Sun Champions Java-based Manufacturing.com Initiative
•Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)
•Sun's Role in the Manufacturing Universe
•Manufacturing.com
•Partners
•Summary
In June 1997, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s CEO Scott McNealy, along with Sun's financial services industries group, introduced the Java-based SunConnect architecture as a way to help banking and financial institutions build advanced Web-enabled systems. Since then, the SunConnect initiative has evolved into a cross-industry open systems specification that is now taking root in the manufacturing market.
"Manufacturers want to integrate new technologies quickly into existing operations, both within their four walls and beyond to the extended Internet-linked virtual enterprise," says Jack Herzog, director of manufacturing industries at Sun (Palo Alto, CA). "The SunConnect framework makes that integration easier, more scalable and open. It's about building the middle layer, the ability to deliver information from data sources such as customer orders, the production floor, or suppliers to any application that needs it. We call it manufacturing.com."
SunConnect is not a single product -- it is a Java-based framework that encompasses the key aspects of an Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) architecture: interoperability, development, management and security. Products based on SunConnect will be deployable on any hardware platform. SunConnect also comprises certification and joint marketing programs with its partners.
Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)
SunConnect, comparable in scope to frameworks from other vendors such as Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT and COM-based Distributed Internet Applications Architecture (DNA), also seeks to help manufacturers integrate plant-floor information into the enterprise network.
EAI solutions – like Microsoft's DNA and SunConnect – are being driven by the need to decrease time to market and evolve into a more "agile" model of manufacturing. However, as Sun notes, this places new pressures for efficiency on IT infrastructures and requires a broad, coherent approach to the integration of heterogeneous systems. Yet the success of such a solution lies in its ability to be cost effective, easily manageable, highly secure and flexible enough to change with the evolving needs of the manufacturing enterprises it serves.
According to Sun, its SunConnect specification addresses these and other issues through the use of open technologies and solutions from independent software vendors and other business allies such as Bailey Controls, Foxboro, Intuitive Technology Corp. and Westinghouse's Process Control Division. The key to the SunConnect message lies in the open systems promise of Java, which supports "iron ore to serviced auto" levels of supply chain integration, as well as providing a platform for enterprise relationship management.
In an executive white paper titled SunConnect Enterprise Architecture dated December 1998, Aberdeen Group (Boston) compared the SunConnect framework to frameworks from IBM (NCF-Network Computing Foundation) and Microsoft's DNA. Co-author Jeanine Fournier of Aberdeen stated, "Unlike competing frameworks from IBM and Microsoft, SunConnect lets the customer choose the component technology right for the job, and the fact that Sun certifies other suppliers' services for the SunConnect framework is unique in the industry. Whereas Microsoft and, to a lesser extent, IBM environments are exclusive, SunConnect is inclusive." Aberdeen further stated that SunConnect represents a complete departure from the "lock-in" strategy predominant in today's computer industry, even among open-standards proponents.
This trend toward leveraging information technology across all aspects of the enterprise is an imperative across many vertical market segments and not just manufacturing. In fact, Aberdeen Group says the EAI market is on track to reach one billion dollars by 2001.
Sun's Role in the Manufacturing Universe
According to Sun, there is not one application area throughout the enterprise where discrete and process manufacturers are not using the company's Unix-based Solaris operating system. Additionally, Sun's hardware has a significant footprint as well; from the SPARCstation desktop clients used in CAD/CAM to the SPARCservers in the data center, all the way down to the embedded SPARC processors in machine and process control systems.
"Sun is traditionally strong in design, but we are now also strong at the enterprise level -- MES, MRP/ERP, PDM, decision support and supply chain," says Kevyn Renner, group manager of Sun's worldwide industrial automation market development efforts. "We started targeting the plants two to three years ago."
Sun is also heavily promoting Java as a way to build system-independent access to process control and industrial automation systems. For example, Westinghouse's Process Control Division created a Java-based package that allows operators to view real-time plant floor data and graphics over the Internet or intranet.
In another example, Berlex Biosciences (Richmond, CA), the research division of pharmaceuticals manufacturer Berlex Laboratories Inc., turned to a Java-based solution from Cyberonix (Berkeley, CA) when it needed to integrate process level PLC data into its analytical systems. Cyberonix's jPLC Integrator acts as a bridge between proprietary PLC environments and the open, batch formats spelled out by IEC 1131 standards.
Manufacturers can run Java-based applications on a variety of platforms, from embedded controllers to PCs to large servers and mainframes. However, the real key is the ability to integrate the plant floor and with the rest of the enterprise. According to Sun's Renner, this required level of integration is driving many manufacturers to Java to make it happen.
As we move toward the twenty-first century and a true global economy, the rate of change in the manufacturing market will remain at its torrid pace. Product life cycles will continue to get shorter as trade barriers continue to crumble. Agility will become the key competitive advantage for those companies that can survive the "manufacturing.com" trend.
For example, AVEX Electronics Inc., an electronics assembly contract manufacturer based in Huntsville, AL, turned to Sun to help give its customers a "virtual walk" down its production line. AVEX's Total Interactive Manufacturing Environment (TIME) enables its customers to view order status, work-in-progress, quality test data and other production data via the Internet. TIME's backbone is an MES system from Industrial Computer Corp. (Atlanta) that provides links to finite capacity scheduling, SCADA, and SPC/SQC modules. The MES system runs 24X7 on the shop floor.
For AVEX, its Web-enabled MES system provides a critical link with its customers and gives it a competitive advantage in the rapidly changing electronics market where outsourced manufacturing is commonplace. With product lifecycles as short as six months, innovation, quality and time to market are critical factors in the success of an organization. The Internet is helping to tie AVEX and its customers more closely together by creating a "virtual" plant floor that can deliver on these requirements and turns manufacturing data into part of the product.
According to Sun, the SunConnect framework provides a blueprint manufacturers – like AVEX – can use to ".com" their business value chain.
Through booths at major industry events such as National Manufacturing Week (March, Chicago) and IMS Expo (April; Orlando, FL), Sun is attempting to get its Java message into the public forum largely dominated by Microsoft's marketing might. However, Sun is not going it alone. The company is attempting to expand its position in the manufacturing industry by collaborating with companies like Foxboro, i2, ICC/GR Software, Metaphase, Oracle, BAAN, PTC, SAP and TIBCO.
In support of this effort, Sun recently announced the inaugural Java Technology for Industrial and Societal Automation conference and exhibition taking place in Santa Clara, CA on June 20-23. Over 40 exhibitors including ABB, Cyberonix, Foxboro, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Manguistics, PSDI, Schneider Electric and Siemens will be exhibiting. The conference will include topics on embedded Java, automation API standards, MES, industrial networks and other manufacturing subjects.
The promise of Java and the SunConnect framework lies in its openness and its ability to help manufactures overcome the heterogeneous platforms and applications in their own enterprise as well as that of their supply chain. Java is currently supported by every major computer platform, operating system, ERP application, Web browser and database provider. As a result, SunConnect has the potential to be the missing link between plant automation systems and the boardroom.
However, the SunConnect framework faces an uphill battle against Microsoft, which already owns significant operating system and application development mind and market share. Yet the battle will be won or lost on the plant floor where real-time access to data is critical – a piece that has yet to fall into place.