{"id":6937,"date":"2018-02-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/slcontrols.com\/harmonising-data-different-manufacturing-control-systems\/"},"modified":"2021-10-15T10:02:59","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T10:02:59","slug":"harmonising-data-different-manufacturing-control-systems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slcontrols.k8s-stg1-global.sq1.io\/en\/harmonising-data-different-manufacturing-control-systems\/","title":{"rendered":"Harmonising Data from Different Manufacturing Control Systems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Data is central to almost all significant improvements your production line and overall operation will experience over the coming years. Industry 4.0<\/a>, enhancing OEE, automating additional processes, integrating machines and platforms \u2013 all this and more relies on data.<\/p>\n

In simple terms, this means a machine putting out data and another machine or system acting on that data to populate a report<\/a>, track products, send a notification, trigger another stage in the production process, trigger a business process such as system optimisation or ordering new materials, and more.<\/p>\n

The Challenge<\/h2>\n

There is a major barrier that is and will prevent you from achieving the improvements and benefits that new technologies and processes present: there is no consistency in data standards.<\/p>\n

Various control vendors, OEMs, and automation technologies all produce data of some sort, but they do so according to their own standards. This means, in the vast majority of cases, solutions from different vendors do not talk to each other out of the box.<\/p>\n

In many respects, this silo mentality of vendors is understandable. They believe they have the best solution for your production line and they want you to purchase all available products from them. Even if they don\u2019t provide a particular machine or technology you need, they are still reluctant to work to a standardised data format because of the engineering hours involved and because it may mean compromising on the functionality, performance, and uniqueness of their products.<\/p>\n

Busting this down to the reality of your plant, however, means you can have two machines, both from different vendors, both dependent on the other, and both producing data. Neither machine, however, recognises the data of the other.<\/p>\n

The results for your business in this scenario are all negative: inefficiencies, increased risk, production delays, compliance issues, increased production costs, and more.<\/p>\n

The Process<\/h2>\n

The solution to this challenge is obvious \u2013 develop a standard that works regardless of the platform. In other words, using a standard that makes it possible for your system to understand and, crucially, interpret and use data, regardless of how the machine creating the data was programmed.<\/p>\n

Of course, this is easier said than done. The biggest consideration is developing a standard that performs equally and consistently across all vendors and platforms. There are three elements to this:<\/p>\n