Yokogawa Electric Corporation has released the R1.02 upgrade to Real-time Production Organizer™ (RPO). RPO is a suite of manufacturing execution system (MES) platform packages that integrate the vertical production execution workflow across departments and empower decision makers to organise their work quickly and efficiently. With the R1.02 upgrade, RPO now includes Workflow Composer VP, a newly released package that supports the use of Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and is used together with enhanced versions of Production Instructor VP and Production Supervisor VP as well as third party packages to standardise and automate business processes.
Development background
Today's plant operations need to be flexible enough to deal with the challenges of changing feed materials and market demands; however, there are many barriers in business processes that impede the flow of information between plant areas, posing serious challenges to agile plant operations. These barriers arise for the following reasons:
- Poor information integrity due to insufficient MES connectivity
- Information resolution gaps that cause misalignment between enterprise resource planning (ERP) and MES
- Lack of proper tools for closing loops in business focused manufacturing.
To address these needs and achieve its vision for Production Excellence based on VigilantPlant® and the CENTUM® VP platform, Yokogawa developed RPO. In June 2009, Yokogawa released Production Instructor VP for task execution management and Production Supervisor VP for key performance indicator (KPI) monitoring. Now, Workflow Composer VP has been released to support system integration with the Production Instructor VP and Production Supervisor VP packages.
Product features
1. Workflow Composer VP (new)
With its support of BPMN, Workflow Composer VP enables the standardisation of business work processes and organises their execution. Workflow Composer VP has the following features:
- The implementation of sequential flows can be defined using logic objects including Web services, e-mail, relational database access, and scripting.
- Interactive manual entry or confirmation can be performed using an RPO "E-form" on a Web browser.
- The monitoring console provides execution status information and debugging assistance, and enables manual interventions for the suspension, resumption, or termination of a business process.
2. Production Instructor VP (enhanced)
Production Instructor VP issues template-based or manual work orders for correct and prompt execution, monitoring, and analysis to identify best practices. The enhanced features of Production Instructor VP are as follows:
- Allows the customisation of task detail and shift handover report forms
- Has an extended OPC interface for process data collection
- Enables the control of sub-task execution sequences
- Supports up to 100 custom data fields
3. Production Supervisor VP (enhanced)
Production Supervisor VP is used to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) in real-time on a role-based Web dashboard. The enhanced features of Production Supervisor VP are as follows:
- Includes general grid, rich trend, and period comparison chart Web components
- Supports the use of a generic relational database adaptor and a Web service interface
- Enables dynamic changes to KPI limits from an external system
Main target markets and applications are plant production and operation management in industries such as refining, petrochemicals, and chemicals
VigilantPlant® is Yokogawa's automation concept for safe, reliable, and profitable plant operations. It aims to enable an ongoing state of Operational Excellence where plant personnel are watchful and attentive, well-informed, and ready to take actions that optimise plant and business performance. This initiative eliminates unplanned downtime, improves asset utilisation, and allows businesses to adapt to shifting market conditions quickly and efficiently. Based on this concept, Yokogawa launched Safety Excellence solutions in 2005, Asset Excellence solutions in 2006, and Production Excellence solutions in 2007.
CENTUM® VP is their newest integrated production control system, launched in 2008. This takes the VigilantPlant initiative to its next evolutionary step, integrating the three excellence solutions into one Operational Excellence platform.
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