In an increasingly digitized society, it is important that all industrial sectors, including the pulp and paper industry, follow the current digital trends relate to Industry 4.0. Here, it is about shaping its structures to support a modern and efficient way of working for both individuals and functions in the integrated systems that an organization manages. Tomas Sandin, Marketing Manager at Eurocon MOPSsys, claims that his business, for three years, has built up a new platform to support Industry 4.0 and meet these current IT trends.
Industry 4.0, with trends such as IoT, Cloud computing, Big Data and Mobility, has rapidly increased the requirements for systems where mobile devices and smart devices can easily connect and consume information "just in time" for the current situation like the individual or the machine is in. With this trend, the systems also need to be more intelligent and able to predict or suggest which surrounding / related information may be helpful for decision support.
"Through increasing digital skills in today's industrial environment and with generational change among our customers, the demands have increased on being able to access information efficiently. Greater requirements are set for applications to be available in browser based environment for presentation on both computers and mobile devices. Information must be able to be exchanged in protocols that operate over the internet with high security. These requirements have resulted in MOPS 'new platform - MOPS 4.0 - is also the 4th generation of Process Information System MOPS, says Tomas Sandin. The MOPS 4.0 platform is a new standard platform which enables efficient integration and storage of data, both process data and device data such as quality, customer, borders, etc. regardless of space for server power and storage space.
Independent data storage
Basically, the MOPS system is an independent data warehouse that has been in the market for over 30 years. Through the system, customers can follow the production process as closely as possible without having to be logged in directly in production management systems. All employees can receive detailed decision-making for their area of responsibility on-line 24 hours a day. The data warehouse also supplies MES, production planning systems, and company reporting routines continuously with information. The data warehouse is also used continuously by engineers and economists for analysis and follow-up for continuous improvements.
MOPSsys explains that the customer must be able to trust that the collected data is verified and correct in a warehouse store. It is a foundation for future decision support, analysis and calculations. Processing data later in different stages, such as manual export / import, Excel processing and consolidation in other report engines, increases the risk of errors that appear later in reporting, which makes trouble finding, giving uncertainty where to find relevant information and giving the organization incorrect decision making in the end.
Integrate data from different systems
Hans Hallin, CEO Eurocon MOPSsys, points out the importance of developing industry-specific applications that can integrate data from different systems. "Many of our customers work intensively with digitalization work. The initiatives relate to everything from streamlining data collection via links, to creating enterprise-specific cloud solutions. We see great demand for data integration between different systems where data can be combined in smart applications efficiently and made available to all employees when they need information. A major focus will be on creating industry-specific applications in the consumer spending platform and analysis of process data, e.g. In the dashboard, you can see trends, key ratios in combination with operator comments and actions, etc.
Collaboration with Holmen
Eurocon MOPSsys, in cooperation with Holmen, has begun and delivered several pilot projects as part of the digitization work and development of the strategic IT platform, which involves using MOPS for proprietary applications as well as general reporting features. "We have extensive experience of using MOPS in our production units and see the benefits of basing our information dissemination through an independent process information system. This makes us competitive in the long run, "says Carl-Fredrik Hammarqvist at Holmen IT. Examples of applications are report reporting on reports where the MOPS system presents key figures and trends that all employees can follow and keep an eye on. Another project is to replace an old and proprietary system, as maintenance and further development were, in principle, impossible. The system gives an overview of wood raw materials in the woodyard and deliveries to the factory. The system has been converted to the MOPS 4.0 platform and stored data in MOPS for presentation internally to production management and externally to suppliers. In the long term, there are opportunities for predicting raw material supply chain to production plans on-line through the process.
Industrial communication solution
Another cooperation that Eurocon MOPSsys recently initiated is SSG, a company that works to develop standardized services for and for Swedish industry. In spring 2017, Eurocon MOPSsys, together with SSG, has created an industrial communications solution for collecting process data into SSG's independent information platform Connect. SSG's stakeholders can connect to the platform and use data for different services that have been contracted with the customer / utility. Tomas Sandin again: - It is important to point out that data is owned by the customer and by agreement, data is made available to a service provider, such as the SSG LEVEL service where the chemical supplier wants to see tank levels to plan and deliver deliveries. This communication solution can also be customized and used for companies' own specific cloud solutions (Private Cloud), concludes Tomas Sandin.