Venezuelan Brewer Contributes SAP Interface Code

委内瑞拉大型酿酒公司开发的基于XSLT的开放标准界面将很快为希望通过更有效的植物范围内整合改善业务的批处理制造商免费提供。

The interface code—used by Venezuelan brewer Cervecería Polar to connect its plant floor production systems to its SAP R/3 business system—has been given to the World Batch Forum (WBF), according to the WBF, a non-profit, professional organization. WBF, in turn, plans to make the code freely available on its Web site. Cervecería Polar and the WBF are currently clarifying the licensing agreement language, and a firm date has not yet been set for WBF Web site availability, says a WBF source.

Cervecería Polar and its systems integrator, MPR de Venezuela, developed the interface for the company’s four breweries using Business-To-Manufacturing Markup Language (B2MML), an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) schema set developed by WBF. B2MML enables manufacturers to implement the ANSI/ISA S95 standard for data exchange between business and manufacturing systems. WBF released Version 2 of B2MML last year, which is currently available on the WBF Web site.

该界面位于SAP业务连接器中，并使用XML Stylesheet转换语言（XSLT）作为开放的方法，可以在生产系统和Business System之间转换格式，由德国Walldorf的SAP AG提供。该界面使啤酒厂能够整合工厂的所有生产区域，向在线工厂地板上传递工艺订单，实时报告实际生产，并将材料库存与SAP的生产计划（PP/PI）和材料管理（MM）模块同步。

Easily adaptable

The XSLT code given to WBF for distribution does not include any Cervecería proprietary knowledge and can easily be adapted by other companies to convert SAP documents to B2MML format, says Francisco Ferrero, Cervecería Polar’s manager of automation.

Systems Integrator MPR de Venezuela的Alejandro Imass说，界面的开发仅花了五个星期，自2003年10月以来一直在啤酒厂“直播”。他补充说：“除了我们在项目上的工作外，我们还通过WBF XML工作组邮件列表的成员的电子邮件获得了大量支持和帮助。”

Prior to undertaking the B2MML-based project, the brewery had tried to implement a smaller, custom “one-off” interface, with unsatisfactory results. “I think our experience points out the importance of developing open, standard interfaces that can be easily adapted and implemented on other projects,” says Ferrero. “Users should resist the temptation to develop custom interfaces, which are difficult and costly to develop, use and support. For us, B2MML and WBF’s support for our project proved to be ideal.”

The ANSI/ISA S95 standard establishes a common definition and format for information exchanged between shop floor systems and business systems.