A lot happens on the factory floor that enterprise-level information technology (IT) applications do not learn about easily:
* The serial number of a part going into an individual medical device.
* The farmer who supplied a given batch of milk.
* Whether the correct torque setting was used to tighten a bolt on a steering column.
* When stock of a certain car radio is running low.
* The speed of production line number four.
* If a test unit is malfunctioning.
* And on and on.
Enterprise applications need much of this information in realtime to organise production efficiently, smoothly transferring and tracking orders and replenishing supplies.
Rockwell Software FactoryTalkIntegrator was introduced recently as middleware that links enterprise applications with production management systems. It forms the heart of the Rockwell Automation approach to information integration. Its success has been proven at a variety of automotive plants, and its usefulness to other industries is readily apparent. Rockwell Automation worked with IBM to leverage IBM's middleware technology - specifically WebSphere Business Integration, WebSphere Portal Server, and WebSphere MQ Messaging and other technologies - to extend the Rockwell Software FactoryTalk suite for open, standards-based integration and visualisation.
According to Rudolf van Wyk, software business unit manager at Rockwell Automation, WebSphere has the most robust and flexible integration technology available. "We are licensing three pieces of WebSphere - the adapters that allow software applications to talk with one another, the workflow engineering middleware, and the user framework [which includes] the administration and configuration tools. To these components we are adding our knowledge of production systems: how they operate, and what data they need and generate."
The result enables factory systems to talk with ERP and other enterprise applications from SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, JD Edwards and other vendors, as well as legacy software, text data and generic databases, and even employ Web services using extensible mark-up language (XML). "As long as the software has an application programming interface, FactoryTalkIntegrator can talk to it. This means that our products can be integrated seamlessly into a company's service-oriented architecture," says Van Wyk.
There are two particular points at which information most needs to move between enterprise and factory applications, Van Wyk points out: when enterprise systems send information about orders to the factory floor for fulfilment, and when the factory reports back order fulfilment data. Several vehicle manufacturers are already using FactoryTalk Integrator for both halves of this data round trip, and their experiences show the precision and flexibility the system brings to specific and broad areas of production.
For more information contact Rudolf van Wyk, Rockwell Automation, +27 (0)11 654 9700, [email protected]
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