System Harmony with Siemens Opcenter
Current Manufacturing Landscape
Manufacturing, as a business segment, requires a lot of software in order to stay competitive and operate at peak efficiency. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software handles business functions including inventory and order management, resource allocation, human resources and more. Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) are employed to manage and monitor activity on the shop floor. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software, analytics software, and a variety of other software applications are employed to fulfill other various functions throughout the manufacturing and enterprise environments.
While each of these software applications serves to improve efficiency in a single department, how much does that productivity increase translate to over the entire enterprise? Is the cost of adding additional complexity worth the benefit? Isn’t there a better way?
Challenges of Manufacturing IT
These are the questions that the Siemens Opcenter Execution (formerly SIMATIC IT/Unified Architecture) offering has been designed to answer. Opcenter itself is not a specific product offered by Siemens, but rather a paradigm-shifting way of approaching software in the manufacturing context. Simply stated, the driving force behind Opcenter Execution can be boiled down to a single word: INTEGRATION. Logically, this makes sense; after all, no department within your company operates in complete isolation. Changes in areas like product engineering have direct effects on processes happening on the shop floor. Changes on the shop floor can have positive or negative effects on resource planning. Changes to the resource plan have effects that spread across the entire enterprise. This begs the question: If your business departments don’t operate in isolation, why should your software?
Siemens Opcenter Execution Solutions
Siemens Opcenter handles this manufacturing IT dilemma by taking a more holistic approach to the concept of manufacturing software as a whole. By providing a simple, standard interface for integration, Opcenter Execution enables software from the entire width of the organization to communicate seamlessly. With Opcenter Execution and its associated products, discussed next, it is possible to integrate functions including ERP, PLM, MES and more. This fully-integrated approach to manufacturing software enables closed loop manufacturing to occur. In layman’s terms, this integrated environment allows for on-the-fly changes to planning, executing, measuring, monitoring and more. Moreover, the integrated approach of Opcenter Execution allows all departments to act or react to changes throughout the enterprise in a more agile, flexible manner, consequently leading to enterprise-wide increases in productivity as well.
Technology Behind Opcenter Execution
In order to realize the vision that is Siemens Opcenter Execution, Siemens relies on a number of concrete products. These products fall under the Opcenter umbrella, meaning that they have been designed specifically with the unified architecture in mind.
Opcenter Execution Foundation (SIMATIC IT UAF)
The first of these products, the Opcenter Execution Foundation, drives the unified architecture vision, making the integrations defined by the vision possible. As its name suggests, it serves as a foundation, providing many of the base-level services previously found in "classic" versions of what was formerly knows as SIMATIC IT MES. In contrast to previous versions of Siemens MES software, however, it does not rely on the native or desktop applications previously used for administration. While these components (such as Material Manager, Production Order Manager, etc.) still exist, Opcenter Execution Foundation relies on its web-based interface to perform administrative tasks. This method of administration is superior to previous versions based on the speed and stability of the software alone. In addition to providing many of the features previously handled by a classic SIMATIC IT MES implementation, however, the new foundational platform also provides the main engine for integration into the rest of the Opcenter paradigm.
Opcenter Execution Discrete (SIMATIC IT UADM)
The second product that falls under the Opcenter umbrella is Opcenter Execution Discrete (formerly SIMATIC IT Unified Architecture for Discrete Manufacturing). This particular product is designed to act as a wrapper around the functions provided by the foundation. That is to say, Opcenter Execution Discrete provides a pre-built interface suitable for use in discrete manufacturing. It is not a product that is applicable in every manufacturing environment at this stage; however, where it is applicable, it provides a large set of features designed specifically with discrete processes in mind. Perhaps the most prominent feature of the platform is its interoperability with products including Siemens Teamcenter. Opcenter Execution Discrete with Teamcenter integration drastically simplifies tasks including process definition, material definition, defect declaration and much more. In short, the interoperability between Teamcenter and Opcenter Execution Discrete provides a truly agile environment, encouraging active communication between operators on the shop floor and product engineers. It is also a fairly flexible piece of software that can be easily modified or extended through the use of the foundational environment.
Opcenter Execution Process (SIMATIC IT UAPI)
Siemens Opcenter Execution Process (formerly known as SIMATIC IT Unified Architecture Process Industries) is Siemens’ Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Food & Beverage and Chemical Manufacturing industries. Opcenter Execution Process allows companies to increase manufacturing efficiency and flexibility, and at the same time ensure perfect quality - all based on a state-of-the-art platform and app approach. MES capabilities include vertical integration, process orchestration, genealogy, and production reporting covering wall-to-wall manufacturing processes such as material receiving, production and material outbound. Integrated quality management handles sampling, analysis and evaluation of quality results seamlessly tied to the manufacturing events.Using Siemens Opcenter Execution Process as a MES platform enables seamless integration with scheduling, quality and manufacturing intelligence, which delivers interactive dashboards for analysis of production data. For new product development and introduction, Siemens Opcenter Execution Process enables the transformation of recipes from “generic” specifications to detailed “master” instructions, ready for order scheduling and execution.
The Whole Idea
Overall, the purpose of the Siemens Opcenter MOM/MES offering and its related products is to increase the overall effectivity of the manufacturing enterprise. By taking a holistic approach to manufacturing software, Siemens Opcenter Execution aims to create a seamless digital thread amongst all the IT systems and across all the levels of a manufacturing company. In turn, by bridging this deep gap between the business, virtual and physical worlds of manufacturing, the unified architecture ensures a more agile operation and process for the enterprise overall. The name of the game is integration, and Siemens Opcenter is really good at playing the game.
