It's a matter of context

InTech, Oct 2006 by Hale, Gregory

A digital video recorder is a phenomenal piece of technology. A videographer at a beach can focus in on one grain of sand. To the viewer, it appears as large as a boulder, as clear as day. When you zoom out, it becomes just one little spec in a sea of billions of other grains of sand that make up the beach.

When you first look at the picture, the grain of sand looks like a huge rock, but when you get a wider view, you see the sand on a beach, people sunning themselves, and waves lapping up on the shore. That is when you realize everything is not as it seems unless you place it in the proper context.

Amin Rawji, president and chief executive of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada-based Matrikon, understands the idea of putting everything in the proper perspective.

Let's face it, with today's systems churning out reams of data in what seems like nanoseconds, the amount of information that hits the plant floor and then skyrockets up through the enterprise to the executive suite is incredible. Talk about information overload. Just what information is good, and what data is useless? Manufacturers must find a way to sift out bad data and retain the good, important information.

"I remember, at one point, an engineer wanted to move the plant's PLC data into the ERP system on a second-by-second basis, completely misunderstanding what an ERP system is all about," Rawji said.

"The plant floor is a true real-time, second-by-second (environment). And an ERP system is a transactional month-bymonth or quarterly (system). So, how do you take some shop floor information into an ERP system?" Rawji asked.

"In many cases you don't want to be sending raw data up into your ERP system. It just doesn't make any sense.

"What you have to do is massage the data or give it context. So, by the time it gets to the ERP system, it makes sense.

"Giving context to content is where the magic is," Rawji said.

Throughout the industry this year, the big buzz has been about interconnectivity or connecting the plant floor through the enterprise so the c-level folks can take a look at what is happening throughout the entire organization. But management does not need to see every little detail of plantfloor data. I am sure the chief executive could care less that a valve is sticking.

At the chief executive level, the person wants to know what the productivity numbers are for the plant and how they can improve them. The information needs to come up from the plant floor, and then the c-level types must have it presented to them in the proper context.

"Connectivity needs to exist, but also the other part of connectivity is having a solution that gives this data context," Rawji said.

By zooming in and focusing on the proper context, manufacturing execs can then pull back and look at a much more profitable big picture.

Talk to me: ghale@isa.org or (919) 9909275.

By Gregory Hale, InTech, Editor