Systems.control.08

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SAP And Controls

in

Computer Integrated Manufacturing

or

Is This Autonomation?

by

Thomas Heaton Spitters

August 2011


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INTRODUCTION.

Computer facilitated product design and manufacturing became a hot

button item many years ago with the introduction of complex

computer systems and imaging, and the application of these and other

technology tools to production processes everywhere. Originally,

computer systems were centralized and have been developed to

emphasise networking and distributed systems and computing / data

processing. Due to the difficulties and other issues proposed by

batch processing technologies, there has been an emphasis, again, on

developing real time systems of software and hardware to resolve

specific business issues. In all events, with the recent emphasis on

quality programs, cost and system efficiencies including real time

computing, the overall production processes of many manufacturers

have not improved very much above the days of batch processing and

other, older techniques. The reader will find in this paper a brief

illustration of flexible manufacturing implementation and controls at

least in part, and a word or two about SAP applications and these

issues. This paper should serve again, at least in part, as a review

in view of the recent innovative trends on additive manufacturing

technologies.

Computer integrated manufacturing is comprised itself of integrated

processes and technologies, and other technologically suffused points

of a company's product design and manufacturing processes. SAP has

Copyright THS, 2011 Page 2 of 22


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scalable solutions for blueprinting, planning, implementing,

operating, maintaining, controlling and reporting for these business

activities in many industrial domains. Some of the applications in

SAP that work particularly well with said industries, and that are in

the SAP Solution Map include Logistics (Information Systems,) Sales

and Distribution, Production Planning, Financial and Cost Accounting

and others.

The applications available through SAP are a coherent and effective

solution to issues of business interrelatedness, industrial groups,

large business - layered computer applications, and requirements for

a glue for far flung business activities that need integration or

an efficient computerized vehicle to enable proper the execution of

proper business rules and regulations, processes, activities, and

other varietal but related processes requiring considerable computer

power and technology. These activities in SAP include ease of

use applications and modules, and simple vocabulary for business end

users; easy programming and understandable software code, multi

platform software capabilities including those to enhance and

leverage the enterprise database. The SAP enterprise DUET and HANA

configurations and implementations have shown that more parts of a

business are served better using these integrated solutions versus

dependence upon legacy and departmental or divisional systems. Said

implementations have considerable efficiencies developed, built in

and bolted on for many industries from banking to mining, from



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entertainment to automobile manufacturing and on the implementation

level from paper and workflow to machine and automation tools and

controls. An illustration of the benefits of autonomation with SAP

would be impossible without an understandable link between the

manufacturing and information systems properties of modern companies.

For a basic review of this, see my book, MYSAP FI Fieldbook (2005.)

Examples of systems that have benefited more recently from SAP

implementations, see the SAP Developer Web site; or, for example an

overall view on ERP, the Journal of Information Systems; or, again,

any basic guide to enterprise software or enterprise resource

planning. As computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) becomes even

more technology based and even more real for end users,

investors, consumers and the like, business computing will become

less complex and more integrated, with an emphasis upon manufacturing

customization and communications, including more tailored

manufactured products along the lines of user's or consumer's

perceptions, information and data capture and processing including

multi processing, and more advanced product design and production.

This has been the overall purpose of implementation of packaged

composite applications for some time.

Many aspects of the enterprise information system, including those

related to accounting and reporting will respond rapidly to

manufacturing directives through cost accounting and more

computerization of business objects such as bills of materials,



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routings, purchase orders, pricing policies and documentation,

billing and invoicing, and labour and asset, and other management

reporting criteria. Management of companies of the future will

further integrate the financial reporting requirement and other

compliance with internal accounting functionality and its application

and view to financial and other performance indicators. This group

of applications from any source, including SAP as transaction -

driven, will make the corporation more forward looking as more

reliable forecasts will be available in more departments and

divisions through enterprise management systems, including through

SAP Strategic Enterprise Management. The relevant applications will

be ideal in addressing future economic and political issues in view

of regional and territorial economic and financial factors and

changes, and will allow re planning and the generation of numbers

for varying degrees of related sensitivities to give an accurate

snapshot of business health and economic and financial climates. The

real time character of this functionality will reach more people

within the enterprise as well from data input through the various

technology areas to final controlling, reporting, or fabrication, and

with views from the data level to high level summaries; and using

optimized and efficient controls, multiple business methods,

artificial intelligence, and, again autonomation.

