Integrated Manufacturing Productivity for Automotive: Cisco, IBM, and Rockwell Automation

Optimize Manufacturing Productivity from the Plant, to the Enterprise, and throughout the Global Supply Chain.

Today’s automotive marketplace is characterized by shorter product lifecycles which are driven by rapidly changing consumer preferences. Consequently, your manufacturing operations need to become more demand-driven, allowing you to base production and planning decisions on real-time information. To remain competitive, your environment must help you continue to improve factory throughput, reduce costs and waste, and drive greater efficiencies across increasingly global supply chains. Lastly, it must facilitate compliance with new regulations requiring detailed lifecycle component traceability and reports.

To accomplish these objectives, your environment must facilitate the collection and secure sharing of real-time data from customers, production operations, corporate functions, and your global supply chain. Converting all this data into useful information can be difficult, because legacy manufacturing and enterprise systems have typically been constructed over time and by different organizations. In addition, you will also need to create an environment that will promote collaboration to solve problems efficiently and maintain high productivity.

The Cisco, IBM, and Rockwell Automation Solution: Integrated Manufacturing Productivity for Automotive

Three industry leaders, Cisco, IBM, and Rockwell Automation, have teamed to develop and implement an integrated manufacturing productivity solution, delivering secure access to real-time information — from plant, to enterprise, and throughout the supply chain. The solution utilizes standard technologies and is designed to deliver superior business performance for automotive manufacturers.

The strength of this approach is founded on our strategic alignment around industry standards, long-term collaboration, and industry leadership. The approach leverages Rockwell Automation’s plant-wide control and manufacturing execution solutions; IBM’s business process consulting, systems integration, platforms and middleware; and Cisco’s secure networking infrastructure, advanced wireless technologies, and unified communications solutions. Proven integration and use of best implementation practices also facilitates replication of the solution, from plant to plant, so all facilities and all suppliers that participate in the manufacturer’s environment can communicate effectively. The cumulative benefit is to improve every aspect of the production cycle time so manufacturers can deliver the right, high-quality vehicle, to the right location, at a lower cost and faster than ever before.

Benefits:

• Production and performance management enables your access to real-time production information, facilitating collaboration between the factory floor and suppliers for faster problem resolution, improved quality, and higher factory throughput
• Increased visibility into inventory information throughout the supply chain facilitates your forecasting and planning processes, minimizing inventory costs and shortages
• Integrated approach to security includes network, applications, wireless and wireline devices, and data to protect mission-critical operations
• Comprehensive project management delivers an end-to-end solution. Repeatable, proven best practices streamline global implementation and lower risk

Solution Materials:

• Solution Brief (PDF - 1MB)

For More Information:

• Cisco Manufacturing Solutions
• IBM Automotive Solutions
• Rockwell Automation

Contact your local IBM, Cisco, or Rockwell Automation representative to learn how you can implement an integrated manufacturing productivity solution for automotive.