Deon Engelbrecht, chair of the MESA South Africa Working Group invited SA Instrumentation and Control to meet up with Jan Snoeij on his recent visit to South Africa. Snoeij has extensive experience in manufacturing systems and works as principal consultant for Logica.
SAI&C: What is the motivation for this visit to South Africa?
Snoeij: The local MESA working group falls under the European wing of MESA and so I was invited to participate in the first MESA International South African Seminar.
SAI&C: MESA is very active internationally with conferences, meetings and the publication of white papers. How do you split your time between MESA business and that of Logica?
Snoeij: MESA takes up between 20 and 25% of my time, the rest is spent in my SI and consulting role at Logica. Fortunately Logica sees this involvement as adding value to the community and is very supportive of this.
SAI&C: The boundaries of manufacturing execution systems (MES) have become very blurred. In which technology areas does MESA focus?
Snoeij: We refer to MES as manufacturing enterprise systems, to help move away from the traditional definition. Our focus is on improving manufacturers’ business processes.
SAI&C: How does this blurring of the MES boundaries impact the supply side of the MES market?
Snoeij: At one point every vendor of scada and production management systems was trying to provide a ‘one size fits all’ MES solution. However, our annual MES Product Survey shows that vendors are becoming more focused on particular industry sectors in which they have particular expertise. Of course, this makes some of those smaller niche players targets for mergers and acquisitions as larger vendors seek expertise and solutions that suit vertical market sectors.
SAI&C: Have these changes influenced the type of user with which vendors interact?
Snoeij: In the early stages of MES development vendors typically worked with end user operations staff. Later IT departments took ownership of MES systems, but now the conversation is at the CEO level. MES systems address the strategic objectives of their businesses by providing plant floor visibility to the CEO.
SAI&C: Has this influenced the type of data that an MES needs to provide?
Snoeij: This has been the driver for the implementation of dashboards and the focus on key performance indicators (KPIs).
SAI&C: We read vendor marketing literature about KPIs and benchmarking against other players in similar industries, but do competitors really share this information, or is this just marketing hype?
Snoeij: KPIs are powerful tools to manufacturing improvement. We do have MESA members who share such information, but the real issue is about their definition. They need to be specific, measurable, acceptable, realistic and timely. Users need to start by benchmarking themselves against their own business objectives, not those of others.
SAI&C: Does Logica have its own MES product?
Snoeij: We use products from vendors like Siemens, GE Fanuc, AspenTech, OSIsoft, and Camstar along with those of some regional niche players to improve our customers’ manufacturing processes. Logica is also a SAP partner for discrete manufacturing.
SAI&C: How big a player is Logica in the MES market?
Snoeij: Worldwide we have 39 000 staff operating in 41 countries, although from an historical perspective our largest base is in Europe.
Engelbrecht: To put that in perspective that is about twice the size of Rockwell.
SAI&C: With that staff complement do you feel the effects of global skills shortages?
Snoeij: It is hard to find skilled people, especially in Europe. It is easier in the USA and in India, from which we service our Asian markets.
SAI&C: What trends has MESA identified in the application of MES systems?
Snoeij: In the beginning nearly all of the focus was in traditional final QA application, but now we are seeing users beneficially implement MES throughout the manufacturing and distribution process. For instance to support traceability and product tracking.
The key here is the application of IT in manufacturing for improved efficiency and effectiveness; to make first time right; for lean manufacturing; and for regulatory compliance. In this latter respect it is the incorporation of compliance as an integral part of day-to-day manufacturing processes and systems that is important.
Another important consideration is the agility that a well-implemented MES can provide. Manufacturers operate in dynamic environments and are part of a supply chain; they need to work in concert with their suppliers and their customers, while maintaining control of their manufacturing processes.
SAI&C: That implies data interchange between suppliers, manufacturers and customers. What trends are you seeing here?
Snoeij: Traditionally the electronic data interchange has been between systems at level 4 of the Purdue model, but now we are seeing that moving down to level 3, the MES layer. Some refer to this as EMES. More users are adopting XML in the form of B2MXL as the interchange medium, and the interfaces are becoming configurable rather than programmable.
SAI&C: What other factors should our readers be aware of?
Snoeij: As the need for system interoperability increases, so too does the importance of structure and definitions. For instance, we are seeing a strong trend towards the adoption of SOA, but the benefits will be greatest if interfaces are well defined and universally accepted. ISA 95 is a good start, but it does not go far enough.
SAI&C: The traditional project approach to implementing new systems is that of User Requirements Specification, Request for Quotation, Functional Specification … All this involves a lot of up-front investment in time and money. Is this still a valid approach for adopting new MES technology?
Snoeij: Our experience is that if a project step takes too long, the whole team of consultants, clients and users get advancing insight into the problem areas addressed. And that leads to scope creep. Taking small steps helps to prevent this.
While we are talking about projects, change management is a factor which most SIs and end users underestimate.
Successful projects follow the maxim, 'Think big. Start small'.
SAI&C: Data interchange between MES systems is only one of the aspects of intercommunication. How are clients addressing the intercommunication at the shop floor? Do they standardise on single vendor solutions to simplify this?
Snoeij: MESA places a strong emphasis on the visibility of shop floor data to management and so this is an important consideration.
Our experience is that end users will probably standardise on a single vendor within a single production line, but not overall within their plants. We are seeing significant adoption of broadly universal communication technologies like OPC.
SAI&C: What trends are you seeing in the selection of databases and programming languages?
Snoeij: Many users have selected Oracle for their back-end, but Microsoft SQL Server is catching up. Not many users have followed the MySQL route.
We have seen a significant trend towards J2EE as the language of choice for MES systems.
SAI&C: How big is MESA in South Africa?
Engelbrecht: We have built membership up to about 40. This is made up of a mix of corporate and individual members. Following the seminar we expect to gain more members.
Snoeij: Internationally we now have over 3000 members and that is increasing at 200 per month. That is a clear indication of the importance that manufacturers, vendors, SIs and consultants are placing on this convergence of IT and control.
For more information contact Deon Engelbrecht, MESA South African Working Group, +27 (0)83 632 1999, [email protected], www.mesa.org
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