An IT Infrastructure for Automotive Manufacturing? 26
papa248 asks: "I have moved into a Launch Project Manager position within my company. The business is with automotive component manufacturing in a Just-In-Time scale, located in the heart of the Motor City. My job will be to facilitate the setup of IT systems in a new assembly plant. This would be office systems, customer broadcast (parts are sequenced so they arrive at the OEM to match a particular vehicle's VIN), shop floor systems for robotic control, PLCs for error-proofing, lot traceability, the whole nine yards. The company (large, Fortune 500) has some very specific specifications for office systems (HP hardware, Windows, Office, etc) but leaves lots of opportunity for the actual production systems. I've been burned in the past because my predecessors have used 'turnkey' solutions from some lesser known, local vendors that write such custom, specific code on ridiculous, non standard PCs and hardware. I'm in a jam right now, because I've got tons of NT4 systems with a semi-custom OS and VB 6 code on it that are literally falling apart. What are your suggestions for setting up manufacturing control systems that leave the flexibility to be upgradeable and redesignable without being locked in to one particular vendor or solution?"
Consider (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Consider (Score:1)
And if you get into a tight spot performance wise (you probably won't), many of those languages have accelerators for CPU heavy stuff.
Then you won't be locked into a one-vendor solution like you would be with Java. Yes, I'm aware of gcj stuff, but that's not a serious option right now.
Re:Consider (Score:2)
But for the original poster java would be an okish choice, yes it's a crappy langugage but it's a common crappy language.
Get PI (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Sigh (Score:1, Informative)
Think it out (Score:5, Informative)
One word: LabVIEW. (Score:2)
Make sure your control software can talk to everything you need on the plant floor.
Check out LabVIEW 8.0, just released three days ago [ni.com].
Re:One word: LabVIEW. (Score:2)
Expound. (Score:2)
LabView is great for instrumentation in a test lab, but on a factory floor it can kill someone.
Okay, serious question [or questions]:
Again, not a troll - I'm seriously curious as to what you might have to say.
Not just one, talk to several (Score:1)
Call your local Rockwell dealer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Call your local Rockwell dealer (Score:4, Insightful)
PLCs are often used with machinery that can kill workers if it malfunctions.
While the submitter has every right to want the systems to be 'standard' PCs, The controller cards for talking to the PLCs are probably the only unique thing in the box. The controllers are expensive for a reason.
Call your local Rockwell dealer-Levelling off. (Score:1, Interesting)
That depends. Most of the "it can kill" level stuff happens at the PLC, which is mounted either near the controlled equipment, or centralized in the equipment room. The higher level stuff the majority of the time is for monitoring.* And that's were the standard PC's come in.
*When it came to progr
Re:Call your local Rockwell dealer-Levelling off. (Score:2)
Re:Call your local Rockwell dealer (Score:2, Insightful)
Why ask SlashDot? (Score:3, Informative)
1) You take advice from
2) You take advice from
3) You take advice from
More realistically, this is *exactly* what consultants are for. If you specify at the start that flexibility to be upgraded and non-vendor-specific are key requirements, then you'll get advice based on that specification. And a consultant doesn't have to do the work - outsourcing is not compulsory. If you think you can do the work once you've been pointed in the right direction (or hire a team who can do the work), then all you need the consultant for is to provide advice on which systems and architectures to choose.
Grab.
Hope your managers and coworkers don't read slash (Score:2)
In this Ask Slashdot posting, you made many mistakes:
1. You bloated your post with managerial and marketing buzzspeak. I had a damned annoying time wading through it.
2. You identified your lack of pre-existing knowledge to anyone who works with you, as well as your inability to mask it by not knowing who really to ask for help.
3. Only people who work for your com
AS/400 (Score:1)
Biological robotic - choose python not labview (Score:2)
Tool selected was python
Boost Python (http://www.boost.org/libs/python/doc/ [boost.org]) is a library for wrapping C++ libraries that already exist to make them accessible from Python. Includes the boost python library. A favorite for wrapping c++ code.
Swig (http://www.swig.org/ [swig.org]) is another library for connecting C and C++
code
Wow... (Score:2)
If not I hope you have a big staff and or good vendors. Not being locked into a vendor means that you have to have your development staff in house.
Frankly you have not given me enough information to give you much help.
used to do this.... (Score:1)
anyway, we used to use java, xml and more java for doing pretty much everything with all the logic done using a custom written drag and drop java editor. if you want more info email me. im located pretty close to motor city btw. its NOT easy and if you find youre over your head -- thats kinda expected. it takes a lot getting used to -- i suggest calling a specialist in from