Well, the times, they are a changin' with a startling number of technology and business practice advancements converging over the past few years, placing control engineers smack in the middle of assuring corporate competitiveness by working with, and sometimes implementing, MES systems. As PC hardware grew ever more powerful, software applications followed suit. Networking, led by development of fieldbuses and followed by implementation of Ethernet as a field-level network, has become accepted in manufacturing. He states this is a time of partnerships or virtual corporations. Real-time collaboration leads to virtual collaboration with partners.
Intellectual assets become a key value.
Others recognize this collaboration trend. The plant manager in the book slowly learns to apply the theory of constraints to improve production and literally save his plant from extinction. Getting necessary information and analyzing it was an excruciating process that almost cost that plant manager his marriage. Enter automated data gathering and analysis packages to save the day. That's just what applications from Mapics and others accomplish.