"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.