ISA, OMAC Begin Industrial Automation Standard Project
April 29, 2005
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The Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society (ISA), World Batch Forum (WBF) and Open Modular Architecture Controls Users' Group (OMAC) formed a joint working group, Make2Pack, to harmonize batch standards principles and develop conceptual models, terminology and industrial automation examples.
The effort will leverage ISA-88 batch standard principles and the PackML state model to develop ANSI/ISA-88.00.05. PackML is a subcommittee team of the OMAC Packaging work group, aka, the Packaging Machinery Language team. PackML's mission, according to OMAC, is to develop guidelines for line types, machine state models, and "tag" naming conventions for communications between production machinery within the packaging industry.
The guidelines developed by the Make2Pack work group will be designed to apply to the total manufacturing process. The focus is on batch processes, packaging and converting machinery.
"Our goal is to apply ISA's S88 modular philosophy and define a library of component behaviors and techniques that apply to the automation needs of all manufacturing," said Dave Chappell, section manager for batch technologies at Procter & Gamble and chair of WBF's Make2Pack initiative. The group plans to issue a preliminary report or guideline this year or next with the ANSI/ISA standard expected to follow in 2006 or 2007.
When applied within industry, the standard will increase the profitability, flexibility and efficiency of manufacturing and packaging processes, as well as improve maintainability through uniform machine design, according to ISA.
"The increasing need for manufacturing agility demands that we cut across the different silos and departments, speak the same language, and model processes the same way. If we can merge our process and discrete manufacturing operations, we will generate great efficiencies for our corporations," said Thinus van Schoor, OMAC member and automation manager for SAB Miller.
In addition to ANSI/ISA-88 standards implications, the Make2Pack group's work will have ties to the forthcoming ISA-95.00.03 standard, which covers manufacturing operations management activities.
Source: Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society (ISA).