The first part of this article presented a definition of e-Business, why companies should implement it and how the concept suits the expected future evolution of business models.

In this second part we will examine what technologies are used to implement e-Business solutions and how you can take advantage of them in your business.

Stages of Implementation

Transforming core business processes.

This phase of a project should result in simplified and streamlined business processes that can be automated.

Building flexible, expandable e-Business applications.

This phase includes defining application architecture and then implementing appropriate e-Business applications and infrastructure throughout the organisation. This phase may involve extending existing applications with e-Business systems and/or implementing new applications that are already e-Business enabled.

Running a scalable, available, safe environment.

This is a complementary phase to the one above and requires implementation of a technical infrastructure that will allow e-Business systems to interact. It also involves installation of standard networking and computing platforms and links to the Internet.

Leveraging knowledge and information you've gained through e-Business systems.

In this phase the data collected by e-Business systems is combined and used in novel ways that help to provide insight on how the business can be improved.

Transforming Core Business Processes

First, you must identify which of your core business processes are most suitable for, or most in need of, conversion to e-Business. This requires analysis of the business and the setting of priorities. CSE Technology's Improving Factory Efficiency Analysis Tool can be used to facilitate discussions and quickly determine the necessary focus for the systems to be implemented.

On the factory floor, look for people with industrial engineering or workflow analysis skills to lead this process. However, they must be part of a larger team representing all other functional areas that will be touched by the transformation required.

You should aim to eliminate paperwork on the factory floor wherever possible. The ultimate goal should be a 'paperless factory' (like the 'paperless office' this is a goal rather than an achievable end!). Paperwork is inefficient in the context of electronic data exchanges because its contents must eventually be keyed into a computer system somewhere.

Most of the paper forms handled by machine operators fall into three categories: Work specifications, Performance data or Quality data. Work specifications generally start on a computer system and are printed out while Performance and Quality data must be entered into a computer system in order to gain meaningful use of the data. Elimination of this paper gap in systems provides large benefits in accuracy and timeliness of the data collected.

Creating the Environment

Consider that it only takes seconds to create an 'order' transaction on the Internet. Customers will therefore feel uneasy if they are not alerted quickly when delivery schedules cannot be met, leading to doubt about the quality of service and supplier's ability to fulfil orders. In order to increase the velocity of information transfer, you must implement back office systems that fully support the front office.

It is not sufficient to create an e-shop front, you must transform the whole business to support the change required in the business. The factory floor must be an integral part of this support by supplying real time data.

Different e-Business opportunities demand different technology solutions. Make sure that the solutions you consider are appropriate for your business at the time of implementation. The range of e-Business solutions that can be implemented cover a wide spectrum of technology and cost. Look for places where you can capitalise on your existing IT skills, particularly in networking configuration and infrastructure.

e-Business doesn't operate in a vacuum; you need to ensure that your solution is integrated with your other systems and operations, including legacy systems. It is also beneficial if a high level sponsor can be sought from within the organisation to ensure that departmental barriers are eliminated.

You will also need look strategically at how your system infrastructure and working methods need to change in future. The table below summarises the changes that you should plan for in the migration between traditional systems and e-Business enabled systems.

	Traditional	e-Business	Implication
INFRASTRUCTURE	Dedicated private networks.	Shared global network.	Dedicated process control networks will become part of the company network and will be administered globally.
INFORMATION	Sharing is feasible within the company, but only with great cost/complexity outside the company.	Whenever demand requires, with worldwide access, to whoever is authorised.	Data must be made available to anyone who requests the data. This includes external as well as internal customers.
TEAM	Intra-company teams, with additional members added with difficulty and requiring customised administration.	Inter-company teams, with global members joining and leaving quickly, securely, and with consistent, easy-to-use administration.	Networking, email and workflow applications will become daily tools as you co-ordinate efforts using technology rather than location. You may work regularly with people you never meet.
CONTROL	Physically controlled by connection to internal corporate network and/or simple user ID and password access.	Permission controlled, where data is accessible from anywhere on the globe, with sophisticated security for authentication and authorisation.	Once your systems are opened to the outside world they will need the best protection you can give them.
PROCESS	Physical models and face-to-face meetings with limitations, such as travel and delivery of information.	Virtual product modelling and worldwide simultaneous engineering with integrated video conferencing, Internet phone links, and visual notes.	The impact of this will be similar to the change in TEAM above.