Implementation of applications will be necessary as preceded by cost

benefit matrices analysis and tracking on facility and corporation



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wide bases concerning proposed improvements and programs, related

identification and analyses including productivity analysis; analyses

of items such as productivity improvements, improvement

potentialities (and SWOT,) and the role of corporate and regional and

territorial economics and risks, again on a facility and corporate

wide basis. Some simple guidelines for the blueprinting and

implementation process include: a. Definition of stakeholders and

financial / costs baselines; b. Structure cost benefits analyses

with manufacturing function, modernisation, and executive criteria,

including facility and corporate consolidated what ifs; c.

Perform thorough implementation analyses of manufacturing facilities

(as - is) in view of implementation; d. Develop performance

benchmarks for facilities based on results in c.; e. Develop

matrices for cost benefit / opportunity costs, and priorities of

implementation and improvements; f. Evaluate technological

alternatives for improving facilities and industrial groups; g. For

each capital and corporate improvement, determine a future or

projected cost benefit matrix or pattern for each facility and

the entire business and same for alternatives; h. Analyse financial,

economic, social, political, and societal, etc., intangibles and

their risks, including human factors to the degree they can be

quantified for each business facility, business area, and the entire

company.

Remember that inflation differs in different countries and different



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regions, and that a time based cost - benefit matrix / analysis of

future improvements and efficiencies needs to show this. Any cost

benefit analysis or study should roughly include the following for

review: a. Product assessment and feasibility study, b. analysis

of investment development or license study and product launch, c. Q

& A implementation in development and Q & A computing environment for

testing, customization, development; d. Transition from Q & A

implementation to full implementation including increasing

communication and awareness of new business and commerical /

corporate computing and manufacturing landscape.

Cost benefit analysis should capture actual costs and performance

indicators that have been identified as CSF's by management. Cost

benefit measures, indicators, success factors and other indicators

should conform with all internal and external reporting rules (this

means U.S. GAAP and management accounting standards, for example.)

Information provided by the cost benefit studies, matrices,

determinations and reporting should be standardized, valid and

verifiable, and subject to cost benefit tracking to invite

sufficient time and energy to determine the feasibility of future

savings, investment returns, and efficiencies.



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MANUFACTURING PROCESS CONTROL.

Process control is a unique part of industry that deals with the

control of variables that influence materials and equipment during

the development and fabrication of a product. These processes vary

from the very simple to the very complex. Control is one of the

primary functions of a manufacturing system, especially flexible

manufacturing. With respect to this, control has to do with those

parameters that maintain a desired system functioning and output by

altering energy flow from the energy source to the load medium or

device. Control ranges from a full control environment, on and / or

off operations, to a number of or partial processes or changes that

are implemented using sophisticated technological equipment.

In manufacturing, control might be implemented using human

interaction, computing power, or any combination of human

interaction or technological tools. The end product of such

interactions might be a product, an operation state or level,

workflow, product flow through a distribution system, and so on.

Manufacturing, again, itself is the process of transforming raw

materials into finished goods using a development or implementation

process. A process is an activity or function performed on material

resources or materials that changes them into a finished product.

Processes are manufacturing functions performed on products that



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eventually change source and raw materials into finished products.

Manufacturing processes depend highly on the nature of raw materials

being used and the nature of end products as well, be they for

consumers, or capital assets or products overall. Quality and

quantity of products produced are also dependent upon production

processes, of which some of the more ordinary are heating, cooling,

distilling, baking, milling, coating, and so forth. All

manufacturing processes are grouped into areas and levels of

operations and analysis that consider temperature, pressure, material

flow, resources changes, and analytics and other reporting functions.

Manufacturing processes are continuously changing during the

fabrication and finishing of products, and process control is an

integral part of the monitoring, reporting, and operations of the

manufacturing of any goods.

Control itself in the manufacturing sector, fits into areas such as

inventory control, machinery control, numerical control, programmable

control, and quality control, among others. This concept, in its

implementation has the primary functioning to determine the final

outcome of a manufacturing process, and related materials and

resources are controlled only when the final product or outcome of a

process must be changed. There are different registers of control

that include control time, response time, control

effectiveness, as determined themselves by the needs of the system

and its different criteria cost, quality, economy, and other



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factors. Manual control systems demand more human interaction for

their proper functioning, and automatic systems are dependent on self

regulating processes and equipment that replace human control

operations. Automatic control functioning can often achieve better

production results than a human control process. The measures of

system control often include measurement, comparison, computation,

correction and other key indicators of quality and performance. All

manufacturing measurements are estimates or appraisal of activities

or processes subject to certain criteria.

