In today's world data can become overwhelming, yet people frequently feel that information is being kept from them - just out of reach.

But help is at hand with modern industrial information management (IIM) systems that quickly transform masses of confusing datastreams into highly refined information that spotlights precisely the parameters, trends and results required to ease complex decision making for engineers and business managers.
Engineers are constantly looking to refine production processes and workflow, improve asset utilisation, reduce downtime, avoid breakdowns, eliminate bottlenecks, waste and inefficiencies. They do this by implementing automation. They also try to avoid meetings and cut paperwork and, again, automation can be a useful tool.
Business managers similarly try to refine their processes. Although they use different vocabulary and often a different analysis, the objectives are the same: to improve the product, enhance efficiency, reduce cost, be more competitive. And they do this by automation!
Yet it is sometimes difficult to understand that engineers and business managers are on the same team and working in the same environment, such is the gulf between them.
This communications failure may manifest itself as a language issue, but the root of the problem lies in the interpretation of the raw data being collected from the enterprises operating processes. Both engineers and managers have access to the same data, but they analyse it very differently.
Put like that, the answer seems simple: impose a common analysis methodology on both parties, one that produces a final result in straightforward language rather than one that requires specialist background knowledge. However, this begs the question: 'Why has this not been done before?'

The answer is that both camps thought they had done exactly that. Engineers developed SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) software packages that bundled up the data into information that they could understand; business managers created ERP (enterprise resource planning) programmes that were clear to them. But engineers struggled with ERP and managers did not understand SCADA - and nobody would admit that they were confused (Fig. 1).
Mitsubishi's latest Melsmart partner, Citect, produces a full range of industrial and enterprise control programmes. Citect was perhaps the first to identify this discontinuity in the information hierarchy; in fact it is rumoured that its developers were actually looking at how to enhance its MES (manufacturing execution system) and stumbled by accident into the idea of creating a new type of programme, the industrial information management (IIM) system.
They realised that even at a high level engineers look at technical data and mentally translate this into information. This left the managers out in the cold, but the reciprocal was that engineers could not interpret the financial statements or keep up with the marketing analyses. So Citect set out to create software that could take raw production and enterprise data and process it instantly into high-level information that could be understood by anyone, regardless of their professional background.

Readable reports

The result, IIM, bridges the gap between plant and enterprise systems and produces reports that are of equal use to both administrators and engineers. Using Mitsubishi's MX4Business as an operating platform, IIM consists of a real-time information server and one or more modules that perform all the necessary calculations to create up-to-the-minute detailed reports on plant performance. The server has the ability to collect and store data in several different ways so that it is always completely up-to-date and crosschecking its own performance. The module options include downtime, quality, metrics, track-and-trace, cost, production, energy, maintenance and planning.
The IIM system is customised to each user's specific requirements by selecting the appropriate modules. For instance, one company may want to maximise production; another could be driving for lowest cost; a pharmaceutical company may be most concerned with traceability and a food processor with quality control, while a power station could be most concerned to keep on top of its maintenance and thereby avoid down time.
All of the modules have a high-end output, so are able to present information graphically, as tabulated data or interpretive reports, the objective being immediate access to easily understood information. Notably all are web-based so that the information can, if required, be accessed remotely by all interested parties.
The Citect-Mitsubishi partnership has deliberately set out to create a business toolset based on standard software components, such as MX4 and IIM, that can be applied in any industry with equal ease.
"Information management, like design engineering, is an industryless discipline," says Tom Sabitzer, a Citect engineer on long-term secondment to Mitsubishi Electric in the UK to help introduce his company's products as the Mitsubishi MX4 range. "Both are required in all technology-based endeavours and both require a delicate mix of specialist knowledge and unfettered thinking. It is not surprising, therefore, that IIM was born of technical parents rather than commercial."
Mitsubishi also recognises the innovative positioning of IIM. While the company adopts most of the Citect suite of control products as the MX4 range and supports these fully from its own resources, IIM will always be presented as a Citect development with support coming directly from Citect's own experts.
For a manufacturing organisations, IIM is designed to transform real-time process data into easily comprehensible and highly pertinent information to support decision-making by plant and business managers. One of its vital characteristics is that it brings together people from different parts of the enterprise, so that better decisions can be made more quickly against the key performance indicators of the organisation.
Data from multiple sources can be aggregated and transformed into valuable, comprehensible and manageable information for productivity analysis, data mining, querying and reporting in real-time.
Various groups of people within an organisation can benefit from IIM, as illustrated Figure 2 and explained below.

Design engineers

The first stage in any design project is to assemble as much pertinent information as possible and use this to develop some design pointers. IIM reports can be used to automatically assess existing plant and machines to identify strengths and weaknesses. For instance, an energy report coupled with production analysis and asset databases may identify oversized motors or wasteful heating cycles. Comparing maintenance and downtime reports for different parts of a plant could help identify scope for optimised designs. Quality and metrics may highlight detail design requirements.
* Process engineers: A set of standardised software tools not only automates plant data collection but also ensures that the translation into information uses a consistent methodology so that results are comparable. Improving response time, streamlining scheduling, failure analysis and materials tracking all become automated tasks.
* Plant engineers: Integrating plant parameters with business metrics will produce valuable information on production, yields, downtime, quality, materials usage and waste, to enable detailed productivity improvement strategies to be created.
* Maintenance engineers: Optimised maintenance will increase asset utilisation and track equipment statistics such as running time and number of overloads. This will help to streamline processes and optimise maintenance services.
* Quality control: Real-time reports, automatic archiving and target tracking help to maintain product specification and ensure that statutory regulations - such as environmental standards - are never compromised.
* Business manager: With real-time enterprise-wide information constantly available, managers and directors can prioritise their actions and ensure that their leadership is always relevant to the real world of their plant's capabilities.
* Suppliers and customers: The benefits of IIM reach way beyond the host business. Suppliers can access online inventories to proactively manage their deliveries, while customers will enjoy improved product and timely dispatch at lower cost, plus constant improvements.
Most obviously IIM will aid the improvement and optimisation of production processes, but it can equally be used to maximise return on assets by cutting downtime, emergency repairs, production bottlenecks, and reducing overall time to market. The cost of IIM ownership is also manageable through the modularity of the program, which allows the system to be built up incrementally.
Each module can be permitted to deliver maximum benefits before the next stage of development is begun, which is a major advantage for creating low-pain, continuous, scalable improvements.
The fact that IIM is installed alongside existing automation and IT systems in a non-intrusive manner reduces risk to effectively zero so that return on investment is extremely rapid.
Industrial Information has already begun to break down the interdisciplinary barriers that often hold enterprises back from achieving their full potential. As its installed base grows, it is likely to lead to a broadening of each individual's focus so that they can more effectively share the overall view of the entire organisation.

Alastair Norman is group strategic business manager for Mitsubishi Electric