Weekly Marketplace: Software and Platforms

Take a look at the new and innovative products hitting the manufacturing industry this past week.

New Platform to Drive Open Industrial IoT Development

Microsoft and the BMW Group launched the Open Manufacturing Platform (OPM), an initiative to drive open industrial IoT development, help grow a community to build future solutions and enable faster, more cost-effective innovation in the manufacturing industry. 

Built on the Microsoft Azure Industrial IoT Cloud platform, the OMP is designed to:

  • Provide community members with a reference architecture with open source components based on open industrial standards and an open data model.
  • Foster collaboration with community members and partners who will have the capability to develop their own solutions and services while maintaining control of their data.
  • Address common industrial challenges such as machine connectivity and on-premises systems integration.

New Unified Portfolio of Manufacturing Operations Management Solutions

Siemens Digital Industries Software announced the immediate availability of Siemens Opcenter software, a cohesive portfolio of software solutions for manufacturing operations management (MOM). Siemens Opcenter expands on the heritage of Siemens’ recognized MOM software by uniting these products in a single, connected cloud-ready portfolio with a harmonized user experience that can help manufacturers meet demands for production efficiency, quality, visibility, and reduced time to production.

Industrial IoT Solution Suite

Plex Systems releaseed Plex Industrial IoT, a suite of solutions designed to solve business challenges generating from the shop floor. Plex Industrial IoT connects machines to the cloud, manages the resulting data streams, and contextualizes the information in real time. The first available offering will focus on asset performance management (APM), helping companies avoid manufacturing disruption caused by common problems like unplanned downtime, diminished machine performance, and substandard quality output. Plex Industrial IoT delivers continuous improvement through access to historical IIoT data, improved productivity with real-time asset dashboards, and minimized operational disruptions by predicting and preempting unplanned downtime.

New Solution for Smarter Supply Chain Planning

SAP announced the availability of the SAP Integrated Business Planning application for demand-driven replenishment. Co-developed with Camelot ITLab and certified by the Demand Driven Institute, the application helps organizations better manage supply chain variability, compress lead times, and reduce inventories. Users of SAP Integrated Business Planning for demand-driven replenishment will be able to make more-informed supply chain decisions and deliver a better customer experience.

DDMRP enables relevant material and information flow, a concept based on core principles that allow customers to:

  • Dampen the effect of demand and supply variation on the supply chain by calculating inventory buffers and assigning and managing those buffers at strategic decoupling points
  • Drive replenishment at strategic decoupling points from actual demand
  • Achieve visibility and demand-driven prioritization of supply based on buffer status at decoupling points
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