Open loop and forward feed controls are two frequently used

methods in industrial processes, and automatic control is equally

compelling but has to do with what the process achieves during

manufacturing without human interaction. In open loop control,

changes to a manufacturing process are based upon and made at any

time by human interaction. The open loop system is often

characterised by a process energy source, transmission path,

controller and a final element, called an actuator or final control

element. The first part of the process represents the beginning

processes of input variables (time, temperature, speed, pressure, gas

or liquid flow, displacement, acceleration, torque, and force, etc.)

The transmission path is responsible for transforming the input

variables using an energy source throughout the remainder of the

system, and the controller serves as a monitor and indicator, among

other things, to govern the functioning of the actuator. Human



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interaction here is determined through the attachment of a manual

setpoint adjustment to the controller to change the operating range

of the controller process. The actuator implements the response of

the controller to the final process element and finished product.

The final process element can be any piece of equipment for altering

the passage of energy through the system, and the output is

considered the result of these processes as subject to the

controller. Examples of controlled processes are water temperature

and pH of an aqueous solution, chemical viscosity, temperature of

molten elements or alloys, or the path of a cutting element on a

milling machine, and so on. An easy example of an open loop system

is a steam heat system with a temperature measurement unit and a

manual steam valve as a setpoint adjustment. A more complex but

similar system would be that of a heated water main where any

detected change in water temperature is compared to desired measures

by an operator who opens or closes a heated water valve. The

advantages of such systems are their simplicity and low cost, need

for manual control for feedback in the manual control and other sub

systems.

Closed loop, or self regulating systems have output that is

measured and compared with pre determined settings. Feedback is

generated by the output sensing device, equipment, or component is

submitted to the controller that regulates output according to

desired values. Feedback refers to the direction in which the



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output sensing values are returned to the controller, and in a way

the output signal to the controller acts as a signal source for the

feedback control element a classic example of a feedback loop. The

closed loop system is similar to the open loop system, and the

feedback circuit is the distinguishing feature of this system. The

output signal to the controller is a summing circuit that compares

the setpoint input and output feedback signals and the input or

process energy source is responsible for establishing the setpoint

value of the system process(es.) The setpoint operator is changed or

adjusted according to the feedback comparison process as determined

by a sensor, and when and where the feedback value is the same as the

setpoint value, the system indicates a balanced state and remains

unmodified. If the sensor output is different from the setpoint

value, signals are applied to the controller to indicate the system

is out - of balance, and a correction signal is generated by the

controller and relayed to the actuator or final control element. The

correction signal contains directions of the controller to the

actuator to change the system state, and this part of the process

results in a self correcting feature to the system. The open

loop and closed loop systems perform essentially the same

functions.

A number of elements are used to describe closed loop system

operations, and a number of them are used to evaluate system

performance, including: transient response, steady state error,



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stability, sensitivity. These terms are used to illustrate the

response of closed loop systems to feedback. Each condition occurs

before the system reaches a steady state and are represented by

different paths through the system process, including over -

damping, and under - damping. The critically damped response is

a state in which the system has reached a steady state after over

or under damping. In other words, the critically damped response

is, or represents a steady state condition of the system without

waves or oscillations of output. Some manufacturing processes are

severely affected by feedback oscillations and other damping waves,

and some are severely affected as well by the time it takes for

feedback to the controller to remediate transient response(s) and

this should be taken into account in any system. Steady state

error has to do with how the feedback and controller processes have

re attained a steady state after an oscillation, or after a shock,

such as a change in input and the resulting output. The error is

computed by comparing the actual system output to the standard system

output after the transient response takes place. It is an important

measure in the operation of the controller and always shows an offset

between the performance value and standard system value. Stability

is an indicator of the system's ability to re attain a steady state

after a change has taken place; an over - damping or under - damping,

for example. The sensitivity term refers to a comparison between

system output performance as measured to standard output amounts.



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When a transient response happens, the system takes time, usually,

for its process to correct the system state. This is referred to as

a process time lag and is affected by system inertia (the ability of

a process to continue despite that a change has occurred.) System

inertia must be addressed successfully before process control can be

effective. Capacity of a system is its ability to store energy or a

quantity or measure of something. Resistance opposes the transfer of

energy in the production process, and when resistance and capacity

are combined, this results in a time lag. Sometimes, engineers

refer to 'dead time,' or the time the system takes to regain a steady

state after a change of input from one value to another.