 

The Factory Floor

In a typical production environment, you will be required to provide internal support for e-Business systems without necessarily becoming involved in the higher level implementation of systems that interface to the wider world. You will need to make sure that adequate real time support for data collection is available and reliable.

The best way to prepare for e-Business systems is to ensure that process control and related equipment and software on the factory floor is 'e-Business ready'. That is, implement technologies and systems that will capture and distribute data without manual intervention.

Some of the things to consider include process control equipment with network connectivity and well documented, open, software systems. Obviously it is highly desirable if the equipment is already web enabled.

New equipment installations should include, or provide for future, Ethernet network connectivity. Additionally, select equipment that allows remote programming over the network in order to enable remote diagnostics and maintenance.

Software used on the factory floor should provide 'hooks' to allow interaction with other systems in real time. This can be in the form of an API (Application Programming Interface), COM (Common Object Model) or ODBC (Open Data Base Connectivity) interface that can be exploited during e-Business integration.

Many companies have an existing base of IT staff or contactors to handle most of the issues that need to be solved. Indeed, there may be company standards that you will have to follow in order to implemented your required solution and the IT department may be willing to fund part of your infrastructure requirements in order for you to meet these standards.

Technologies to Consider

The nuts and bolts of assembling a network are generally well established. Implementing a network on the factory floor requires some understanding of the environment that exists at that level. This experience is often missing from the typical network integrator who is more used to an office environment. A good introduction to plant floor networking technologies can be found at the Schneider Transparent Factory site listed at the end of this article.

For better or worse, Web browsers are becoming the de-facto standard interface for a universal display device. Web browsers are available at little or no cost from sites on the Internet, the best-known ones being Internet Explorer (Microsoft) and Navigator (Netscape). A Web browser is software that can display data created in a number of different ways (HTML, XML, VBA Scripting, ActiveX components, Java scripts, etc) within the one 'window'. Browsers also include security and encryption and can be extended to provide custom functionality if required.

The major SCADA systems available today allow at least a read-only view of process graphics using web browsers in addition to their own proprietary viewing software. These interfaces can be used to provide inexpensive access to process graphics or status reports and are a good intermediate solution to make plant data visible if you already have SCADA systems installed.

Also in the SCADA field, an increasingly important standard is OLE for Process Control (OPC). This standard, promoted by Microsoft, allows 'point and click' connections between applications and data from process control equipment. Most major SCADA systems now support this standard for I/O drivers as well as their own proprietary drivers. Importantly, however, OPC drivers can be used with any other applications that support DCOM (Distributed Common Object Model), which includes most major Windows software products and Web Browsers. OPC can also be the foundation tool used to implement data gateways from the factory floor.

The devolvement of communications drivers from the SCADA systems to stand alone OPC Servers is an important trend as it should eventually see the demise of the traditional SCADA system and the emergence of a more generic display application in its place. An interesting example of the move in this direction is a product called @aGlance, which enables viewing process information through a web browser.

Enterprise and Web servers are the computing backbone of networks. These servers act as information sources, responding to network queries for data and formatting responses suitable for display on web browsers. Servers are usually located within businesses with network links to the internal Local Area Network (LAN) and the Internet. A 'firewall' computer is usually found between a LAN and the Internet. These computers are specially configured to enforce security policies and arbitrate traffic between two different networks. They can also be used to 'hide' the internal network so that it is inaccessible from outside attack.

