Wonderware, a business unit of Invensys Systems, has announced that it is collaborating on the first customer project implementations that use the latest version of SAP NetWeaver in an ISA S95 XML standard-based, plant-to-business integration environment using the ArchestrA architecture.
Wonderware is working closely with SAP to simplify the integration effort, lower the implementation and support costs and enable faster manufacturing agility as their mutual customers' business needs evolve.
This collaboration is achieved by using the latest plant-to-business XML standards defined by ISA S95 in combination with open integration architectures, which encompasses Invensys' ArchestrA on the plant side and SAP NetWeaver on the business side.
"Customers have been integrating SAP business solutions and plant execution systems for about a decade in support of driving towards customer demand-driven manufacturing," says Mike le Plastrier, director of Futuristix, a member of the EOH group of companies and principal SA distributor for the Wonderware range of automation and MES solutions. "The significance of this most recent collaboration with SAP is that both companies have evolved their product and services implementations around the reality that customers need sustainable approaches to integration of realtime plant and business information workflows. Both Wonderware and SAP are leaders in their respective markets and have numbers of manufacturing customers in their own plant and business software spaces, making the potential impact of this collaboration even more significant."
This first implementation is underway at Arla Foods in Denmark. "The integration of business and manufacturing has a strategic importance for Arla Foods in supporting the challenges the business is facing in terms of optimising production performance, as well as fulfilling foods safety regulatory requirements," said Arne Svendsen, production IT manager. "This integration is a key point for a complete, internal supply chain, which includes the transfer of detailed production schedules to the shop floor, as well as the seamless collection of key production figures. With an expansive growth strategy, it is a must to have a clear path on integrating business and manufacturing, not least when new facilities become part of the family due to mergers and acquisitions. The use of an open standard combined with standard connectors from SAP and Wonderware is expected to dramatically reduce the costs of business-to-manufacturing integration as well as reducing the time to implement. The open B2MML standard, and the fact that key players like SAP and Wonderware now fully back it by product developments, is the key to move from custom-made integration to affordable B2M interoperability."
About Arla Foods
Arla Foods is a dairy enterprise based in Scandinavia with its headquarters in Denmark. The company has production facilities in Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Argentina. Arla Foods has 20 000 employees and 70 production sites in total. It produces high-quality products in the categories of milk and yoghurt, cheese and spreads as well as powder proteins.
For more information contact Mike le Plastrier, Futuristix, 011 723 9900, [email protected], www.futuristx.co.za
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