In the last few decades, the world has witnessed a steep rise in consumer demand for both basic commodities as well as those associated with affluent lifestyles. Alongside the growth in demand, the quality of goods has also become a key parameter for the success of a product in a market or a specific industry. With this trend, the role of manufacturing technologies has also grown immensely in terms of defining a product’s success and the manufacturer’s competence in the market. This is because manufacturing technologies, along with management tools and shop-floor strategies, determine a facility’s overall productivity and the quality of the final product.

However, manufacturing involves a highly diverse set of operations which employ a multitude of tools, technologies and processes depending upon the industrial application. With industrial evolution, the span of manufacturing has grown to include industries like machine tools and equipment, automobiles, electronics, aeronautics, and shipping. Due to the diversity in industrial operations and product catalogues, manufacturing processes and tools also vary considerably. This demands specialisation and expertise to achieve the desired results. In India, diverse industries have evolved over the last decade, especially in the WTO era. According to a report by the IMRB, India’s manufacturing base, the fourth-largest among emerging economies, has seen more investments as a proportion of gross domestic product than any country except China. The availability of low-cost, highly-skilled resources has also encouraged international firms to invest in India.The growth figures for the industry are further elaborated by a United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) analysis which reveals that India is among the top 12 producers of manufacturing value-added (MVA) goods.

Technologically Challenged
Despite the growth of the Indian manufacturing industry, technological obsolescence is a lingering problem for Indian industry, especially when compared to its counterparts in the developed countries. These shortcomings are seen at the three levels of technological capability: basic, intermediate and advanced. The basic level involves the capability to operate and maintain a new production plant based on imported technology. The intermediate level outlines the ability to duplicate and adapt the design of an imported plant and technology in another location. The advanced level defines the ability to develop new designs,production systems and components. In this context, a report by the UNIDO reveals that only a small number of firms in India have global competence in terms of product design and process technology, while the technological competence of most players is extremely limited due to technological obsolescence, poor quality, limited product range, and high costs. Though Indian manufacturers have some proficiency with standard techniques, they lag behind their global counterparts in terms of adopting the latest manufacturing technologies with integrated machining components and realtime functionality.

“In India, manufacturers by and large are still following conventional manufacturing standard techniques, while in developed countries like the US, integrated machining technologies with real-time functionality have already been adopted. This has greatly affected the performance of Indian manufacturers amidst the global competition created by other low-cost manufacturing hubs in countries like China,” says Manish Sanghvi, Proprietor, Epsilon Controls & Automation

Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is one such highly advanced manufacturing technology which needs to be explored and adopted by Indian players wishing to acquire global competence.

What is CIM?
It is a technology which, with the aid of powerful computers, integrates the designing, process planning, and manufacturing operations of a shop floor with an organisation’s sales and marketing activities. It also integrates other vital operations like production planning, scheduling and inventory control from the order placement stage until the final delivery stage. The purpose of CIM is to enhance productivity and quality and acquire process flexibility to deliver optimal services to the end customer.

In the contemporary manufacturing scenario, the implementation of CIM is seen as an organisational strategy for enterprise resource planning (ERP) to integrate business-wide operations and reap maximum benefits. CIM has been developed to meet the flexibility needs of the manufacturing industry that has to cope with and deliver according to dynamic market demands. According to SPS Chauhan, Director, Business Development, ASAP Automation, “As a result of its capability to integrate the organisational operations with endto- end manufacturing functions and its capacity to establish realtime information management, CIM can impart a high degree of operational flexibility vis-à-vis the volatility of market demands.”

Some of the tried and recognised benefits of the technology include optimal machine utilisation, minimal workin- process inventory, maximum productivity of working capital, minimum number of machine tools, minimised labour costs and lead times, quality consistency, optimal ergonomics, and minimal installation costs.

CIM: Changing the Game Rules
Establishing a CIM-enabled integrated manufacturing environment involves design and implementation of an embedded system architecture which drives the processes defined by CIM. The system architecture of CIM comprises three related architectu res—Production Management, Data Management and Communication.



