Future of B2MML integration with MES by SAP?

[mikecloonan]

I am interested in learning if SAP is planning to fully support B2MML (Business to Manufacturing Markup Language) as maintained by WBF (Organization for Production Technology) - now on version v0401? As a SAP (ECC 6.0) user with a large U.S. pharmaceutical company, I'm interested in knowing the progress by SAP of providing a direct interface (particularly for PI_PCS) to MES end systems utilizing the WBF standards for B2MML. Likewise, as my orgnanization is a large user of multiple manufacturing execution systems (MES), I'm curious to learn how SAP's plans for adopting B2MML match up with any MES end system (i.e. Rockwell-Propack). My organization now relies upon SAP's NetWeaver XI to pass data between SAP and our MES systems. While this tool has replaced Mercator for us, we are interested in fully employing B2MML between our SAP and MES systems. Unfortunately, until SAP fully embraces B2MML we are not in a position to ask our MES providers to do the same.

Does anyone know if SAP has shown an interest (or better yet timeline) for making available a B2MML interface? If not, has SAP provided any reason why?

P.S. I'll email the same to SAP and update this thread should I receive any news from them. THANKS!

P.P.S. Yes, first time poster. Hope I haven't abused the forum. I do appreciate the other postings.

[mikecloonan]

Folks,

Thanks to all for your responses. From other responses that have been shared with me from subscribers with ISA-online.org it appears the consensus is for users to contribute to the ISA their best practices so that the ISA can continue to develop recommended guidelines which in time may become the foundation for standards should a sufficient number of systems & software producers perceive a benefit for their product.

Rick Bullotta, thanks for your quick and thorough response. Apparently, you are well positioned as CTO of Wonderware (and previously as CTO of Lighthammer) along with your involvement with the ISA95, Enterprise-Control System Integration standards committee to provide guidance to others. I did not realize my initial question to the forum would generate so much interest. I had hoped, however, that an SAP technical team member might respond with SAP's position on the topic. I will pursue the SAP position directly through my employer's SAP account manager and post any response back here.

Mike Cloonan

[Former Member]

I agree whole heartily with Rick. This problem is not just a B2MML issue, it's MES <-> ERP in general. Think of it in this way. For the most part base level shop floor systems are mostly the same, on the lowest level your reading/writing I/O, gathering historial data etc. From the ERP side, most manufacturing companies are basically the same they have, purchasing, production planning, HR, quality etc... Now comes the hard part that "middle layer" of MES. Where nearly everyone does it different. This is why there are so many players in the MES market, but no one that I consider a dominate force. Continuous process? Discrete? Batching? some hybrid mix under one roof? How do you track your OEE? What do you consider downtime? Each application is different, in fact even within similar industry, or even within the same company, they can be vastly different.

In the end, it's almost pointless to develop certified standards, because nearly every MES system is custom. Sure many are based on off the shelf products, but I can't think of a single one that hasn't had at least 20% (and that might be conservative) custom code involved. And I've been involved in several implementations. Rick's idea of industry driven, open source driven solutions to specific cases is the best solution.

[Former Member]

Yes, ISA Expo 09 would also be a good place to discuss the same question in more open and generic terms. Expert Seminar on Getting Real" with ISA-95 and B2MML: Implementation Case Studies

Mike, Would you please share how have you been using B2MML schemas of MII in current MES engagements with SAP?

[mikecloonan]

Ram, thanks for contributing. I am not presently using B2MML between SAP and MES. Instead, my employer is utilizing the standard SAP (ECC 6.0) IDOC message types (LOIPRO01 for process order transfer) via IDOCs routed through IBM MQ Series to the end system. Inbound data (i.e. activities, consumption, phase start & finish, etc.) is processed via ALE utilizing custom function module. Each of these have been individually data mapped by the MES to support the exchange of data between SAP.

Mike

[Former Member]

...and what is the MES system?

[Former Member]

Mike, Little more I want to understand the need of question!

"SAP's NetWeaver XI to pass data between SAP and MES systems via IDOCs routed through IBM MQ Series to the end system.

Inbound data is processed via ALE utilizing custom function modules"

Is this Architecture not fully supporting your business case or there are performance issues?

Have you considered SAP MII capabilities (B2MML support,can connect to any OPC supported floor application and support the exchange of process data between floor & SAP)?

Thanks

Ram Upadhyay

[mikecloonan]

Hi Ram,

I apologize for the absence of detail. My employer is utilizing ECC 6.0 with SAP's NetWeaver XI to interface material master, BOM, and process orders to various level 3 systems (including FlowStream, Propack PMX, and Regulus). We have utilized the master data transfer functionality (SAP t-code POIM) and transaction data transfer functionality (SAP t-code POIT) for downloading data to the desired end systems. In addition to the data download, we've been able to fairly standardize our data upload as well by having the L3 systems send the same file schema. The difficulty comes with each new L3 system and the need for the system support staffs to have to structure the L3 schemas to match the one we've developed to interface to SAP. It would be idea if each of the L3 systems (particularly those that claim compatibility with SAP) did not require the time intensive schema setup to match that provided by SAP.

Cheers,

Mike

[Former Member]

Mike, I can't speak for SAP's plan, but as an ex-SAPer, someone who has implemented B2MML interfaces, and an on-and-off member of the S-95 committee over the years, I have a few "opinions".

First, I think the reality of a "plug-and-play" integration between MES and ERP has been WAY WAY overhyped by many people, including vendors, analysts, and press (and even some customers). The reality is that virtually every B2MML implementation requires substantial modification and customization, due to the highly variable nature of manufacturing processes and the people, systems and equipment that execute them. B2MML more often than not requires site-specific, line-specific, process-specific, and machine-specific customizations, often involving "extensions" to the core B2MML schemas to meet the needs of one or more the participating software systems or to meet some data management requirement for the specific production process/product.

Additionally, the belief that SAP is a relatively fixed system and has a "black box" interface to manufacturing is untrue. SAP actually has a very broad range of manufacturing (and supply chain planning) functionality to support a wide variety of manufacturing modalities (batch, continuous, repetitive, discrete, hybrid, MTO, ATO, and so on). Each has different interfaces and BAPIs/ES services that need to be interfaced to, and in many cases, those interfaces require substantial extension to the base B2MML schemas (e.g. dealing with a material reservation, which is quite common in your world in pharma). Additionally, many of those interfaces to SAP have subtle differences or enhancements from version to version of SAP R/3 and SAP ERP. It's not a simple integration problem.

Instead of SAP building and certifying (or anyone certifying) interfaces that are uncertifiable (since they will often be customized/modified for real world usage), it would be very valuable to customers, vendors, and integrators if instead, there was an "open source" community effort to share best practices and implementation templates for various B2MML scenarios. These could include specific technical integration scenarios between system X and system Y (for example, Propack to SAP, or Camstar to Oracle Manufacturing), or generic production scenarios (e.g. a continuous refining process with B2MML, or consumer productc packaging lines, or PLM synchronization in a high tech assembly process with frequent engineering changes and rework steps). These best practices could provide 20-80% of the solution for subsequent implementations, and it would be expected that anyone using these templates agreed to share any work they did to extend/apply it. Sorta like the GPL license in the open source world.

In many cases, a lot of the grunt technical integration work is a "tax" on customers and vendors, and prevents freeing up resources to work on real innovation in the business process. My proposal is to have customers press the ISA and WBF to focus on this "open source/best practice" model instead of wasting money, brainpower, and bandwidth on meaningless or low value certification processes.

Just my view, for what it's worth.

YMMV.