MES: A Practical Approach to rationalizing your Information System.

MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) (plus good old clear thinking) provide a rational framework for setting up an information system that will satisfy your needs and allow you to sleep at night!

The Process Control Information Nightmare: We step back and look at the BIG picture and categorize the all too common problems.

When you are deeply involved in the process control industry as we are, some things just seem to hit you in the face as being obvious. Going from user site to user site, we noticed various issues that keep coming up in virtually every industry. We mapped the information flow on a "typical" site and iconified the kinds of problems that are all too typical in the various areas on the site.

Does this diagram make sense to you? Here are the problems we have noticed:

	Database: The data ends up in many small interconnected "tables" like Excel, Access, SQL server.
	The admin management (e.g. Backup, Integrity, Security etc.) of this critical data is not professionally addressed.
	Staff turnover often suddenly renders a critical applications close to useless.
	Demands: The demands of MES in terms of day to day changes are unprecedented.
	Scalabilty: Small pilot schemes work when small but collapse when scaled up to handle the full system.
	Multi-site requirements: The systems do not adequately address this important requirement.
	Applications: The system don't link easily into the many apps E.g. ERPs, PLC's, DCS's, LAB Information systems etc.
	IT Personnel: It is very hard to find the required combination of skills. I.e. process engineering and IT skills.
	Security: Although the information is critical, security is often an informal afterthought.
	Cost: The cost of these systems in equipment, labour and maintenance is often underestimated.
	Politics: Often there is interdepartmental squabbling over data ownership.

Out of this mess and into MES: Here are seven common-sense precepts that will make the world of a difference.

As in Life, the most useful advice is generally free but more importantly SIMPLE. Here are a few precepts that could change the way you see Information:

The common-sense Precepts

• Re-engineer both your information system AND your organization.
• Keep ALL your data in a Central Database (Unless it is in development.)
• Adopt a Data Warehouse culture. (See the next section for what this means.)
• Get your engineers to handle Process Applications, and your IT staff to manage the data.
• Define a protocol between Database people and Process Application people.
• Give your Engineers the best application tools. Give your IT staff the best database tools. (It's usually cheaper!)
• Wherever possible, standardise the interface to the "real world".
• Insist that all your data viewing is done via the Intranet.

A New Rationalised structure: How the precepts work towards solving a "multitude of sins"

So, if we adopt these precepts, what do we end up with? The diagram below shows a hugely different picture from the "typical" one above.

.........and here are the benefits:

Databases: The information from the tables is automatically collected into the secure environment. Steadily these small islands are rationalized into the central database.

Admin: The administration of the information is managed professionally by the central IT department.

Staffing: Using modern design tools, the applications may be developed by engineers. By allowing more development at the user level, there is less pressure on IT staff. Going to an Intranet architecture removes a big proportion of the client level maintenance.

Demands: Using high level design tools, applications are more maintainable and more flexible, changes can be made easily since the programming is carried out at the business rule level. The data waerhouse facilitates a sophisticated query system so that many of the demands for information do not require programming.

Scalabilty: Using the Data Warehouse and an Intranet structure, the system has virtually unlimited scalability.

Multi-site requirements: There is a clean, proven link to other sites for information and also, via the Intranet, to remote users.

Applications: The tools to (natively) link the Data Warehouse into most applications already exist. For the more exotic applications, a toolkit provides a structured linking approach.

IT Personnel: Using this structure, applications may be developed by engineers who do not need complex programming skills and database management skills.

Security: The management of the security is now handled by the central IT division.

Cost: There are massive cost advantages in going to an Intranet architecture across the board. I.e. machines, software, maintenance, networks, training, admin etc

Politics: There is a very clear demarcation of responsibilities. The IT department is responsible for the Data Warehouse, engineers are responsible for the process applications.
 
Data Warehousing: Its relevance in Process Control: What do we mean by it, how can we use it.

There has been a tremendous amount written about Data Warehousing. We tried to encapsulate what we see as being important in data warehousing for the process control environment. To encapsulate it, we have had to simplify it. So, apologies to the purists out there!

There are a great many good data warehouse products out there (like Oracle's Data Mart.) There are also tools available that can help you adopt a data warehouse culture. Some are expensive but even if you don't have the cash to buy one, you can adopt some of the principles in your design and still get a lot of mileage out of the culture. Here are some of the important characteristics of Data Warehouses.

• They offer a systematic, flexible, organised approach to the management of large, volumes of important data.
• A central component of the Warehouse is a repository (data dictionary) of meta data. This meta data is a set of data that describe the data. I.e. There is a definition and information about every "tag" or "key" of information. There are also definitions of the business rules and organizational stucture which the data warehouse enforces.
• There are sensible and enforced procedures associated with the creation and maintenance of the information to ensure its integrity and its security.
• Usually, changes to the database applications and data are carried out by changing the business rules without having to do any coding.
• There are tools to automate the linking of the data warehouse to external information.
• There are clear, standard methods of access to the information in the data warehouse.

View the on-line Demo
Please send me more information

Click here to view our Price List.