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RLINK

RLINK is a component of the OSIsoft PI System and provides a bi-directional gateway for DATA, EVENT and VISUAL integration with ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and EAM (Enterprise Asset Management ) systems such as SAP R/3, Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (previously OneWorld), MRO Software Maximo, Indus International PassPort/EMPAC, and others.

Component Summary

RLINK works with other components of the PI System to transform real-time operations data from plant/shop floor or SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) into data or events that are relevant for an ERP/EAM system. Specifically, the data collected from plant computer systems including DCS (Distributed Control Systems), PLC (Programmable Logic Controller), SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition), LIMS (Laboratory Information Management Systems), manual entries including handheld devices (PDAs) etc. are transformed using RtAnalytics (PI Alarm, PI-PE, PI ACE, external applications…) into trigger events for an appropriate transaction in the ERP/EAM system.

RLINK interfaces with the functional modules that manage production, maintenance, quality, or costing in an enterprise. Some of the use cases are:

Production: actual quantity of finished goods produced and actual quantity of raw material consumed as part of a Production Order or a Process Order to update inventory records

Maintenance: a pump “motor winding temperature exceeded 170 degrees F” notification sent from RtPM to the maintenance module to automatically trigger a “Motor Inspection PM (Preventive Maintenance) Work Order.”

Quality: provide LIMS (laboratory information management systems) data or on-stream analyzer quality data that are already available in the plant/shop floor systems to update quality records and eliminate duplicate and error prone manual entries.

Costing: apportion utilities usage (steam, electricity, distilled water etc.) to support activity based product costing.

There are numerous other use cases such as Product/Feed Tank level readings to update BulkStock ledger, Raw Materials Receipts to update Blanket POs etc.

Business drivers

Consider the following statistics from published reports

“With access to accurate, real-time information from the manufacturing floor, companies have realized up to 50 percent more ROI (return on investment) with appropriate interfaces to their ERP/EAM systems”

Gartner, 1998

“Maintenance costs account for an average of 8% of a company's revenues. The average manufacturing cost of goods sold is 28% direct maintenance cost. Downtime costs are typically four to five times greater than maintenance costs. Thus, on average, a 10% improvement in maintenance costs results in 36% increase in profitability. For the U.S., between $300 billion and $500 billion per year is spent in manufacturing on maintenance."

Keeping Up, Running & Profitable with CMMSs (Computerized Maintenance Management Systems), Automotive Manufacturing & Production, 110:8 (August 1998): 68

Consider what some of our customers are saying

“SAP R/3 and OSIsoft’s PI System are technology tools that provide significant productivity improvement opportunities on their own, but are not the complete solution. The real breakthrough for us came when we implemented OSIsoft’s RLINK product. RLINK gave us the integration that resulted from the seamless flow of information from the process unit to business management.”

Carlos Volpones, Polimeri Europa

“We estimate a ten percent savings on maintenance costs and are using the RLINK PM module as a key ingredient in our overall equipment effectiveness program.”

Bryan Sower, Dow Corning Corp.

Key Features and Benefits

Production Analysis

Capture actual costs of operation. Correlate production data with process orders to determine why one order costs more or took longer to produce. Use the results to modify processes/equipment to eliminate waste and increase production or efficiency.

Equipment Efficiency

Optimize equipment utilization by performing usage and condition-based maintenance using actual runtime and operating alerts to automatically schedule maintenance. This provides measurable savings in labor and parts costs over a traditional calendar-based maintenance philosophy.

Increase Profits

Maximize and optimize asset utilization by obtaining actual costs of operation.

Available-to-Promise (ATP)

Provide a reliable delivery date to your customer — when the order is taken — based on real-time view of finished goods inventory, production plan, raw materials and other considerations.

Eliminate Manual Data Entry

Eliminate or simplify manual entry and associated errors by providing automatic data transfer, which can result in significant savings in labor costs.

Maintenance Troubleshooting

Solve recurring equipment reliability problems by correlating plant data to maintenance notifications to determine and resolve root causes.

Increased Quality

Integrate quality inspection lots and process data to compare results across the organization and target areas for improvement

Cycle Time

Reduce time from product order placement to customer delivery

Parametric Product Acceptance

Implement parametric acceptance of manufactured products; if the raw materials and manufacturing process are within specifications, then the products may be shipped without waiting for or even performing lab testing.

Reporting

Reduce magnitude and complexity of production management reporting

System Requirements

  • RLINK Server: Windows 2000 or higher for, RAM: 512 MB, Storage: 2-3 GB
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or higher
  • RLINK Admin Workstation: Windows 2000, Microsoft SQL Client or Microsoft Access 2000 or higher
  • PI System 3.x or higher
    
 
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