Endress+Hauser is collaborating with SAP AG as a core partner of the Future Factory Initiative of the SAP research centre in Dresden. The collaboration aims to foster research and development in the process industry.
Within the next few months the companies plan to develop a fully integrated platform for remote service management based on a device integration software prototype. This groundbreaking solution will assist the maintenance departments in process plants across the world to reduce plant downtime and operating costs and enable Endress+Hauser’s service departments to increase their service efficiency and speed dramatically. Intelligent measuring instruments will become fully enabled smart devices that are able to create error tickets, notifications or alerts via ‘plant access points’. The process data will then be transferred to the service management application for installed-base configuration as well as for service-related processes.
Within the scope of the cooperation, Endress+Hauser will enable its lifecycle management system (W@M) to integrate measuring devices directly into business systems. W@M (Web-enabled Asset Management) is based on the SAP NetWeaver technology platform. The target of this strategy is to increase plant availability while simultaneously decreasing maintenance costs.
“Across the universe of data available, it is more crucial than ever to transform and deliver asset data as business-critical information throughout an organisation, to the right people and integrated in the right processes,” says Eugenio F. da Silva Neto, project manager of the Endress+Hauser task force. ‘Furthermore, Endress+Hauser and SAP are collaborating to facilitate information exchange, helping to make the information more valuable to our customers, for example through condition monitoring and predictive maintenance. One of our major goals is to overcome the typical limitations of the automation pyramid model confinement and complexity, so that we can map and access all relevant asset information in the plant. We would like to achieve it via open, scalable, lean and secure process automation and IT platforms and prove that real-time asset data with transaction information may be merged and transformed in more than one place, in fact wherever it makes sense, and make information accessible whenever it is needed.”
“The remote service management scenario will significantly extend our portfolio of use cases in the Future Factory Lab,” highlights Dr Uwe Kubach, vice president and head of SAP Research Center. “It will address requirements often requested by customers, and will provide answers and innovative solutions that go beyond manufacturing processes. Teaming with Endress+Hauser on this proves that we are also focusing on business aspects that will deliver smooth and robust runtime processes in a factory environment.”
Demonstration models of the integrated scenario are scheduled to be available in the Future Factory Lab at the SAP research centre by the first quarter of 2011. The demonstrations will show both device integration scenarios at a customer and at Endress+Hauser sites, highlighting integration with the SAP Enterprise Asset Management solution.
For more information contact Hennie Blignaut, Endress+Hauser, +27 (0)11 262 8000, , www.za.endress.com
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