John Kowal, global marketing manager at Elau, Inc., a maker of controls technologies for packaging machinery, sent in this response:
Implementing PackML should be simple if the control system is designed to do it. But finding the data points in a PLC register typically accounts for 60% of an MES integration project. That's not PackML's fault, that's a controls architecture issue.
Still, if you've gathered the data you want to monitor from an isolated machine, mapping the data to PackTags doesn't buy you anything. If you are gathering data from multiple machines, especially from different OEMs or controllers, then PackTags and PackML serve as a common denominator. Suddenly you can communicate and compare data in an apples-to-apples way.
If, however, you don't know what data you need to gather or how to analyze it into actionable information, you still won't see much use for PackML's common look and feel. That's where OEE and the Packaging Line Performance workshops have provided the perfect application for PackML. There, you'll learn what data you want, how to determine root causes of inefficiencies, ways of increasing efficiency, and in turn, measuring the results."
The Packaging Line Performance workshops Kowal refers to are put on by Packaging World magazine. The next ones scheduled are February 24-25, 2009 - Tampa, June 23-24, 2009 - Chicago, November 17-18, 2009 - location to be determined. For more information, contact Ms. Jurate Zelba at [email protected].
