As a result of the Smart Manufacturing Workshop last month, the organizers have formed the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC).
Here's the text of their first manifesto. If you are a vendor or asset owner, I STRONGLY suggest you investigate participating in this coalition. Leading companies are already participating. Lagging companies can be saved if they participate, and Following companies should not wait.
Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC) Public-Private
Partnership Program Recommendations
Version 0.5 [DRAFT]
9/28/10
The Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC) represents a broad cross section of
industry segments and includes manufacturing practitioners, technology suppliers, manufacturing
consortia, government laboratories and research universities. The SMLC is recommending a
public-private partnership program to revitalize U.S. manufacturing, lead the actions necessary to
ensure global competitiveness and address ‘meaningful use’- the value to the interests of the
general U.S. public.
The SMLC’s foundational premise is that objectives are achievable through dramatically
intensified application of manufacturing intelligence in enterprise operations, control and
decision-making using data analytics, modeling and simulation. The SMLC has reached
consensus on three program principles:
(1) Manufacturing data is the essence of manufacturing intelligence and needs to be sensed, more
easily collected, consistently defined, managed as an operating asset, shared within companies,
and selectively shared among companies,
(2) Broadly accessible core modeling and simulation capabilities and capacity needs to be
developed through a facilitated community source approach for contribution and validation,
sharing through standardized approaches, and low barrier accessibility to small, medium and large
enterprises,
(3) Meaningful Use is defined in terms of energy, sustainability, EH&S (Environment, Health and
Safety), economic and jobs performance and flows from agile, demand-driven supply chains,
enterprise optimization and sustainable production.
Applying these principles, the SMLC is recommending a public-private program that facilitates
the establishment of a data analytics, modeling and simulation clearinghouse and gateway for
core, community-sourced, pre-competitive resources which small, medium and large enterprises
can readily access and contribute. In integrating the capabilities and requirements of industries,
universities, government labs and manufacturing consortia, the resources and capabilities that
would be addressed through the clearinghouse and gateway are:
• Standardized and sustainable business decision tools (e.g. risk management, energy
management) from a library and platform with plug and play functions
• Generic application modules for rapid creation of virtual plant enterprise and test bed tools
• Shared supply chain models, real world reference architectures and a standard platform to
integrate Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with Original Equipment Manufactures
(OEMs)
• A common but managed data and model sharing infrastructure and coordinated facilities
• A framework for technology transfer and training, rapid assimilation of modeling and
simulation technology developments, the broad application of shared infrastructure and
standardized approaches
• The capacity to drive the development of dramatically lower cost sensors
By unifying these resources and capabilities across batch, continuous and discrete disciplines that
comprise many manufacturing enterprises, the SMLC program creates a framework, capacity and
organizational approach for broad and integrated use of pre-competitive tools by small, medium
and large enterprises. The program facilitates (1) smart manufacturing capability and capacity to
build with cross discipline, industry and company use, application and contribution, (2) cross
company data to be shared to address industry wide Performance Indicators, and (3) industry
segments to build and share expertise and experiences. Meaningful use economic AND
environmental Performance Indicators are integrated and simultaneously achieved through:
• Significant improvements in environmental, health, workplace and process safety
performance resulting in reduced injuries, incidents and waste
• Greatly increased agility of manufacturing facilities allowing a substantial increase in the
range of products that can be produced in a single facility and a substantial reduction in
product change transition times
• Large and untapped enterprise operational and supply chain efficiencies with respect to
reductions in energy and materials usage and concomitant reductions in greenhouse gases
• A framework for demand and sustainability driven processes
Provisioning a test bed environment, which is extended especially to small and medium
enterprises, will accelerate the development and testing of new products and manufacturing
innovations. The application of virtual plant enterprise tools will produce at least a ten-fold
improvement in time to commercialization, vertical start-up planning and accelerated continuous
improvement. Core industries such as pharmaceuticals, food/beverage, and chemicals as well as
nationally strategic initiatives on bio and nano manufacturing can make step-change
improvements in EH&S, and embrace complete product traceability.
Standardized and sustainable business decision tools (e.g. risk management, energy management)
in a library of plug and play functions will support enterprise real-time, data-driven dashboards
for industry wide key performance indicators (KPIs) when developed in combination with a
shared data access program. By reducing the implementation costs of operational models by 80-
90% from current benchmarks and driving toward modeling 90% of plant assets in 75% of plant
operations, maintenance costs are expected to drop by 80% while increasing operating efficiency
by 10%, reducing safety incidents by 25% and producing an estimated 25% gain in energy
efficiency.
Shared supply chain models and end-to-end visibility will dramatically reduce inventories
(demand-driven production), higher product availability, faster production of customized
products, and instant tracking/traceability throughout the supply chain to address economic and
sustainability performance.
SMLC Smart Manufacturing Program Organization
Companies and the federal government would participate in a shared funding arrangement
through a consortium of industries, universities and government laboratories, which would be
governed by a board of directors. This board would have representatives for each industry
segment as well as technology providers that would act on behalf of the wide spectrum of coinvesting
companies. There would be sub-boards connected to each industry board member,
including one for universities and government laboratories. This board would be charged with
working out the relationships, involvement and coordination with other industry consortia.
Industry would participate via assignees to the organization.
The organization may also have its own program management staff funded by the consortium and
government agencies and it will be operated as a business. Program management would be
minimized in favor of collaboration subgroups that are commissioned around specific projects
and the facilitation of community source contribution.
A multi-year effort would develop a versatile community source clearinghouse of pre-competitive
modeling and simulation “core” capability that could be used by all industries (similar to the
development of LINUX), including small and medium manufacturing enterprises. Key
performance indicators such as energy use, sustainability/carbon footprint, and energy efficiency
would be incorporated into the software core. The consortium would be the stewards of the
roadmaps and also would determine which industrial test beds could be used for beta testing
elements of the roadmaps. The consortium could also coordinate training and education for a
wide range of industries involved. Policies for IP ownership and community access to the tools
developed would be developed during the startup period. At some point (e.g., after five - ten
years of operation), the consortium would transition to a self-sustaining funding model.
Smart Manufacturing and Workshop Details
http://smart-‐process-‐manufacturing.ucla.edu/