Any system that is highly consistent with respect to production

levels despite numerous load changes is referred to as a setpoint

regulator system where the setpoint of such a system is established

and then rarely changed. A setpoint follow up system is a feedback

process to the controller in which the setpoint is constantly

changing and controlled variables are kept as close as possible

despite their change values, to the setpoint, using the setpoint as

what is called a reference variable. Such systems are said to have a

self balancing setpoint.

Responses of a controller, purely and simply described here as modes

of control, are among the following: Pure operational control on

or off scenarios, proportional, integral, derivative, and there are



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more sophisticated feedback schemes such as a composite mode, like

proportional plus integral, proportional plus derivative, and / or

proportional plus integral plus derivative control. These control

modes are proposed often by looking at control procedures.

The On off control scenario has to do with, for example, home

heating systems as controlled by a solenoid gas valve and a setpoint

that regulate a thermostat that turns an air conditioning unit on

or off. In proportional control, the controller does not simply

determine the on or off status of a switch or valve, but the

final control element in the system can be adjusted between fully

open and fully closed, the value of which is determined by a ratio of

the setpoint input and the actual value of the process. Such

controls can be designed to react to temperature, water flow, airflow

and the like. Integral control is a controller regulated system

where the controller output whose signal is proportional to some

computed system error serves as feedback to the controller. The

error signal itself is the difference between the system setpoint and

the actual system process values. In this scenario, if there is an

error in the system, the controller will continue to correct it and

integral control as a process is continuous and rapid.

Proportional plus integral control includes control instrumentation

that combines the feedback principles between the integral and

proportional control types. This type of control scenario is a good



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response to long term system errors and is primarily used with

proportional control proportional control responds rapidly, but can

not reduce the system error to zero, which is the problem with the

offset in proportional control. Integral control responds less

rapidly over time, and does not respond to rapid changes, but it can

reduce system error to zero. These two principles combined result in

a PI (proportional plus integral) defined system. The action of

the proportional plus integral control scenario is easily computed

using ordinary mathematical procedures.

Many controllers have an inertia problem, for example, as in a water

system where it takes time for the water to increase in temperature

when subject to heat. The nature of this situation is the error will

not cause an immediate difference with the setpoint in the system.

When the error is registered, slowly as it is, the system takes at

least the same time to respond with corrective action. To overcome

this type of slack, a corrective action is available that allows the

system to respond to very minute errors; but if the error continues

and remains large, the system then will have a tendency to

overcompensate which might result in oscillations. One scenario that

cures this is whence a response to an error is large and dampens over

time this solution is typically named a derivative controller.

Derivative controllers have a circuit that works in proportion to the

rate of change of its input as determined by circuit resistance and

capacitance and its relationship to a time element and the rate of



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change of the input to the input itself. Such systems are found in

electronic differentiators, and other electric and electronic

measuring devices. You need to remember the derivative controller

only responds to changes due to variations in applied error signals

to the setpoint. Derivative controllers do not respond to steady

state errors, but if there is a tendency for the system to oscillate,

the output will seek its own level. Derivative controllers are used

most always in conjunction with other controls.

In order to allow oscillations to have a higher gain setting, a

system can use a proportional plus derivative control to reduce the

tendency for oscillations. Such a control depends upon a proportion

that involves the change in output as a percentage of the error

signal, and differentiates error signal changes and will maintain a

system level insofar as the system is subject to constant changes

only. The controllers in a PD system (proportional plus derivative

system) are additionally useful in their capability to anticipate

elemental system changes, and such controllers are subject to

difficulties with noise and transient elements that cause the output

to accumulate or approach its highest level; they are also often used

in motor driven systems, or servo - driven systems and in systems

characterised by small and quick elemental changes.

Proportional plus integral plus derivative controllers also combine

the principles of those three separate controllers in a single



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instrument: Each separate controller receives the same error signal,

and the three indicators are summed and added through an amplifier.

Each element of this controller develops its own output, and the

output measures are combined typically into a single expression that

determines regulation of the system. This controller is used to

determine the functioning of complex and complicated industrial

systems and can be expensive to implement.

ANALYTICS AND INDUSTRIAL MANUFACTURING.