Database systems are an integral part of any e-Business system. Vendors such as Oracle, IBM (DB2) and Microsoft (SQL Server) supply robust and highly available data engines that can provide storage facilities for huge amounts of data. Many vendors bundle databases into packages with other software and configuration wizards to give a basic out-of-the-box e-Business solution. These packages include Microsoft Commerce Server & Tools, Oracle Integration Server, IBM Application Framework for e-Business and Compaq NonStop eBusiness solutions.

For the factory floor, IndustrialSQL Server (Wonderware) and RSSQL (Rockwell Software), can enable data collection to be carried out automatically by using OPC drivers directly, without the use of an intermediate SCADA system. Once the data collected is in a database, it can be extracted by other back end systems to satisfy e-Business information requirements.

Back Office applications and groupware (such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange) are also important as they provide effective interfaces and systems for group collaboration in a networked environment. In particular, Microsoft is promoting Exchange and Outlook as a universal interface for Knowledge Management (KM).

However, remember that most solutions will require expertise and specialist skills to be effectively implemented, irrespective of how easy the sales pitch makes it seem.

Building Applications

Each company is unique and a solution must be tailored specifically, using standard building blocks that are available from a number of vendors.

Consider tools that can Web-enable legacy applications as initially this will be an important to get existing systems 'on-line'. Also understand, however, that e-Business can demand complete system upgrades.

Planning a Project

You also need to think about the skills needed to implement and manage the new systems. Your choices are to keep the system in-house, work with partners, or outsource the solution altogether.

Web developers are responsible for creating the look and feel of a web site, so graphic design skills are an essential requirement. It is rare that these skills are available in house and specialist contractors may be required. However, once the 'look and feel' or corporate image for web publication has been set, the task of implementing web pages is left to back end programmers.

Back end (or component) developers need to have a very strong understanding of a primary development language, such as Java, C++ or Visual Basic. It is important that they understand performance implications of their software, because a wrong choice can significantly degrade. In addition, they should understand SQL and how to organise and interact with databases.

Some of these tasks are provided by automated configuration wizards. For example, Intellution's iFix SCADA system provides a utility that transforms most iFix graphics pages to a HTML page. It also creates the appropriate applets to be loaded into a browser to animate the data. In this case, once the graphic is created for the factory, it can be automatically extended for use on a web server.

Quality Assurance is also a very important part of the implementation process. Web sites and back end systems need to be reliable and provide accurate, up-to-date, information. It's imperative to have someone on the team who is well versed in performance measurement, test client development, development of test plans, and management of the software QA process in general.

While the list below is not exhaustive, it outlines many of the areas that need to be taken into account for an e-Business strategy and should provide you with a good starting point for your own planning.

Planning Considerations

System Infrastructure Network Infrastructure Database Architecture Web Server Infrastructure Email System Support System Security/Application Security Database Analysis and Design Interface Design

Trading Partners Back Office applications Site Interfaces (API's) System Integration Functional Analysis Order Entry Integration Processes System Administration Services Training and Documentation Maintenance and Support

 

Web enabling existing applications

Unless you are in the fortunate position of just having implemented a new system that supports a web based interface directly, Web enabling existing applications will be an important strategy in the short to medium term. Companies with large investments in existing software and systems will need to leverage their existing investments without overcommitting to their existing systems. The inevitable three-letter acronym for this is EAI - Enterprise Application Integration.

An accepted way of doing EAI is to create a 'middleware' layer that acts to broker messages between applications. These integration brokers are available from companies like IBM (MSQ Series), Microsoft (Transaction Server) and BEA Systems (MessageQ), and generally provide proprietary mechanisms for data exchange. The tools provide five key capabilities:

1. Message transport capabilities to move data from source to destination.
2. Data transformation and translation for message and file contents as they move through the broker.
3. Adapters (standard or custom built) for applications and a toolkit to build adapters.
4. Routing and workflow style addressing so that message can be passed from one application to another without returning to the original sender.
5. System Management tools to manage the development and run time environment.

These tools are used to design and construct application interfaces based on data messages with guaranteed delivery of messages and queuing of unread messages for later processing. They often have versions for a number of different operating systems so that integration can occur between different types of systems.

