Content provided in partnership with

Automotive Industry

Know what's happening - WIP - Executive Manufacturing Technologies' VisualPlant - Brief Article

Automotive Design & Production, June, 2002 by Gary S. Vasilash

Production monitoring is handled by one software package. Quality tracking by another. And part tracking by still another. Consequently, you're likely to hove three different reporting formats that you hove to reconcile. It's better than nothing, but...

According to John Dyck, vp, Marketing & Business Development, Executive Manufacturing Technologies (London, Ontario), there's a better way to accomplish those and other information acquisition, analysis, and display tasks. It's a product called "VisualPlant." It provides data access via a web browser. Based on Microsoft .net For Manufacturing architecture, this is an off-the-shelf package that not only provides a real-time view of what's happening in production [it connects to things including CNCs and PLCs, so information retrieval is automatic], but also provides the means to perform data mining so that historical information can be used to do such things as identify constraints. New machines or data points, Dyck says, can be added on-the-fly, without having to resort to a systems integrator.

Most Popular Articles in Autos: Service Slants; 2007 utility vehicle buyer's guide: Side-By-Sides are popular; here's who ...; Transmission considerations: beyond the manual gearbox; Buell Motorcycle engineering, innovation, & dedication: in an industry ...; 100 + 10: America's oldest automotive magazine celebrates its 110th year ...; More »

About the off-the-shelf status: This is not the kind of software that you can pick up at Circuit City. Typical costs are on the order of $50,000 to $400,000, depending on the size of the application. However, it isn't custom code, and installation is said to be on the order of days, not weeks or months [or longer]. ROI, Dyck notes, is said to be realized in as little as six months.

So far, customers include DaimlerChrysler, Magna, Visteon, and TRW.

For additional information, write in 135 on the Reader Service Card.

Automotive Industry

Know what's happening - WIP - Executive Manufacturing Technologies' VisualPlant - Brief Article

Automotive Design & Production, June, 2002 by Gary S. Vasilash

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Business

Most Popular Articles in Autos

Most Popular Publications in Autos