Production Management
It includes the functions associated with customer orders, product design and fabrication, inspection, and the customer support aspect of products. It is classified into three major functions—manufacturing data preparation, shop-floor control and administrative management. The manufacturing data, which comprises all the product specifications, is prepared using software systems such as CAD, CAPP and CAM. In recent times, expert systems which can automatically generate the process plans have been developed. However, their implementation is limited as they need intensive initial efforts to identify the rules that will be used to generate codes for specific part families.“The CIM environment involves the generation of instructions through pre-programmed codes that are developed with the aid of CAD/CAM and fed into CAPP. This is where the complexity lies. As a result of the sheer diversity of the system, manual coding needs immense expertise and functional knowhow of the whole setup is required,” says Mallikarjun, Product Manager, Electronic Product Line, Bonfiglioli.

The shopfloor control functions of production management comprise all the processes associated with manufacturing a particular product. The administrative management system of the architecture includes data on marketing, sales/order processing, production planning, sales/despatch and purchase, accounts payable, requirement planning, capacity management, inventory, cost and payroll accounting, personnel information, accounts receivable and financial accounting.

Data Management
The CIM-associated architecture performs management of all the data associated with an organisation (including shopfloor data, customer data and general data). Data management in CIM has two main components—data modelling and data administration. Data modelling is the development of a conceptual model of all the information present in the CIM-enabled environment. Currently, this is done with the assistance of software which depicts both real-world objects and data, and also distinguishes between the same. The issue here is the complicated nature of the information used by CIM applications, which is very difficult to integrate, but is necessary for successful CIM implementation.

Another issue is associated with data administration, which controls access to all the enterprise data in terms of query processing, transaction management and data manipulation. This is done with the help of software that can provide both centralised access to shared ata and distributed access to the CIM data. A critical issue in this case is integration of database systems from different vendors that are implemented on different computer platforms. This is due to the heterogeneous distributed systems environment that is typical of a CIM environment. According to Mr Chauhan, “CIM architecture is highly diverse, involving a wide range of sub-systems such as CNC machines, computer hardware and oftware packages from third-party vendors. The organisation also eeds to deal with several external gents associated with its line of usiness. This results in immense diversification of organisational ata which is updated very fast, hus adding further to the complexity of data management perations in CIM.”

Communication Management
It is the architectural component of IM, which enables communication among computer programmes that perform production and data management operations. In communication management, three core concepts facilitate the CIM network. Firstly, CIM programmes, regardless of function or location, use a single common connection for mutual communication. Secondly, all physical networks in CIM are connected in a transparent manner, and lastly, the technology and topology of sub-networks are selected to provide optimal communication responsiveness.

Currently, communication management is being handled using two software system categories, namely closed systems and open systems.

A closed system relies only on products from a specific computer vendor, while open systems use Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) network architecture for communication. The OSI network architecture comprises applications such as Manufacturing Automation Protocols (MAP)—the concept of one physical bus connecting all factory-floor stations—and Technical Office Protocols (TOP) for connecting engineering workstations.

CIM Implementation
The development and implementation of a successful CIM architecture is a highly sophisticated process which requires both technical expertise and corporate wisdom. This is due to the vast expanse of manufacturing, organisational and third-party components (personnel, hardware and software) associated with CIM and, hence, the diversity of data and operations, which is technically difficult to integrate and synchronise.

A well-laid strategy is necessary for the successful implementation of CIM. This must focus on parameters like computer-assisted data integration and material flow, small batch sizes with on-line production control, and a local area network (LAN) for efficient information sharing. Some of the key issues integral to the successful implementation of CIM include the strategic, organisational, technological and operational aspects of the organisation.

Strategic Aspect
It outlines a company’s overall preparedness and efforts to implement CIM architecture. Ideally it is the responsibility of top management to select a suitable CIM architecture according to their judgement of the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters. The middle management, in turn, should focus on CIM development with reference to their specific departmental requirements. Lower management and workers along with the middle management should then take the responsibility for the final CIM implementation. Moreover, the design and implementation of CIM should be in accordance with factors such as capital, expertise, complexity of material flow and other organisational goals. “CIM is undoubtedly beneficial to the manufacturing industry, though the extent of benefit depends upon the type of CIM architecture that has been set up. This is because the technology is quite costly in the initial stages and its effectiveness depends upon its conformance to specific organisational needs. Hence, the implementation stage needs a sound judgement of one’s requirements and preinstalled capacity and technologies,” says Hemal Bhatt, Partner, TechX Process Automation.

