12 February 2017

At the end of his great post ‘IIoT is killing ISA 95 !! …a.k.a. the operators that talked to the CEO‘, Antonio Buendia, Head of Manufacturing Process Control at Novartis, asks 3 questions:

What do you think?

(1) Do you think that ISA 95 is dead, and we are going to have a series of devices each of them talking to each other? And those devices will be able to digest and process the information by themselves?

(2) Do you think that the IIoT will bring enhanced communication capabilities, but we still need to establish a hierarchy, a set of common rules for orchestration, but a new model has to be created?

(3) Or do you think that ISA 95, with some minor tweaks, is still the model of reference for the IIoT?”

There is no simple answer to this question. In my opinion the answer depends strongly on the issues one is going to solve with IIoT devices.

Even in the age of IIoT ISA 95 will still be a reference model in production. Let me be quite clear: For just the execution of a manufacturing order the ISA 95 model will fit more or less well even in the age of the IIoT.

For other production related issues the ISA model may possible not fit. Let me make this clear with an example:

For the execution of a huge production order it would be helpful to know in advance of the likelihood of equipment breakdowns during the execution time. IIoT devices like smart pumps or smart valves are able to gather operational data. This data can be used for the prediction of the remaining run time of the devices. If the remaining run times of all devices are known, it is easy to predict whether a production order can be executed without major delays.

This is one possible added value we create from IIoT devices. Currently only few manufacturers are collecting these data. The Industrie 4.0 concept goes far beyond the local collection and analysis of operational data. If the data is sent to the equipment manufacturer for further analysis, we can create more value from the data because the device vendor may correlate the data with the data from thousands of similar devices. With this, remaining run times can be estimated more accurately.

From my point of view, it is not necessary that an individual device contacts the vendors database to get details about its remaining run time. It is enough if the device management system does this job. I don’t think that the ERP system must be involved at least during this analysis phase in this communication.

With this, my answer is: ISA 95 is still a reference model for manufacturing in the age of IIoT. But we have to develop other models or extent the ISA 95 model if we are going to turn the capabilities of the IIoT into EBIT.

Have a good week.