Regional Technical Program: Automation & Information Best Practices for Manufacturing Operations

Why is modernizing important beyond reducing risk of system failure? Why should you treat production environments differently? How can you automate performance reporting? Learn the answers during APMI International's upcoming Regional Technical Program on Automation & Information Best Practices for Manufacturing Operations on April 13 in St Marys, Pa.

This half-day program is open to all powder metallurgy (PM) industry professionals. The technical program includes:

Control Systems Modernization—Why is modernization important beyond reducing risk of system failure?
Tony Grassi, Automation Specialist, Schaedler Yesco Distribution

A company would "migrate" legacy systems to avoid "risk" of failure and downtime. You would "modernize" to reduce risk and take advantage of advances in technology: computing resources, improve operator usability, and network connectivity – these capabilities enable information access, assist with diagnostics and troubleshooting, and can improve productivity. In addition, there is a human element which is not calculated in financial terms. Engineers, maintenance teams, and scheduling staff become frustrated and stressed when the equipment they rely on becomes unreliable. Late night call outs, holiday interruptions and unending days are a hallmark of the need for change.

Industrial Control Systems Networking—Why should you treat Operations differently?
Thomas House, Business Development Lead, Connected Services | Rockwell Automation

The resources and applications in production/operations environments need to be managed differently. These systems need to be "highly available" and administered in a manner that avoids downtime or introduces risk. Networking infrastructure design and implementation needs to consider segmentation of nodes (no need to mix video with traffic for machine control), prioritize traffic (examples would be a time sync protocol and I/O to controller), and reduce/eliminate risk (accessing an application that is critical to operations and creating resources constraints that impact the production processes, theft of intellectual property, or viruses)

Information Enabled Operations—Performance Monitoring & Production Execution—Why is information important for addressing evolving customer expectations and remaining competitive?
Tim McCain, Information Software Regional Manager | Rockwell Automation

Manual data collection processes are both time consuming and error prone. Manufacturers have opportunities to automate performance reporting or monitoring such as daily part counts, asset utilization and/or time in state. In addition to analytics, contemporary information systems can optimize production order sequencing that considers machine setup time, work instructions for specific operations, account for specific materials consumed, track work in process, and capture unit/lot traceability data. Many end-customer markets are starting to contractually require asset performance reporting and traceability.

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