Organisational Issues
Apart from a firm strategic outlook, CIM also needs cross-functional cooperation and full-fledged involvement of employees throughout the product development process. This, in turn, needs sustained interdepartmental communication and coordination between intrinsic factors like product characteristics, process specifications and skill sets and extrinsic factors such as market characteristics and the regulatory environment. A pre-established manufacturing cell within the organisation can help in coordinating the operations. This is because of its capability to simplify the manufacturing processes through flow lines or cells using group technology. In this regard, the growing volume of data is another organisational issue which results in complexity due to the difficulties in management. This issue in CIM implementation can be resolved or eliminated through devising infrastructure policies, practices and procedures that control business processes in a way that establishes a balance between software and infrastructure. Crossfunctional coordination within an organisation also depends upon the level of operational flexibility. For example, shopfloor flexibility is essential for making swift changes in the production schedule to adapt to the changes in sales demands, thus establishing cross-functional coordination. Thus, considering the diversity of computerised systems in a CIM setup and the difficulty of integration along with the investment involved, organisations should first assess their needs and then take the decision to implement CIM.

Technological Aspects
One of the most important decisions prior to CIM implementation is needed with regard to the optimal CIM configuration which involves aspects such as identification of tasks to be computerised, and selection of compatible software packages. To impart flexibility attributes to CIM, policies, practices and procedures need to be pre-established. Post these phases, CIM integration and adaptability aspects are considered, for which certain other in-house technologies can provide considerable support. A few of these include FMS (flexible manufacturing services), cellular manufacturing systems, just-intime (JIT ), Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs), LAN and the Internet. While FMS provides flexibility to CIM, AGVs can improve the integration of material flow within the production system. Also, online computer information systems, such as electronic data interchange (EDI), can be used to improve integration of operational activities. Furthermore, integration of key functional areas such as information and material flow can be done with the help of low-cost components such as sensors and relay systems.

Operational Aspects
Operational aspects involve the reorganisation of production planning and control systems with the goal of simplifying the flow of material and information. In this regard, the use of technologies such as JIT, MRP and AGV facilitate the implementation of CIM by improving its integration and adaptability. Mr Mallikarjun says, “Successful implementation of CIM is greatly determined by its adaptability and the integration of subsystems. This is turn defines the overall flexibility of the architecture, for which it is necessary to establish real-time communication among the subsystems. This goal of CIM is largely fulfilled by supporting systems such as MRP and AGV which facilitate manufacturing processes efficiently.”

CE also needs to be used to integrate product design and process planning through CAD/CAE, which helps improve the design quality and optimises the life cycle cost of the end-product.

Recommended Practices
Though CIM has its set of competitive advantages, it needs to be implemented judiciously, considering the level of complexity and the kind of investment it entails. A few of the recommended measures that should be observed for CIM implementation are listed below.

􀂄 CIM should be implemented only after the basic infrastructure and technologies are established in the organisation. In this regard, simplification of information sharing and material flow can serve as a firm foundation for implementing CIM.
􀂄 Considering facts such as the lack of expertise with CIM and the strategic impact of CIM on longterm competitiveness, integration and adaptability issues should be analysed thoroughly. In this regard, factors like the hardware platform, integration specifications, and data processing capabilities should be considered prior to CIM implementation.
􀂄 It is important to provide technicians with comprehensive training on automation, computerbased technologies and the latest manufacturing technologies. This is necessary to ensure integration and adaptability through cooperative support work for successful implementation of CIM.
􀂄 To adapt swiftly to the frequently changing market needs, provisions should be made to impart flexibility in the existing manufacturing technology, which should be progressively incorporated during the design and setup phases of production planning and control systems for CIM implementation.

