Beyond Traceability

Summary

VIA Information Tools recently briefed ARC Advisory Group about the company's Man-IT software and Vital Plant Apps. While the company's tagline is "Traceability is our Passion!," there's a lot more going on beneath the surface.

Today, emerging and disruptive technologies are expected to have more impact on global business, manufacturing, infrastructure, and society at large than at any time in the last several decades. These technologies include cloud computing, Big Data and analytics, the Industrial Internet of Things, mobile devices and applications, social technologies, 3D printing (additive technology) and even 3D virtual and immersive representation of the physical world. Already, manufacturers are beginning to find ways to leverage a number of these disruptive technologies in their production operations. Applications and solutions spawned by these emerging technologies will enable a new era of information-driven manufacturing.

Today's MES software must help manufacturers begin to leverage new technologies and architectures, but ideally they should do so in a configurable, flexible manner that facilitates innovation, while still providing the functionality that customers need.

Full-Featured MES for Automotive, Aerospace, Food Processing, Electronics, and Medical
For industries such as automotive, aerospace, food processing, electronics, and medical devices, a key requirement has been and continues to be detailed traceability, which VIA does particularly well. This granular and precise level of traceability manifests itself in a variety of functions, based on the level of detail needed at any particular machine or work cell. At the most basic level, raw material content is associated with produced goods by lot. However, VIA also goes many levels deeper with connectivity to each operation within a cell, validating and associating parametric data, tooling information, operator IDs, inspection results, timestamps, and electronic signatures. VIA's software also provides both lot detail and reverse tracking reporting of all this information to determine exposure and identify populations. VIA also supports a comprehensive array of traditional MES functions. These include:

• Controls layer integration and data acquisition
• Andon performance displays
• Work instructions
• Serialization
• Receiving inspection
• WMS-lite functions
• Optimization reporting such as yield OEE and downtime-per-machine
• Multi-level packing and label validation
• Bill of materials validation per operation
• Operation-to-operation routing and validation
• ERP integration at any or all points in the plant
• Lot acceptance test processing and quarantine, and
• Mixed lot (pack to sequence – build to sequence – configuration/build to order) demand synchronization across lines

Many VIA customers start with one or more of these applications at a single plant, then roll these out to production lines at plants across their enterprise. VIA supports customers globally via strategically located support offices in Midwestern and Southern US, Latin America, Europe, and Asia.

What makes this interesting is not the impressive list of capabilities, but the fact that VIA has implemented a vast array of MES applications globally, with a single code base, and with pinpoint, tailored solutions. This is made possible by VIA's highly configurable and flexible "Business Atoms" application platform. With this platform, VIA's customers can create their own specialized traceability applications and adjust application behaviors without programming. They can make changes in real time and simplify application maintenance.

The Business Atoms platform appears to be well suited for rapid prototyping and deployment. Even though every plant is different, it's not necessary to customize code when configuring Business Atoms. And because no code development is needed to meet special processing or communications requirements, this translates into faster rollouts, lower deployment labor requirements, and the option for customers' internal support staff to take on full responsibility for implementation tasks. The result is faster, lower cost multi-plant rollouts with immediate performance visibility and operational returns.

The platform provides customers with a valuable business improvement tool by enabling them to share best practices among machine operations, lines, and plants. The best practice embodied in any Business Atoms process map can be exported and used around the world in plants executing similar functions. Each plant can modify or tailor the map to its specific requirements. VIA calls this Dynamic Standardization. It allows best practices and standards to be shared through the enterprise, while also allowing a precise fit for each product/line/plant.

Another nice feature for customers is the ability to deploy and run pinpoint applications for as little as $500 per month for a plant. This is because VIA is able to charge only for the exact software used at any one machine or operation. Due to the inherent configurability and flexibility, customers also avoid incurring up-front design or development fees. The functions are already contained in the software and are fitted to the specific requirements of an operation as the software is deployed. VIA's software also provides live update reporting and performance visibility on tablets and smartphones, as well as utilizing mobile devices as sources of data. 

Conclusion
As ARC clients know, there is a major transformation underway in the industrial space, driven by the Industrial Internet of Things and other disruptive technologies. This means that, over time, more and more plant equipment and assets will become intelligent, and more and more sensors will be deployed. Plant assets, people, software systems, and automation systems will need to deal with much more data. VIA has approached this opportunity in a highly object-oriented fashion, with connectivity to a wide variety of industrial and mobile equipment, and subsequent event-based execution of Business Atom Platform apps.

VIA's Business Atoms Platform can help eliminate a host of "normal" software implementation and maintenance problems for its customers. It also positions the company quite well for the future, because it is so well aligned with emerging concepts like subscription models, cloud computing, and the Industrial Internet of Things. The platform provides the ability to launch any variety of business atoms applications based on events actually occurring within the plant. The configurability and flexibility of Business Atoms also opens up many new possibilities to standardize best practices and innovate.

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Keywords: VIA Information Tools, MES, Business Improvement, ARC Advisory Group.