It Goes Much Better When We All Work Together

You got your chocolate in my peanut butter,” responds the other. Just like this old commercial for one of my favorite candies, sometimes seemingly dissimilar things go together to make something delicious.

在此特别报告中，Automation World与其姊妹出版物包装世界一起探讨了另外两个功能在过程中如何更好地工作（过程和包装）。去年，当它欢迎新的兄弟姐妹进入该兴趣时，包装界已经十年了。实际上，这是一群小而吵闹的以控制为导向的记者，他们入侵了他们的安静办公室。

We have been sharing information and experiences over the past year among each other—my controls and manufacturing experience and Packaging World Editor Pat Reynolds’ knowledge of the nuances of the packaging machinery market. Events in industry today reveal that many see the benefits of integrating controls with packaging machinery and process manufacturing with packaging lines. For this special report, we interviewed many engineers and some managers from both the process side and the packaging side of the manufacturing business.

One side of the story traces from the efforts of a group of engineers, business leaders and analysts who formed the Open Modular Architecture Controls (OMAC, www.omac.org) working group. This group has evolved over the ensuing seven years since meetings in 1997 to formally organize it. The group met out of frustration with the inability to integrate manufacturing controls systems from different suppliers.

可以说，最成功的工作组是包装。由联合利华（Unilever）的工程经理安德鲁·麦克唐纳（Andrew McDonald）等有远见的人，当时的工程经理，当时是好时的工程经理，以及弗雷德·普特南（Fred Putnam）的弗雷德·普特南（Fred Putnam），他是包装设备供应商马尔卡姆（Markam）的顾问，以及更多的包装工作组目标，包括包装工作组的目标，定义的可交付成果，然后开始交付。

The PackML subgroup led by Putnam adapted a standard model developed by the Instrumentation, Systems and Automation Society (ISA) called ANSI/ISA S88. This standard defines a model for representing batch control processes and provides a method for defining terms. PackML (Packaging Machinery Language) defines a state model for standard packaging machines and defines standard terms. As suppliers build to this standard, customers can understand how they work more quickly and easily than before.

The next step to integration was for the OMAC Packaging Working Group to work with an organization that promotes standards for batch processing manufacturing, the World Batch Forum (www.wbf.org). This was a natural step, because most, if not almost all, products from a batch process end up in some sort of package.

由于需要工程师覆盖更多的区域，因此必须将尽可能多的控制体系结构和编程中的相似之处设计到系统中。随着包装制造商根据标准采用标准，减少了培训和支持问题。

Then there are business reasons for working together. Forward-thinking companies are using automation techniques for information flow to more closely couple customer requirements (as in purchase orders) to production. The ability to produce product to order, while packaging and shipping right after, can reduce inventory and increase customer satisfaction at the same time.

So, welcome the chocolate and peanut butter combination. That great taste might just be your company’s competitive edge.