Rockwell White Paper aligns MES with sustainability

The paper is being presented today at the IEEE conference on industrial electronics and applications in Xi'an, China. Says Jeffrey Soplop, project manager for Rockwell Automation and one of the paper's authors: "Information solutions often focus on achieving production management benefits. "However, as this paper illustrates, these solutions can be used to implement sustainable production to help reduce energy and raw material use, drive emissions monitoring and environmental reporting, and improve worker and product safety." The paper emphasises that the business case for sustainability begins with a holistic approach to manufacturing, incorporating the principles of environmental stewardship, corporate responsibility and economic prosperity. "The traditional goal of increasing productivity directly supports sustainability goals as well: consuming less energy and raw materials; enforcing regulatory compliance through emissions monitoring and environmental reporting; and reducing operating costs by eliminating waste," says Soplop.