionality to SimaticIT Tracking and Tracing and Simatic IT Basic Production Management.

The bundle Basic Production Management unifies the order and material management for a typical manufacturing environment, where orders are a key aspect, but material must be considered in the overall management.

The Tracking and Tracing bundle is used where a complete monitoring and control on the efficiency of the production facility is required.

The complete Siemens MES-offering is contained in the high-end bundle Simatic IT Production Suite.

Simatic IT CAB (Client Application Builder) is an engineering tool to design MES user interfaces.

It is based on a standard Microsoft Visual Studio.Net environment and enables to develop graphic screens, where data are collected from Simatic IT data servers or heterogeneous sources and manipulated, if needed, before displaying.

The GUIs (graphical user interfaces) built with Simatic IT CAB are web applications, ie the graphic screens are displayed in a web browser.

The web clients are full ZAC (zero administration cost) clients, as no additional software installation is required.

Simatic IT DIS (Data Integration Service) is an engineering environment for communication to business systems, ie to ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems like SAP.

It allows message exchange among applications of different types and external systems.

Connectors are provided for SAP Idoc, SAP tRFC, SAP sRFC, MQSeries and Windows File System, plus a generic COM connector for building custom connectors.

XML is the preferred standard, even if also Unicode string messages can be handled.

Simatic IT DIS guarantees data persistency, with an SQL Server database.

The engineering tool Simatic IT PDefM (Product Definition Manager) performs all definitions related to a product, ie defines the sequences of operations necessary to produce a product.

The product specifications, ie description, grouping resources and parameters, are centralised in one single point and all components use them for performing the manufacturing actions.

Concentration in one point helps to easily maintain all product data, to reduce errors during the configuration and to validate all production data for a product.