The Water and Waste Water Industry Worldwide Trends report looks at the state of the industry worldwide and by geographical regions.  It looks at the performance of the industry in general and focuses on operations related problems and their solutions.

The validation and commissioning of new manufacturing equipment and systems has a profound impact on new product launches.  Successful validation and commissioning results in shorter startups and improved initial quality. Discrete manufacturers who utilize digital manufacturing tools to virtually validate their new processes, equipment, and systems, normally do a much better job with validation than those that rely entirely on physically validating equipment and systems when they are available.

 

This best practice study summarizes how leading discrete companies validate their new manufacturing equipment and systems and relates launch success to the validation methods used. The study also investigates expectations companies have for improved validation practices and virtual technologies in the future.

ARC conducted a websurvey, in partnership with PARCEL Magazine, to determine the current state of desktop shipping automation, as well as the cost and service level benefits associted with automation.  We defined desktop shipping as the process of initiating express letters and packages by a person (“desktop shipper”) who ships only occasionally as a part of their overall job responsibilities, and who works outside of the mail center or warehouse in an office environment.  This report summarizes the key findings from the survey and follow-up telephone interviews.

ARC looks at the top technologies and trends that will affect the automation markeptlace for 2008.  Topics include fieldbus based safety systems, the introduction of wireless HART products, the development of the ISA SP 100 specification, and combined microreactor and control systems.

This report describes the results of ARC interviews with owner/operators regarding the current practices they employ and the challenges they have in Asset Information Management to support their Operate & Report activities.

This report describes the results of ARC interviews with owner/operators regarding the current practices they employ and the challenges they have in Asset Information Management across their Design & Build Value Chains.

Collaborative Production Management (CPM) software is well understood and utilized in regions such as North America and Europe.  Are the same strategies for use appropriate for emerging regions of the world?  Are there differences in approaches, software and services?  This report examines the strategies and use of CPM in the discrete manufacturing sectors in Asia.

ARC, in partnership with The Ryder Center for Supply Chain Management at Florida International University, developed an online survey to determine the current State of "Green" Supply Chain Management.  The survey focused on answering the following questions: Are we still in the ‘early adopter’ phase or is this trend more widespread?  What types of “green” initiatives are companies prioritizing?  What factors are driving companies to become more ‘green’? Who manages these initiatives and how is success measured? This report summarizes the key findings from the survey.

 

Manufacturers today are renewing their focus on validating their “as-built” production processes to their “as-designed” products. They are looking to their PLM solutions that define the design/build phase for product and process to be linked to production floor execution and operations in order to close the loop between the product design and the production processes.  This report examines manufacturing across multiple industrial verticals to determine the extent that PLM solutions and factory floor production systems are integrated and to what degree.

The need for safety shutdown systems varies greatly between users in the process industries.  Today, these systems are available in many different software and hardware architectures that offer different levels of safety protections and integration.   They also vary greatly in the ease of implementation and use.

 

This study is designed to review the user requirements and to enable users to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the suppliers and their products in addressing their needs.

The Pulp & Paper Industry Worldwide Trends report looks at the state of the industry worldwide and by geographical regions.  It looks at the performance of the industry in general and focuses on manufacturing related problems and their solutions.

The Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution set continues to expand across the design/build/automate/support/maintain domains of the product lifecycle.  This ARC Solution Requirements Guide is designed to help the user understand these developments and the key business drivers they should consider in defining a PLM business and technology strategy.

 

The report will cover the end-to-end Product Lifecycle from product concept and development through manufacturing processes, production systems and automation on the factory floor, to product support and maintanence. It will examine how design/build requirements vary across industry verticals and the impact this has on PLM solution capabilities.

Safety is becoming increasingly important in today’s manufacturing environment.  We believe that people working within a strong safety culture achieve greater safety and it is management’s responsibility to foster and maintain such a culture.  This report helps readers understand the safety culture best practices that are being followed by the process industries around the world.  It includes statistical figures with various breakdowns, such as by industry and geography.  

Staying competitive means transforming all the data in the plant into information and making that information available in the proper context to all personnel involved in operations.  Manufacturers must adopt a comprehensive strategy to exploit Analytics to gain a competitive advantage.

Cyber security is seldom a competitive issue and is typically viewed as a cost to be minimized.  Consequently, it should be a good candidate for industry standardization.  But adoption of available standards has been slow.  This report identifies popular standards, what end users hope to get out of them, and what they would like the security standards development bodies to address.  The resulting standards perspectives will help improve security- related practices and provide a context for further analysis of industry needs.

The Pharmaceutical Industry Issues, Opportunities and Challenges report looks at the state of the industry worldwide and by geographical regions.  It looks at the performance of the industry in general and focuses on the general state of the industry.

Plant Asset Management (PAM) is becoming a leading initiative to combat the aging workforce by providing automated solutions to monitor, analyze, and proactively maintain plant assets.  Plants have a diverse mix of old and increasingly more complex equipment, requiring a significantly large knowledge base that can't be provided from outdated practices. The real-time automatic monitoring of asset health is a key requirement. This report will compare leading PAM solutions relative to the best practices of leading manufacturing companies.

Product packaging has become a critical component in brand value.  Packaging operations are playing an increasingly important role in helping manufacturers improve productivity, flexibility, and responsiveness, as well as achieving and maintaining compliance with government regulations. This is impacting machine software and hardware design and machine builder OEM business models, as they strive to meet continually more demanding customer requirements.  

 

It is also significantly increasing the deployment of more advanced automation software and hardware technology and tighter integration with other process, business, and supply chain operations and systems. ARC examines how some of the leading FMCG/CPG companies are utilizing packaging operations and machine builder OEMs to achieve and maintain competitive advantage.

To prosper in today’s dynamic, highly competitive environment, manufacturers need to substantially improve real-time enterprise performance.  To do this, their plant floor systems must support a high level of productivity, but must also be capable of synchronizing all of production operations with the rest of their business and supply chain.

 

Today's operations management (OM) system is more than a software application - it is composed of an IT infrastructure for operations, the ability to integrate with many other systems, and the ability to support specific production processes with provided functionality.

 

This research discusses market trends, details the infrastructure, integration, and functional requirements for an OM system, and presents how the leading suppliers are approaching the market.

Fieldbus is finding increased end user acceptance in increasingly large capital projects.  Today, however, there must be a business value propositon associated with automation that speaks to asset utilization, decreasing unplanned downtime, and achieving operational excellence.  How are end users realizing this vision when it comes to the adoption of Foundation Fieldbus technology and where do the operational and lifecycle cost benefits lie?