Re-inventing the CIM Wheel?

Lately I have been involved in launching a new product portfolio that consolidates two major manufacturing system’s software domains – manufacturing execution and manufacturing quality. All the discussion around the positioning and value proposition of this new “Integrated” product brought up and discussed ideas that were not in fact new. Although for years, there has been consensus that manufacturing is best operated in an integrated manner the common business practice around adoption and implementation of such systems is still very much departmentalized. In the 80’s the concept of Computer Integrated Manufacturing or CIM as well as other initiatives brought strong focus on the integrated nature of manufacturing and more importantly putting the customer in the center, in other words customer focus. It seems that the originator’s of these concepts where already seeing what is obvious in today’s business environment.

It does not cease to amaze me to what level we keep “reinventing the wheel. In fact in this case we were re-inventing the “CIM Wheel”. Yes remember that concept? Anybody with a degree in industrial or manufacturing engineering has hopefully had some exposure to this concept – right?

There was talk about “breaking down the walls”. Design for Manufacture, Design for X, Concurrent Engineering, etc – remember these hot topics from the 80’s and 90’s? However looking at the picture in today’s manufacturing businesses it is surprising to see that the walls are still there and sometimes they have been re-arranged and reinforced. It seems that the proliferation of information technology with all its rewards and benefits is also used as a tool for reinforcing these walls. How many times has somebody used the “it’s their system…” as an excuse. Another aspect of all of this in comparison to 30 year ago is the emergence of new IT department with CIO leadership that sometimes turns out to be keeper of all the gates between the walls!

So what is it that makes it so hard for us to re-use these old concepts? I am not sure. One notion is that the people that are currently moving into executive or positions of increasing influence where in fact educated during the 80’s and 90’s where these concepts where most prevalent. But is that the only reason? I suspect not. I believe that they are in fact valid today as much as they where 20 or 30 years ago. In fact one of the main barriers at that time was technology, which has advanced explosively and today provides us a rich and usable platform to achieve truly “integrated” manufacturing systems. I believe that today we prefer to use the term interoperability but in essence the goal is the same.

What are Holonic Manufacturing Systems?

I thought that I would start some posts in this blog about some previous research that I have been involved in- Holonic Manufacturing Systems. I feel that the theory and the fundamental problem that it addresses are still very relevant in todays world - and maybe even more so?

The Holonic Manufacturing System (HMS) is a new paradigm for next-generation manufacturing systems, which presents a concept that can be used to achieve agile manufacturing systems. It suggests a new paradigm in manufacturing, which changes our old outlook, yet brings many challenging technical problems to solve. The HMS theory focuses specifically on the field of manufacturing control and information technology in manufacturing. HMS is aimed at meeting the challenges of manufacturing environment for mass customization or low-volume and high-variety products. The idea behind HMS is to provide a dynamic and decentralized manufacturing process, in which humans are effectively integrated, so that changes can be made dynamically and continuously.

The central concept of HMS is the term “Holon”, which originates from the work of A. Koestler. A Holon is defined as simultaneously a whole and a part of the whole, thus it can be made up of other holons. This property ensures that holons are stable forms, which can survive disturbances. Furthermore, a Holon is autonomous and co-operative and sometimes intelligent. This property ensures that they are intermediate forms, which provide the proper functionality for the form they are part of. Alternatively, holons have a self-assertive tendency, which is a manifestation of their autonomous nature, and have an integrative tendency, which expresses dependence on the larger whole or their co-operative nature. The Holon's hybrid characteristics allows for entities that co-operate with other entities by offering services to them (servers) and at the same time can act autonomously as free a entity (free agent).

Finally the notion of a “holarchy” is introduced as a dynamic hierarchy of self-regulating holons. The strength of a holonic organization, or holarchy, is that it enables the construction of very complex systems that are nonetheless efficient in the use of resources, highly resilient to disturbances (both internal and external), and adaptable to changes in the environment in which they exist. The HMS paradigm seeks to translate this con­cept, that Koestler developed for social organizations and living organisms, into a set of appro­priate concepts for manufacturing industries. The concept combines the best features of hierarchical and heterarchical (the opposite of a hierarchical) organization, since it pre­serves the stability of a hierarchy while provid­ing the dynamic flexibility of heter­archy.

I know that this is very academic - I will follow up with some posts that exemplify this theory in the future. What do you think?

Welcome everybody!

I am new to this, but I thought that I would give it a try.

In a world where marketers and almost everybody is spreading hype about nearly everything it is getting harder and harder to understand what is the true essence of things that matter to us. Therefore I decided to I can maybe contribute in an area that is of interest to me - namely manufacturing systems. I have been working with and researching in this domain for quite some years now and I am baffled everyday by how people and organizations attempt to solve problems with the latest acronyms. We are always looking for the quick-fix, yet I have noticed that in most cases we are re-inventing the wheel. The Problems and challenges that manufacturing organization face have been the same for quite some years - it is the solutions that change.

So hopefully this blog can start some healthy discussion and exchange of information about this topic. My intent is to voice some opinions in order to start this discussion - hopefully this will work?