In this post, we will understand the concept of ERP in industrial automation. ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning.
It is necessary to understand various levels of industrial automation. There are so many hardware devices, software, IT infrastructure, and networking involved; that it is a must to co-relate things between them and understand what the difference between them is.
Suppose you are working in an office and are not aware of the level of the various employees. This will hamper your knowledge about the company working and will also not teach you what to speak with whom.
For example, an engineer cannot talk directly to a director. He has to report to his immediate next higher level of team leader. Similarly, it is important to know what level in industrial automation can speak and co-relate things to the next level.
Basically, there are five levels in industrial automation – starting from L0 to L4. In this post, we will see the fifth level (L4). This level is used for business planning, logistics, and enterprise-level operations in a plant.
There are multiple departments in a company – like sales, purchase, HR, finance, logistics, production, inventory control, etc. If all the processes after manufacturing (MES) are not linked and are done manually, it will give the desired outputs; but will be very slow.
The production rate will decrease; because many persons will have to wait for other department personnel to wait for their next step. So, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) comes into the picture here.
ERP is an automation process that works on computer technology and automates all the processes of an office in an easy way. Data has been communicated automatically in a transparent way between the departments. This reduces time and increases efficiency.
Similar to MES, ERP is an information software that can be considered a central database for all the departments in a plant. This causes easy reporting, rapid implementation of tasks, and the main thing – automated processes in a plant.
There are many functions of using ERP software. Let us have a look at them.
These are only some of the general functions discussed. If you see the larger scenario, ERP helps in the following ways –
So, if you see, it has basically covered all the departments of a factory and has integrated all of them into one software. Just access and the user is open to almost all the relevant data that he requires to manage.
Some popular ERP softwares are mentioned below.
In this way, ERP plays a very important role in large-scale industrial automation and obviously, in the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0).
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