"Integration is the key to quality," began Bob Nelson, plant IT manager at papermaker Appvion, in his Minds + Machines 2015 presentation in San Francisco. "We make better paper because of it."

Data is connected in real-time from the company's J.D. Edwards ERP system, through its GE Proficy quality management software, its OSIsoft PI process historian and plant-floor automation and inspection systems. "None of the information is keyed in," Nelson noted. "It's all automatic and it's all integrated."

But Appvion's quality management system wasn't always so seamless.

To learn more about information integration, read “Integration boosts quality and productivity, too” from Control.