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The New Megatrend: Convergence in Manufacturing
Network, technology, organizational and cultural challenges that face manufacturers as they approach the convergence process.

By Brian Oulton, Director, Networks Business, Rockwell Automation, and Dan Knight, Industry Solutions Manager, Solutions Marketing, Cisco

Manufacturers face unprecedented challenges as global economic forces drive competition and open opportunities in new markets. Flexibility and efficiency are required to quickly develop and manufacture an increasing number of products to meet rapidly changing demands. At the same time, manufacturing companies are becoming more complex and globally dispersed, accelerating the need for increased collaboration, visibility and efficiency.

CEOs recognize that to achieve these business objectives and be competitive in a global manufacturing environment, their organizations need to do a better job of getting the right information to the right people at the right time, in the right place, in a usable, integrated format in order to make quick, smart business decisions. The organization must become more responsive to changing market and operational conditions without sacrificing efficiency.

Aligning Business and Technology

Ultimately, network convergence helps align technology with business goals. These goals typically include increased agility and responsiveness, a cost-effective strategy for business process transformation, and enterprise-wide visibility.

However, challenges exist to this alignment. Manufacturers have many systems and layers that may not communicate. Information needs to move quickly between supply chains, distribution chains, the people and equipment on the manufacturing floor and the company’s decision makers. Development and integration of applications and systems can be costly and time-consuming without ample coordination. And silos in organizational structures between IT and manufacturing can result in poor information exchange and resource allocation, and integration challenges.

Figure 1. Convergence Model

 

Manufacturing Convergence Model

Enter the convergence trend. In simplest terms, the deployment of Ethernet has pulled IT and manufacturing professionals together, often creating turmoil, but often creating opportunity to improve efficiencies, drive company-wide best practices and provide transformational change that improves the competitiveness of manufacturers.

The model shown in Figure 1 helps define the different components of manufacturing network convergence and address challenges in each area. While organizations typically progress through the convergence model, the status of convergence may change depending on business and organizational issues within a company, with events like acquisitions that can add new complexities.

Technology and Network Convergence

Increased business pressures, along with wide deployment of standard, unmodified Ethernet on the plant floor and across the enterprise, help drive the convergence of manufacturing and IT technologies, organizations and cultures.

Typically the first step in the model, technology convergence allows standard technologies and skill sets, more flexible systems and simplified integration between multiple systems. Establishing a robust foundation on which to deploy and integrate applications helps manufacturers achieve scalability. Additionally, technology compatibility helps protect the investment. Forward-thinking manufacturers use standard, unmodified Ethernet to mix commercial, business and industrial networking technologies to solve business problems differently, which helps drive innovation and a competitive advantage.

Integrated, connected networks share information and run multiple applications over the same network. Network convergence allows integration of business and manufacturing systems, and helps lay a foundation for more innovative business models. By converging networks, manufacturers benefit from remote access and support, fewer networks to maintain as well as the visibility and integration of technologies and communications.

When technologies and networks converge, manufacturers can deploy a variety of best practices. For example, through convergence efforts, many manufacturers are working toward standardizing architectures and practices across multiple plants to simplify design and deployment, resulting in faster deployments, more efficient support and cost savings. To do this, manufacturers use recommendations from multiple internal and external organizations. Collaboration among IT and manufacturing groups and standards bodies helps establish best practices and requirements around system architecture design, security, and service and support models.

The entire system of people, networks, applications and devices needs to be considered to best understand impact to an organization. This includes incorporating machine builders in system design, alignment of technical design with business needs and strategic thinking around the role of technology in solving the ultimate business objectives.

Figure 2. Bringing People and Process Together: The Enterprise and the Factory

Organizational and Cultural Convergence

While technology and network convergence have occurred within many manufacturing companies, the bigger challenge is often organizational and cultural convergence. This convergence is essential to truly break down barriers and eliminate silos of information and isolated systems. Only then can a manufacturing organization align technology with its business objectives and become more responsive and efficient.

A number of different challenges need to be addressed in order to achieve organizational and cultural convergence. Based on familiar technologies and requirements from past experience, manufacturing and IT often rely on and utilize different models and experience in designing networks. The requirements to support enterprise networks – including data, voice, video and mobility – often are different from automation networks.

While many existing skills and best practices can be applied in a converged networking model, some important disparities need to be addressed. For example, IT and manufacturing professionals often use the same words to mean different things, and use terminology specific to – but unfamiliar to those outside of – their practice area. In terms of support expectations, automation networks tend to run nonstop and plant floor operators need to respond quickly to issues. These require different service levels from a typical office-level network.

While there is no universal solution, within some organizations, manufacturers have achieved success with the following best practices:

• “Cross-pollination” between IT and controls teams: Manufacturers move people between groups through formal and informal cross-training programs as well as create cross-functional teams like security does.
• Co-developed architectures and standards: Collaboration helps establish best practices, requirements and recommendations.
• Clear ownership definition and procedures: For example, manufacturers define ownership of equipment, access rights and decision parameters.
• Defined service-level agreements (SLAs) for manufacturing: Manufacturers should understand requirements as well as get upfront buy-in and documented procedures from the support group.
• Flexible organizational structure: Although several may work – including combined and hybrid structures – it is important to define the working relationship and make sure groups are collaborating.
• Including suppliers and partners: They are a vital part of the ecosystem.

Business Model Transformation

When technology, network, organizational, and cultural convergence are achieved, it allows increased efficiency and performance, more reliable systems, and more efficient project implementation. In addition to these cost and efficiency gains, a converged manufacturing organization can also start to use technology in new ways and implement innovative new business models.

Several real-life examples exist of these converged manufacturing organizations. Some organizations have created virtual support groups in which subject matter experts support production systems and networks in real time, from anywhere. By integrating Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and location-based services, manufacturers track product and asset status as well as location in real time. This information can then be integrated with business and asset-management applications. The mobility of workers and applications like human-machine interfaces (HMI) extends access from outside of a control room.

Other manufacturers demonstrate collaborative manufacturing by sharing real-time data across the enterprise and value chain as well as having real-time inventory visibility across the supply chain. Regardless of location or device, real-time information extends access to data, voice and video to anywhere desired, with the appropriate security controls. Real-time data also allows quality improvements, Six Sigma practices and up-to-date inventory.

Manufacturers can integrate the shop-floor system with ERP for scheduling, product delivery confirmation and quality tracking. To track personnel, contractors, and analyze and correlate events, manufacturers integrate physical and virtual security. Converged manufacturing organizations also leverage predictive maintenance and remote support.

These are only a few of the many best practices that manufacturers deploy to take advantage of convergence. Proactive manufacturers have moved from an “us vs. them” mentality of individual organizations to an approach with combined objectives, blended jobs and organizations, and a new agility that helps transform businesses.

About the Authors:

Dan Knight, Industry Solutions Manager, Solutions Marketing, Cisco Systems, and Brian Oulton, Director, Networks Business, Rockwell Automation work together to aid manufacturers with manufacturing-IT convergence. Together, Rockwell Automation and Cisco released reference architectures and embarked on a series of market education activities, reaching more than 8,000 stakeholders on four continents to date. Additionally, Rockwell Automation and Cisco delivered jointly collaborated on infrastructure products that directly address the widespread network convergence activities in manufacturing and IT organizations.

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