(107b) Toward A Zero-Incident, Smart Manufacturing Agenda

Manufacturing, including the chemical and biological process industries, in the U.S. and globally is under intense pressure for a broadened, but more specialized biological, chemical and material product spectrum and just-in- time product delivery. The overall industry is involved with the conversion of materials to valued products and, collectively, represents a very large economic footprint and a critical link in global value chains. Simultaneously, the industry is responding to substantially intensified expectations for economic responses to globalization, more efficient energy and material usage, significantly reduced environmental impacts, zero tolerance operational incidents, and an aging workforce. The nature of the industry is such that it is a contributor to, and participant, in both the problems and solutions to a number of industry, national, and global issues.

Industry global market share and business performance is heavily based on the value that can be generated from its assets, assets that range from process sites, people and materials, to intellectual property in the form of product knowledge, process expertise and physical properties of materials. Not coincidently, nearly all the economic value in terms of operating profit contribution or value generation comes from operations. While economic prosperity is a key driver for operations there is an equally strong and simultaneous focus on sustainable EH&S (Environmental, Health, and Safety) performance and corporate social responsibility. Because no asset works in isolation, optimal use of a given asset is determined in aggregation, not in isolation. The ?Smart Plant¹ is therefore composed of ?smart¹ assets that not only provide their basic process function but also provide feedback and predictive information on the current and expected performance of that asset and its aggregated assets.

A key challenge in imparting "intelligence" to assets is shifting how data and information are concentrated, interpreted and shared so that operations can be run based on business variables and proactive asset information and not just process variables. Wholly new CI techniques along with more robust, higher fidelity process models must be developed and deployed.

These views are the result of an NSF Workshop held on September 25 - 26, 2006. This paper will report on the "zero tolerance, smart manufacturing" views from the workshop and follow-up progress on shaping an industry-academic agenda, understanding the roles for cyber infrastructure and building the technical community to address the initiative on a cross company scale.