These messaging systems have the advantage that they keep the integration between applications fairly loose by doing away with a myriad of point to point links, and they will allow future migration to standards based systems, like Java, CORBA or OPC, fairly easily. They do, however, require programmers to create and maintain any custom adapters and are generally not cheap as they are aimed at the mainframe end of the IT market.

The technology behind these types of messaging systems is not new. Indeed, CSE Technology's Factory Window product has been using this method to provide communications for devices on the factory floor, and between the factory floor and higher level systems, for the last six years.

An alternative approach to the problem is to use techniques know as 'screen scraping'. Using this technology, legacy applications are 'run' by other software and the output to the screen is captured and reformatted to suit the new interface. Inputs from the new interface are also entered automatically into fields on the legacy screen. As well as supplying a new interface for old systems, these techniques can be used to combine data from a number of legacy systems into one integrated screen.

However, slight changes in the screen format can make screen scraping fail. Newer, more flexible, techniques using a similar principle are being tried in several products (like Verastream by WRQ) to overcome these limitations.

At CSE Technology we have used this technique to interface with factory floor equipment that does not have open interfaces or for which no other method of data transfer was possible.

A third method is to build interfaces using databases. For example, the one application writes data to a specific interface table in a database so that it is available for processing by other applications. This has been a traditional method of creating interfaces between the factory floor and higher level systems and is well supported by current generation SCADA systems.

Conclusion

Providing e-Business support from the factory floor is a task that you must plan for now to be ready in future. Many of the building blocks that are required for this transformation may already be part of your current systems as features or options that you do not currently utilise. Many of the technologies you will use at this level are evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

At a business level, involve the whole organisation. e-Business is not an IT project, it is a fundamental business change that needs to be driven by project sponsors at the highest levels of an organisation. Departmental rivalries must be set aside and information flows opened both internally and externally.

A key to implementing e-Business systems is to start simple but plan to grow quickly. Plan and document your expected outcomes so that you can adjust your strategy as you proceed.

e-Business isn't about technology but about making your business more profitable and competitive. Like it or not, e-Business is coming and companies that do not connect to the world will find it increasingly difficult to do business in traditional ways.

e-Business Resources on the World Wide Web

Business Related

National Office for the Information Economy
e-Commerce beyond 2000 report. The Commonwealth Government, together with industry partners, has funded a pilot study into the economic impacts of electronic commerce. This report describes some of the changes expected from the growth of electronic commerce into the next decade, particularly the restructuring of entire industry sectors, confirming the wide-ranging impacts of electronic commerce.

Process Control and SCADA

GE Fanuc
GE Industrial Systems supplies process control components and software systems.
GE have also purchased Intellution. Intellution's main products are The Fix and iFix SCADA packages. Some good information and white papers on this site about Internet technology and SCADA. It also has good links to OPC sites.

OPC Foundation
The OPC Foundation manages the OPC standard. The Foundation has over 220 members from around the world, including nearly all of the world's major providers of control systems, instrumentation and process control systems.

Citect
Citect is Citect's process monitoring software. The site has information about their products and how they can be used over the web.

Wonderware
Wonderware's FactorySuite software is a leader in the market. It includes the Intouch SCADA system and IndustrialSQL Server. The site has information about Wonderware and how FactorySuite is web enabled.
Wonderware have also set up another web site specifically for their Internet technology initiatives and a link to that site can be found here.

Rockwell Automation
Rockwell Automation produces more than 500,000 products carrying brand names like Allen-Bradley, Reliance Electric, Dodge and Rockwell Software and is a leading supplier of integration hardware and software for industrial systems. Details of Rockwell's ViewAnyWare strategy can be read at the software site.

Tallships Technology
Tallships are the Australian distributor for the @aGlance product.

Computer and Software Companies

Microsoft
Information specifically about Microsoft and e-Business.

Unisys
Unisys has an extensive amount of information on e-Business and an excellent online e-zine for executives. They also have a weekly digest of the best articles on the web available from their home page.

WRQ
Details of WRQ's software products, including Verastream.

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