Designing Batch Systems for e-Manufacturing

Overview:

In today’s global environment, a true competitive advantage can be attained for companies by designing their batch systems to integrate with technologies for “e-Manufacturing”. Through proper planning, design, and implementation, organizations not only have a means to efficiently automate batch operations, they now have an opportunity to optimize their operations. A properly integrated control domain / enterprise management system provides real time information needed for making timely management decisions. Interoperability of these systems for e-Manufacturing requires electronic data flows dependent upon such issues as production requirements, timing considerations, quality assurance results, resource allocation, and report generation. In addition, conformance with emerging U.S. Federal legislation such as the E-Sign Act (effective October 1, 2000), and FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11 (E-Records; E-Signatures, effective March 20, 1997) can be addressed as an integral part of project design. The importance of understanding the “electronic” requirements of e-Manufacturing provides a basis for designing new systems and upgrading legacy systems to meet each organization’s own enterprise demands. This paper provides insight into the design and requirements of batch process systems for integration with manufacturing and business systems for today’s e-Manufacturing environment.