Although every manufacturing company has its own set of manufacturing challenges, there are several that are common across industries, and reflect the heightened stakes of market competition today. These include the need to lower risk, be more responsive to customers and market demands, and increase quality and profitability. And these modern demands are increasingly requiring modern solutions - namely the latest manufacturing software technology.
That’s why leading manufacturers today are implementing individual Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) applications as well as full suites of MOM software to shore up operations. These MOM applications are crucial in providing full end-to-end coordination and visibility of their business and manufacturing processes, as well as real-time access to data to understand the interrelationships of products, components, shop-floor assets and business variables housed in enterprise software. These capabilities are maximizing operational efficiency and driving significant business value for manufacturers investing in them.
The market for MOM has evolved over the past decade, and is a space that benefits from clarification and education. After briefings with the top vendors in the space, we've published our MOM Solution Selection Guide. With a detailed write up of each of the 20 vendors, the guide provides decision-makers everything needed to whittle down to a short list of potential solutions based on their individual company needs.
Each week, we’ve been highlighting a different vendor from the guide. This week we’re looking at Invensys, a global technology and engineering company based in London, UK, that was just acquired by French electric and automation giant, Schneider Electric.
Like many other conglomerates, the Invensys MOM software portfolio has grown over the past few decades through a series of acquisitions, developments, and the use of integration and collaboration platform technology. Invensys’ primary MOM offerings are under the Avantis, SimSci, and Wonderware brand portfolios.
Avantis offers enterprise asset management, asset performance, and mobile workforce management applications. SimSci includes plant process design, simulation, operator training, advanced control, and business/process optimization. Wonderware is known for HMI/SCADA software, as well as a comprehensive suite of information management solutions, including MES and EMI software. The company serves a broad range of industries but is strongest in solutions for process and hybrid manufacturing operations.
The Wonderware brand increased its mobile capabilities with the June 2013 acquisition of SmartGlance mobile information management software. This acquisition delivers access to information, analytics, and KPIs across manufacturing enterprises via mobile devices. Over the past decade, Invensys has made significant investments in solving the integration and application development and management challenges of its customers through integration across its MOM software and automation portfolio using the ArchestrA software platform. The Acqusition of Skelta software a few years back added workflow and business process management capabilities to this platform.
The company was recently acquired by Schneider Electric, the French multi-national electricity distribution and automation management company, as announced in Q4 of last year. LNS Research believes this was a move that will add continued technology investment, scale, and new portfolio synergies. As an early implementer of open MOM integration and collaboration platform technology, we hope to see the current Invensys applications evolve along with the platform, while simultaneously creating a bi-directional bridge with the Schneider Electric StruxtureWare software offerings after the Schneider acquisition is completed in early 2014.
Access LNS Research’s MOM Solution Selection Guide below for a more detailed look at Invensys’ MOM software offerings. The guide provides an overview of the MOM vendor landscape based on criteria such as functionalities, organization sizes served, industry strengths, geographic footprint, time to solution value, and others. The Guide also breaks down Invensys’ core attributes by current, emerging strengths, and full coverage areas.
The solution selection guide and its full comparative analysis of 20 of the top MOM software vendors are accessible here.
LNS Research details Lighthouse Systems' Shopfloor-Online product and its Manufacturing Operations Management capabilities.
LNS Research details Honeywell Process Solutions' manufacturing operations management software capabilities and strategy.
LNS Research reflects on recent events, such as the Rockwell Automation-Microsoft mobility solution collaboration, the EQT and IFS acquisition, a PTC...