Stand by for a network revolution in manufacturing

Another revolution in networking likely to cut costs by 60—75% long term, and to deliver more flexible and efficient integration and management: those are the promises from Cisco’s AON. Launched last month, its Application Orientated Network embeds more intelligence in network nodes – agents that scan data packets for type and are able to apply business logic. Cisco expects business policies to be automatically executed, enabling, for example, intelligent message routing, variable security provision and automatic business activity monitoring via the network itself. The firm also expects AON to deal with issues around data management for business systems from RFID implementations and for that matter, intelligent plant floor devices and sensors. James Wooster, Cisco’s product manager, says that, for example, AON Blades could provide a low cost, flexible ‘Edge’ environment for an RFID network, sifting significant events for dashboard reporting, from the rest. Keith Lawton, business development for Cisco in high tech manufacturing, also sees promise in automatically detecting and routing distilled management information from fieldbus-attached plant devices to SCADA and business systems. “We’re looking at how Ethernet can provide automatic data on top of the infrastructure for sensor networking,” says Lawton. He also suggests the approach will lead to better, more holistic plant floor visibility and the opportunity for real-time OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) monitoring. Beyond that, Lawton insists that AON will provide a foundation for better manufacturing flexibility, allowing faster reconfiguration to meet changing market demands. Wooster: “What wasn’t possible before – like integrating systems in a warehouse for RFID data management, or local application integration before management information is funnelled to the board – can now be done.” Cisco is developing a series of application aware adaptors for the main packaged software providers – SAP and so on – although it expects developers to provide their own as AON grows in popularity. Currently, there are some 20 beta test sites around the globe.