Manufacturing Convergence: Enabling Plant-Wide Optimization In Any Economy

Rockwell Automation Manufacturing Convergence: Enabling Plant-Wide Optimization In Any Economy 2 | Enabling Plant-Wide Optimization In Any Economy Manufacturing Convergence: Enabling Plant-wide Optimization In Any Economy Productivity Information Globalization Communications Innovation Control Sustainability Power Global manufacturers face economically challenging times with a complex and crowded agenda. Today’s market pressures require manufacturers to constantly balance productivity, globalization, innovation and, sustainability. This paper will provide concrete examples of how customers, using the Rockwell Automation Disciplines are achieving their goals and gaining a competitive edge. Enabling Plant-Wide Optimization In Any Economy | 3 The historic magnitude of the current global financial downturn has already prompted leading economists to dub this “The Great Recession.” Manufacturers in particular have felt unprecedented distress. Recent data from the U.S. Federal Reserve shows that 86 percent of industries have cut production since November 2008. That’s the most widespread reduction since the government started tracking this statistic in 1967. The dramatic decline in demand for consumer and capital goods – a major hallmark of this recession – is compounded by an equally rare combination of additional market forces. Those include volatile energy costs, increasing global competition, and tighter government regulations. Yet there is good news: The innovative technology and sophisticated operational systems that manufacturers need to thrive in this new economic climate already exist. Significant advances in automation technology – combined with the principles of Manufacturing Convergence – can help manufacturers optimize production and gain the efficiencies necessary for success in the new economy. Manufacturing Convergence is the merger of traditionally disparate functions and systems across the enterprise. Through this union, all information sources can be streamlined to allow for access of the right information, in the right place, at the right time and in the right format. This eases configuration, visualization, maintenance and optimization of processes and critical plant assets. IT and the shop floor can share information seamlessly and securely, unleashing new opportunities for collaboration throughout the plant, and across the supply chain. Integrating machine control with power control opens opportunities to further reduce costs, improve design for manufacturability and help preserve energy. Together, convergence and the advanced technology that enables it are helping forward-thinking manufacturers position themselves for prosperity … in any economy. 4 | Enabling Plant-Wide Optimization In Any Economy Key Market Drivers of Manufacturing Convergence Bringing together people, processes and technology will help organizations address key market drivers – productivity, innovation, globalization and sustainability – to achieve higher levels of business performance, turn equipment resources into financial assets, and discover new opportunities for competitiveness. It’s the merging of manufacturing and production systems – Manufacturing Convergence – with the entire corporate enterprise that allows manufacturers to meet these market drivers, particularly in economically challenging times. Take productivity, for example. Manufacturers can’t run plants with fewer people and expect the same productivity without fundamental changes in the manufacturing processes. An era that once stressed “maximum productivity” has evolved to “optimum productivity” where machines, processes and factories dynamically adjust to meet continuous changes in demand. Doing this effectively requires significantly more reliable and available data than in the past. Consider a leading ethanol producer in Iowa. Tapping into an advanced process control solution that merged software with control technology, this assisted the plant in optimizing productivity – increasing production and throughput while reducing energy consumption. Though the company continuously pushes its production rate to maximize output, a complex production environment required time-consuming monitoring and evaluation of key processes. This posed constant challenges for operators and plant personnel. The advanced process control solution helped the company maximize production and increase operational efficiencies. The solution controls the plant’s dryers, making adjustments as needed to best suit varying conditions. This approach helps the plant maximize production in the dryers 24/7 while producing the highest possible returns using the plant’s current equipment configuration. Manufacturers that respond to innovation as both an opportunity and a market driver during these tough economic times are gaining an upper hand for when the economy rebounds. How? By using the automation technology available today, an entire plant can be modeled digitally so new production concepts can be tested virtually. Reconfigurable and scalable manufacturing equipment can be quickly assembled to respond to fast-changing consumer preferences. Intelligent machines can monitor their own health, throughput and yield, and report corrective action to maintenance staff. These innovations are making organizations more nimble and flexible in order to move new products to market as requirements change. Arkema, an industrial chemical producer, helped drive new product innovation and improved productivity with a new, fully integrated process automation system. Working with Rockwell Automation, the company merged control technologies, integrated HMI visualization software into each application, added batch-management software to control recipes, and linked the system together via a communications interface to provide insight for third-party access. Enabling Plant-Wide Optimization In Any Economy | 5 “If we chose to do nothing, it would have only been a matter of time before our plant was non-operational,” said John Bryant, engineering and maintenance manager at Arkema. “We knew that we had to invest in a new process automation system that allowed us to move our business to the next level and meet additional market demands.” With the new system, Arkema can constantly try new product grades and pilots, and make changes to the batch in a moment’s notice. In fact, the company has added two new products to its portfolio since the system was installed. Productivity also has improved – batch-creation time has been cut in half. Globalization – another market driver – offers boundless opportunities but also presents complex challenges in a volatile Green Planet Farms does more market. Currency fluctuations, supply shortages, tightened credit than just talk about protecting markets and even natural disasters have the potential to cause major disruptions in world markets. Manufacturing Convergence the environment; sustainability helps provide organizations with systems that allow them to is a leading principle for every capitalize on changing conditions or, if necessary, reduce their risk. decision that’s made by Sustainability is an increasingly important market driver, especially during days of mercurial energy prices. Manufacturers the organization. are widening their focus from “output efficiency” (how fast a product was made) to also include “input efficiency” (what it took to make the product). The ability to reduce energy costs, measure and manage carbon-footprint and process emissions, as well as improving worker and plant safety and product integrity are all important aspects of a sustainability program. This desire to track all aspects of manufacturing – from suppliers through production to end delivery – requires a heightened level of integration between manufacturing and other areas of the business. Green Planet Farms, a soy isolate manufacturer based in South Sioux City, Neb., has extended its commitment to sustainability beyond the manufacturing process, all the way to the small farmers who grow the organic produce used in manufacturing.