Barriers to CIM Adoption
Despite all the capital, efforts and time invested by organisations to automate their manufacturing facilities, CIM has yet to become a success-in-reality for most of the players. In the last few years, several investigations have been conducted to identify the barriers that have hindered successful adoption of CIM technology. A few of the major barriers to CIM adoption are:

Management Perception
A report by the University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, reveals that in developed countries like the US, a misconception with regard to automation technologies has emerged with the emergence of CIM. It has been found that top executives conceive of CIM as a technology rather than a concept involving the management of technology. This misconception needs to be clarified for successful adoption of CIM. Basically, a more philosophical change in the mindset is needed to understand the reality of CIM, and its actual need and functionality.

Lack of Planning
Successful implementation of CIM requires thorough planning of the technical elements along with comprehensive personnel training and full-fledged infrastructural support. Failing these prerequisites can result in the failure of management’s commitment to implement a successful CIM architecture. Along with these, the overall organisations structure also needs to be designed and modified, especially in terms of flexibility (design, processes and policies), to align it according to the needs of CIM architecture. Mr Sanghvi supports this, saying,“Definitely, it is not only the machines or the embedded systems that need to be upgraded and customised as per the CIM architecture. The human element and the policies also need to be realigned and structured to suit the working environment created by a CIM architecture.”

Integration Challenges
The biggest technical issue with CIM implementation is the integration of the vast variety and number of components associated with manufacturing, organisation, third-party vendors and software packages. Integration of all these components across the functional boundaries implies efficient sharing, flow and control of a highly-diverse and fast growing database on real-time basis. For example, in a successful CIM, the entire manufacturing process—from product design to the procurement, production scheduling, management, production and delivery phases— must be integrated in terms of real-time information sharing for successful planning.

CIM Benefits: CIMplified
If implemented according to the standard procedures and specific organisational needs, CIM can provide a range of benefits in terms of cost optimisation and operational performance. A few of these include:
􀂄 A truly interactive environment enables effective communication between manufacturing operations and other organisational units.
􀂄 Real-time data-sharing among the manufacturing facilities located in a single place or diverse locations.
􀂄 Swift system response according to the data updates for new products, which provides flexibility to the operations.
􀂄 Improved accuracy and quality of manufacturing processes and end products.
􀂄 Controlled data flow among various subsystems and maintenance of a user-library for system-wide data.
􀂄 Streamlined overall manufacturing operations—from order till delivery stage—thus, optimising the lead times and benefits.

The Role of CIM
Amid the competitive global business scenario, organisations are looking out for more advanced computer-based manufacturing technologies. The focus has slowly drifted from product-specific mass production methodologies to process-focussed strategies.

With ongoing developments in technologies such as CIM, it is now possible to develop a large number of new products quickly, while incorporating path-breaking capabilities like rapid customisation and process flexibility. Unlike conventional technologies which could not deliver functions simultaneously, modern technologies like CAD/CAM, FMS (Flexible Manufacturing Systems), robotics and information systems are expected to set up a highly flexible, integrated work environment. This in turn will speed up the manufacturer’s response to changes, and empower factories to produce a wide variety of highquality products at optimal costs with high productivity. Thus, with the assistance of various computeraided technologies, CIM can integrate the end-to-end functional areas of a business into an interconnected, interactive and intelligent system.

However, for the successful implementation of CIM, it is mandatory to establish a manufacturing environment that is intelligent, integrated and flexible in terms of operations. Also, to respond quickly and successfully to volatile market demands, it is of utmost importance to acquire specialisation in technologies like artificial intelligence, information technology and materials science.

Weighing the Options
In the contemporary manufacturing scenario, the effectiveness of communication technology along with the flexibility and agility to execute operations are the greatest capabilities needed to acquire a competitive edge. Nowadays, with abruptly changing market demands and the diversity of consumption patterns, it has become mandatory for manufacturers to respond in real time.This greatly depends upon the level of integration within the manufacturing setup and the adaptability of the subsystems to changes in demand. CIM can establish all such manufacturing prerequisites to achieve optimal performance and profits. However, the technology is quite costly during the implementation phase, and its benefit varies from user to user depending upon its suitability to individual needs. Thus, a sound assessment of technological needs is essential prior to the implementation of CIM. The technology is here to stay, though the decision to adopt it depends on one’s vision and judgement of individual needs.