An enterprise-wide approach to Operations Management must have three components. First, an Operations Management system must provide a modern platform and architecture. It must be able to handle the real-time availability and performance needs of the plant floor, and encompass the Internet, web services, dashboards, business process management, and the like. Second, an Operations Management system must embrace and support connectivity to a broad range of external systems and people. It should leverage available standards and provide the tools for easy integration and synchronization of business processes. Third, an Operations Management system must provide a comprehensive set of applications that include necessary functionality for the most common set of industry problems.
To improve performance, manufacturers need a software approach that is consistent with their distributed operational activities. They need a way to drive specific process improvements at each plant, while monitoring activities and facilitating appropriate operating decisions among complex hierarchies, regions, business units, and operating structures. They need to rationalize their spending for maintenance of systems and applications, and at the same time improve information and business process support for their increasingly complex, competitive environment.
Most manufacturers recognize that their enterprise-level IT systems will need to migrate to new technologies over the next few years, but many haven’t yet considered the plant floor implications. A new trend, the plant-level platform, is emerging. Termed Operations Management Platform (OMP), it complements the new enterprise platforms. The role of Service Based Architecture and Web Services should be carefully considered when selecting an OMP because a sound architecture is essential for manufacturing systems going forward.
An OMP can enable manufacturers to optimize their business performance in numerous ways on an ongoing basis. The platform can link together and optimize plant-level operating processes and systems, and equally important, can manage the interface of these processes to enterprise-level processes and systems. These platforms can also support a variety of strategies for linking together and managing globally distributed manufacturing facilities or outsourced manufacturing operations. Some leading edge suppliers are starting to provide OMP platforms by leveraging technology and their manufacturing domain expertise to move beyond standalone applications.
Together, OMP and the Enterprise Platform can be considered to make up the central disk in ARC’s CMM model. OMP is closely related to Service Based Architecture (SBA), because many of the available platforms build upon the SBA technology platforms from Microsoft, SAP, or IBM. OMP is also appropriate for global or distributed manufacturing and out-sourced manufacturing models. OMP is quite closely related to CPM, but encompasses a much broader view of Operations than some CPM approaches. Business Process Unification (BPU) is also related to OMP.
Managing all of operations effectively requires a lot more than a collection of applications. Many suppliers have recognized this and have begun to offer not only the applications, but the unifying platform as well.
For more information, download our reference sheet on
Operations Management Platforms or contact
info@arcweb.com.