Industrial manufacturing, again as it is known overall, is the

process used in describing turning raw materials into other materials

that are more valuable, or processing them into their final form.

This always involves, in the modern age, elements of manufacturing

including quality control, specifications testing, inspections, and

other process analytics. Some of the more recent breakthroughs in

manufacturing in these areas include, again, more rapid means of

testing through the implementation of new technologies that monitor

and analyse everything from raw materials and their related processes

to the contribution of the production processes to local environments

and process and final production testing as well.

Some of these analytics include electric / electronic / magnetic

field instrumentation such as equipment dealing with electric and



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magnetic field reactions, including mass spectrometers, analysers

measuring electrical conductivity including those with and without

nodes and electrodes; thermal / mechanical energy instruments and

analysers, gas analysers and gas leak detectors, chromatographs,

viscosity rating equipment and viscometers, equipment and

instrumentation measuring density and specific gravity;

electromagnetic radiation analysers including nuclear radiation

instruments, radiation detectors and ionization detectors,

scintillation counters and X Ray radiation instruments, ultarviolet

and infrared analysers, photometric analysers, colorimetry

instrumentation; combustion analysers, pH analysers, and other

chemical energy instrumentation. All these instruments, when

computerised, do include systems, or are comprised themselves of

computer capabilities including the basic computing elements found in

all computers: MPU, Memory, interface adapter, memory, and address

and data busses. This writing has included an introduction into the

various types of manufacturing controls as monitored in ERP systems

such as SAP and their related functionality with respect to quality

and quantity, costs, customization and other performance indicators.

CONCLUSION.

The emphasis of CIM and its corresponding controls through SAP and

related solutions mapped on different business levels and



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environments, including economic environments, is upon information

and communications, and monitoring between business and consumer, and

between businesses, between colleagues, and end users, between

peers, neighbors and managers, board directors and product

developers, programmers and manufacturers, and on and on, in the

corporate hierarchy, both horizontally and vertically. All this in

order to accede to the advanced stages of the flexible manufacturing

world and into the parallel world of additive production and

industry. Packaged composite applications will have a role in new

additive manufacturing processes and techniques, where controllers

and end users alike will necessarily have access to databases and

core application data in order that the business remain effective,

efficient and competitive.

A necessary and important part of the computing landscape for these

activities will be the wireless network and its related

functionality. Factories will be able to take advantage of processes

in making more things than just the end products of manufacturing

methods and practices, including the confidentiality, availability

and integrity of integrated computing power and systems, centralized

or distributed. At present, many systems transmit useless and

unusable summary information and data, that is otherwise redundant or

does not contribute to system performance or quality improvement.

Much of the data as processed by SAP can be distilled into

interpretive and analysable, and mindful knowledge. This is the



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result of the application of some cognitive, and heuristic rules to

data processing in developing SAP as intended to reduce the

redundancy and uselessness of some forms of data, and to preserve the

integrity of applications and other technologies, including

underlying databases and equipment, machine tools, the corporate

knowledgebase, and other business traits and attributes. The

resulting technologies are end - user and customer / vendor driven

with an emphasis on the corporate end user. Implementation of SAP

is also customizable according to the diverse needs of the networked

and integrated industrial manufacturers and other entities.

Enterprise Resource Planning implementations, especially those

involving SAP are a compelling reason behind the efforts of the

enterprise to become more economically competitive, if not to survive

commercially amid the business chaos and distraction that is

prevalent in the world economy today. SAP implementations do

increase fixed costs, production capacity, and economies of scale

which are desirable for many businesses and business areas and

activities, and can nonetheless reduce product unit variable costs

to help a competitor gain market share, or to focus better on a

market niche. Beware of company management fears of taking on an

additional investment and insistence upon unreasonable returns,

including insistence on lower market prices, paybacks and hurdle

rates: This represents a kind of eschewing or avoidance syndrome

with respect to manufacturing and technology related factors,



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successful or not. Disinvestment patterns are difficult to determine

as far as their actually redeeming criteria and results are

concerned and can result in a vicious spiral for the business. Any

cost benefit and other analyses should include lots of numerical

illustrations through charts and foils that actually validate, verify

and highlight the increase in fixed costs and resulting economies of

scale; the projected price behaviour for various products and impact

of pricing policies on the market, including cost reductions and

break - even, ROI and TCO projections and forecasts along with

results tracking.

References available upon request.

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