The Web in the Factory
•Communications and the World Wide Web
•Control plus Communications
Rapid changes in manufacturing have led to new thinking and new solutions for problems on the factory floor and throughout the enterprise. The application of new technologies and plant automation techniques has created new complexities for manufacturing operations. Pockets of corporate activity that once took place almost in a vacuum must now be integrated and connected across the manufacturing process. Each plant discipline—management, engineering, production control, machine operations, quality assurance, maintenance, sales and marketing, finance—is at once influenced by the other departments and dependent upon them for information. All stakeholders in the plant—and even customers and suppliers—must be included in the communications linkages if the plant's production processes are to be successful and if informed decisions are to be made.
We asked customers what changes were affecting their businesses. They revealed a workplace where companies must be more agile and able to move quickly to satisfy changing customer demands. These demands require a severely shortened time-to-market. In some rapidly moving industries, a market for new products can come and go in the span of time it takes to retool the production line. How do these demands affect employees who must meet production goals every day and work with factory floor data to further the company's goals? The active participation of involved, skilled workers is required to succeed in this new dynamic work environment. It requires a workforce skilled in new technologies, using flexible techniques and empowered for operator intervention in manufacturing processes. This all must be accompanied by a flow of information to support timely and appropriate decisions. The accelerated dynamics of production today has made information flow a critical technology.
The need for more information hastened the process of connecting and integrating all departments across the corporate enterprise. Demands for improved and more consistent quality and the need for greater responsiveness to changing markets and customer preferences is driving a communications revolution. Plant stakeholders need more feedback and more control over factory processes. The past decade saw the proliferation of new classes of product such as Human-Machine Interface (HMI) hardware and software, plant networks, and MRP and ERP systems. These products sprang into being to fill the technology gap, which in fact was a physical gap as well. The gap was between qualitative and quantitative product information and the growing list of individuals who needed access to this data. Because plant equipment tends to be highly specialized according to industry, the solutions for bridging the gap tended to be specific, custom, and often proprietary in nature.
Communications and the World Wide Web
In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee, working at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, coined the term World Wide Web for the networked hypertext system he had just invented. His system allowed information to be shared across a diverse range of platforms, through the separation of content and formatting instructions. This system exploded at a logarithmic rate, and ultimately was responsible for bringing the Internet into households worldwide.
More than just a tool for consumers, the Web held much more promise than simple document sharing and was emerging as a way to meet the growing needs for factory communication. The expensive, cumbersome HMI systems being applied for machine operator use were ill-suited to wide-area information sharing—especially when a new, costly license was required for each client computer. At the same time, proprietary networks that proliferated throughout industry seemed to prevent communication rather than aid it. Custom gateways and interfaces were necessary to connect to plant information systems, which often meant that no connection was made—the clipboard still ruled the day.
Control Technology (Hopkinton, Mass.) saw that the production machine, with the controller as its proxy, must be a full participant in the plant information network—both producing and consuming information as a peer. This realization had huge significance for the capabilities of the controller and the role it plays in the plant. For manufacturers and OEM's, the controller must provide a console for the operator, statistical information for the plant manager, qualitative data for quality/assurance, performance data for the design team, service information for maintenance personnel—and even production data for customers and suppliers. The controller must also receive production requirements from production control, and support interactive tuning to allow operator interaction.
The Internet and the Web have reinvented business operations. Today, Web browsers allow anyone with Internet access to reach any page or document anywhere on the Internet. Communications are nearly instantaneous and are possible between computers located anywhere in the world. The network is no longer proprietary; instead TCP/IP and Ethernet are used, which may be freely routed using common, inexpensive hardware.
The idea of using Web-based technologies to enhance factory floor operations was the basis for the development of a new generation of machine controllers. Client software and standard Web browsers are freely distributed in the market, and there is no need for specialized training in proprietary software environments to take advantage of these tools. With the incorporation of Java applets and ActiveX components, data interfaces into plant information systems are possible on a direct and dynamic basis. In September 1998, Control Technology was awarded US Patent No. 5,805,442 for machine controllers with integrated Web server capability. The company has committed to the widespread implementation of Web-enabled control throughout the industry.
Communication is a two-way street, not just sending and not just receiving. Sharing and using information relies on timely and accurate collection, storage, and dissemination of information for its intended recipients. The information channel must be able to send information in both directions.
It is also important that all parties have an understanding of program functionality and automation and control activity. To this extent, programming language has a surprising influence on the success of an automation strategy by determining available capabilities and times required for the initial programming and for each successive troubleshooting and debug cycle. Often, parties who are not control engineers need to understand program functionality—they may be experts in other fields such as pharmaceuticals or biotechnology; they may be regulators who must validate the process; sometimes they are maintenance people who must repair a machine after hours. Whatever the reason, it can be an expensive or dangerous situation when only partial understanding exists.
Web-enabled controllers collect machine control information and store it on the controller as Web pages. The information can then be viewed over the Internet (or the company's intranet) from anywhere in the world, at any time of day using the familiar Web browser. Oliver Design Inc. (Scotts Valley, Calif.) a supplier of rigid computer disk and wafer cleaning systems, sees significant value in this technology for its customers. John Warobiew, applications software manager at Oliver Design, said, "Many of our customers have manufacturing facilities in several remote locations including Singapore, Ireland and Malaysia. The ability to monitor machine operations anywhere in the world by accessing a Web page would allow customers to monitor production rates, machine utilization (uptime vs. downtime) and process variations." The data is continuously updated so that the remote computer dynamically displays current data. John Warobiew added, "Remote monitoring of process variations can be a very important factor in maintaining consistent and high product yields. By using remote Internet process monitoring, a problem that could seriously affect product quality (and the resulting yield) can be detected and corrected immediately. Without rapid process correction, many defective parts may be produced before a quality control check detects the problem later in the manufacturing process."
With this new generation of products, manufacturers are now able to communicate factory floor information to all those who need the data. This technology heralds the advent of the flat factory. Just as organizations have been 'flattened' to improve human communications and productivity, so too must information systems be flattened using universal protocols that permit widespread collection and use of plant intelligence. The result is a more agile company, where employees are empowered to levels of productivity heretofore unknown. When all parties share pertinent process production information, the entire corporate enterprise benefits.
About the author—Ken Crater is president and cofounder of Control Technology Corp. His early work included the design of the company's first automation controllers, as well as Quickstep, the state-based programming language that became the basis of the company's extensive product offerings. Ken was founding president of the Industrial Computing Society and is a Fellow of that Society. He is a frequent speaker on control-related topics and has authored many articles and columns.
About Control Technology Corporation—Control Technology Corp. has been applying new technologies to improve machine automation for 25 years. The company manufactures a broad product line of automation controllers integrating motion control, analog data acquisition, communications technology, and analog and digital control, as well as related software. The company pioneered the use of state language for machine control, which has recently gained widespread acceptance as a superior programming paradigm.
Control Technology's headquarters are in Hopkinton, Mass. with regional tech centers in Wisconsin and Northern California.
For more information, contact Control Technology Corporation at info@control.com or 508-435-9595.