Process industry technologies make the leap to production improvement

Advanced model-based closed loop control from the process industries has found its way into discrete manufacturing, with Pavilion Technologies about to launch a system for performance management and optimisation. Its next major software release, due next month, is Pavilion 8.20, and according to vice president Matt Tormollen, focuses specifically on environmental and production performance management. “One of our beta sites is a discrete manufacturer,” says Tormollen. “They didn’t need real-time control and optimisation. They’re a canning and packing operation taking materials from sheet tin to finished filled goods, and they needed a better way to collect information and build metrics to reduce waste and variability between shifts.” “They’re using our system to take readings from PLCs on the lines, and they’re getting analysis and role-based information display in real time. They’re also using it to predict job performance and time, in total and by production segment… It’s all presented on a browser with no local software.” Tormollen says this was “a highly competitive project with 10 others having full SFDC [shop floor data collection] applications and us with just a framework.” But he claims the Pavilion system “collects and aggregates data better than the others,” and is more scaleable, while providing real-time analytics at the user level – and hence the contract. It’s an interesting departure for the company, which openly constructs pricing around an agreed value of the application – so it’s different across applications and vertical industries, even for similar projects – although always with a 12 month ROI promise. Tormollen won’t be drawn on the fact that prices paid for projects in shop floor production improvement schemes are typically a long way south of those for oil and gas advanced control software projects – other than conceding the fact. He says: “This was an intentional move. Our modelling infrastructure pertains way beyond the process industries, so we’ll look at any markets, including discrete, where we can provide most value – and time to value. “Now we have a proven solution that works across process, batch and discrete. And we’re also doing a lot of this work with SAP – we’re already ‘Powered by Netweaver’ certified.” And not only SAP: Pavilion has also now formed a worldwide partnership with Tata Consultancy Services – initially on the process sector side, but time will tell. Says Tata Engineering and Industrial Services Business director Shripad Lale: “We selected Pavilion to be our manufacturing partner due to its strong process optimisation and advanced analytic capabilities. As the gap between enterprise planning and manufacturing operations narrows, our customers’ goals for adaptive manufacturing hinge on our ability to provide cutting-edge predictive analytics and real-time control capabilities.” And note, this partnership also includes collaborative R&D around what the pair call “emerging manufacturing market opportunities”. Initial areas of focus are, guess what: predictive performance management, model-based integration of planning and manufacturing processes and the pharmaceutical industry’s Process Analytical Technology (PAT) initiative.