The Essentials of Siemens Opcenter Execution Process 3.0

We are thrilled to bring you this rich new version of our MES for process industries: Siemens Opcenter Execution Process 3.0.

This version focuses on integration, connectivity, and orchestration as well as visibility and traceability of operations and materials.

This is possible thanks to 6 major new features

•  Equipment- and task-driven automation connectivity
•  Advanced planning and scheduling integration
•  Electronic signatures in tasks
•  Enhanced work-in-progress visibility
• Full-fledged operator cockpit
•  Restyled user experience (UX)

Siemens Opcenter Execution is the first release of solutions within the Siemens Opcenter MOM portfolio. These MES solutions are available off the shelf with industry-specific capabilities to support the unique manufacturing requirements of Siemens customers. Siemens Opcenter Execution Process covers the specific needs of the process industries.

Fully in line with the overall Siemens Opcenter strategy for smarter manufacturing, new features in this release (version 3.0 ) include the use on smart devices, mobility, and integration capabilities to optimize data flows and availability. The unified look & feel is also coordinated with the rest of the broad Siemens Digital Industries Software portfolio (see Teamcenter, Simcenter). The new user interface has a modern, clean, flat design and is adaptive, responsive, and harmonized. It creates a comfortable user experience that enables easy understanding, supports mobility, and facilitates the adoption, integration, and combination of additional components, supporting growth toward smarter manufacturing.

Connectivity and integration are important objectives of the features in this new version, with automation, with scheduling through Preactor, and quality.

With version 3.0 it is possible to interact with automation out of the workflow, with automation tasks being part of the actual workflow. This interaction with automation is fully configurable in runtime, and fully codeless. Dynamic runtime execution is possible through equipment-driven automation connectivity based on different automation tasks (read, write, await) which allows modeling proper handshaking mechanisms with automation.

Siemens Opcenter solutions benefit from the availability of Siemens Opcenter Connect, the native interoperability hub based on a manufacturing service bus that facilitates connectivity and integration between products and solutions.

Thanks to Siemens Opcenter Connect the latest release of Siemens Opcenter Execution Process provides strongly enhanced scheduling capabilities through the tight integration with Preactor Advanced Planning and Scheduling. With version 3.0 it is possible to schedule at work order level as well as at operations level as the scheduling rules from Preactor are available within Siemens Opcenter Execution. Integrating these with the equipment model and the work order information allows for a full production schedule proposal including equipment proposal, estimated duration, and start/end times for all orders and their operations.

Visibility and traceability are other strengths of version 3.0

Siemens Opcenter Execution Process comes with an Operator Cockpit which provides a new modern User Interface Framework for operators on the shop floor, that equips them with an intuitive and clutter-free tile-based manufacturing execution context showing work order process values in an aggregated way – fully compliant with touch-enabled mobile devices. The operator can easily follow up on the running manufacturing processes via a graphical step-based process indicator, and trigger the required activity through contextualized action buttons.

Siemens Opcenter Execution Process also takes electronic work instructions a step further. A quality supervisor can assign an existing electronic signature (ES) scenario to any step in a work instruction definition. The signature collection starts in the task when all required data is entered and confirmed and/or the process step is acknowledged by the user. Approval and rejection of signatures are recorded.

Scalable, modular, and extensible solution

In order to improve system flexibility and extensibility a strong focus lies on interoperability and the capability to integrate components within the Siemens Opcenter portfolio, as well as with other layers of the enterprise. The interoperability supports the vision of Closed Loop Manufacturing, with the integration of product planning with Teamcenter, production execution with Siemens Opcenter Execution, and Business Execution with ERP.