The importance of IT strategy
There are many advances in the world of information technology (IT) that drive the concept of rapid deployment, and this concept definitely has advantages. However, systems must also be strategically placed to gain the greatest advantage for the present and future. What does this strategy provide? It allows us to fully integrate technology into our business thinking.
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE. How does an IT professional plan for the future in any industry? Know your business! If we are making paper, then we must understand the process industry in particular and how information must flow in a process environment. When we get to the finished product, we must convert our thinking to manufacturing and inventory control with regard to the commodities we produce (i.e., what information must be associated with this paper roll to meet customer requirements and needs?).
Willamette has succeeded in tying order, product quality, and process information to the finished product so that customer requirements and issues with the finished product are met and resolved in a timely manner. No one can predict the future, but I believe that the ability to deliver timely, accurate, and detailed information throughout the supply chain will separate the winners from the losers in this new global information age.
RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE JOB. Willamette has found that two things are required from a good software vendor: a solid focused product utilizing current technologies, and the ability and willingness to integrate and interface with other software packages in the customer’s manufacturing process. Willamette currently utilizes software and system solutions from ABB for distributed process control and product tracking; QISoft for lab data entry and analysis; OSI for process control analysis and historical archiving; and Microsoft for technology standard information management tools. Willamette combines these tools with internally developed software for order services and invoicing to create a whole system solution for meeting manufacturing and customer requirements.
INTEGRATION. All manufacturing operations strive for integration of information. Some just do not know how to get there. Willamette knew long ago that to meet customer requirements, quality data must be tied to the finished product in an easily accessible form. The solution was to store quality information against the finished product so that customer issues could be easily met and resolved by providing the information online to our customer service staff and mill operations personnel.
Currently, lab data is combined with scanner and process data at our mills and stored at the roll and/or bale level. Product can be automatically evaluated and, if need be, dealt with at production time because of this real-time flow of information. Because the quality evaluation of the product is performed early on in the manufacturing process, customer orders are more rapidly fulfilled with fewer resulting complaints and less product handling. This is the true benefit of integration in IT systems at the manufacturing level.
EASY ACCESS. So we’ve got all this data. How do we get it out of these systems? We accomplish this with interfaces to other software and systems, reporting tools, and Internet technologies. In the previous section on integration, I emphasized how software and systems must communicate to provide an efficient manufacturing environment. Willamette is tackling this by means of industry-standard data access tools like open database connectivity (ODBC) and OLE for Process Control (OPC). These tools put the data into a neutral area between systems so that it can be combined, filtered, or simply passed on without significant knowledge of the inner workings of the particular application providing data.
In pursuit of the growing potential of Internet technologies in manufacturing, Willamette recently began selling power to the open market from certain internal power co-generation operations. A web application was developed to provide real time power output statistics via the Internet. A power-brokering firm currently accesses this information in real time via the Internet to provide the maximum profit potential for this important commodity.
Willamette is also currently using tools such as Crystal reports, Seagate Infoserver, and Microsoft Office standards such as Access and Excel to extract information from application databases in the form of reports or for further analysis. The best tool for the particular job is selected at the operator’s discretion.
The finished product of this strategic IT planning is a tightly integrated information system that delivers the requirements of today and provides avenues for growth in the future.
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