Optimization and decision support in production environments
Technology is a key enabler of performance. Production organizations use a host of software systems to manage their operations: these include various implementations of Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) systems, and Asset Performance Management (APM) systems. At the same time, organizations are seeking ways to take the next step—to extend these technologies to optimize operational performance and automate operational decision-making. Until recently, however, suitable technologies were not available.
That has changed. Developments in decision and optimization technologies now provide us with new advantages. Significantly, they can be used to propose optimized decisions in operational situations, enabling powerful decision support and decision-making. In a presentation that Owen Plowman and I recently gave for the Middle East Chapter of MESA in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, we argued that optimization and decision technologies now have advanced to the point where they provide significant value to MES, CMMS, APM, and EAM systems. Specifically we claimed the following four benefits:
- You get optimized decisions: Operations management seeks to use MES, CMMS, EAM, and APM applications to provide actionable information—that is abstracted, contextualized, and normalized. For instance, by connecting the control layer with the enterprise layer of information, you obtain new strategic business information and and improved data relevance, and you benefit from advanced dashboards. However, decisions (which actions to take) are still left to the user: these applications don’t propose actions. To go to the next level of sophistication, where proposals for actions are obtained from automated components, we can now use modern decision and optimization technologies.
- You turn information into high-quality decisions: In many situations, the applications in use provide you with too much information: a veritable data deluge. Operational signals arrive from sensors, cameras, bar code readers, Global Positioning Systems, backbone transaction systems, RFID systems, vibration sensors, pressure sensors, and so on. But our proficiency at generating information has exceeded our abilities to find, review, understand, and act on it. As a result of the flood of information, our focus has shifted from ending information scarcity to dealing with information overload. Modern decision and optimization technologies turn any amount of information into decisions.
- You manage complexity: Operational environments are increasing in complexity, and are subject to increasingly complex operational and environmental constraints. Add to this the volume of information made available from operational systems, and complexity is being driven even higher. As a result, finding the best decisions is often mathematically infeasible. As I said in an earlier post, knowing, at any time, the location of every truck, the pressure at every valve, or the status of every vibration sensor, does not mean that we know how to act on this information. Having a good situational understanding does not mean that we know which decision would be best. Modern decision and optimization technologies are designed to handle complexity. For instance, constraint management technologies remove unnecessary and inconsistent information, while heuristic search methods guide us to promising decisions.
- You achieve operational excellence and agility: Increasing operational excellence must be achieved by making optimized decisions, including optimizing the utilization of resources, minimizing waste, maximizing recovery, maximizing production, minimizing production cost, and so on. Increased agility means providing fast and effective decision-making during daily operations, managing disruptions, and responding to events (people calling in sick, special equipment not showing up, weather-related events, …). Many modern decision and optimization technologies are designed to handle non-linear, constrained resource decisions, and recent developments have tackled the issue of doing so in constantly changing environments.
An important part of Actenum’s technology development is focused on providing the world’s best solutions to these four challenges.
