Integrating Scales: Not That Easy

Here we are about 5 weeks since MES got approved and purchased and I have good news and bad news.

Good News: It was pretty easy to get the basic features of the product up and running in the application. Pretty much you run a couple concurrent requests, setup a few items as dispensable, setup a dispensing area and a dispensing booth and there you go. Okay, maybe its a little more complex then that but not by much.

Bad News: We use scales from Mettler Toledo. A few years ago we purchased their ID30 weigh station solution which is essentially a scale, a monitor, what they call an 'indicator', and a little pc. The monitor runs their ScaleXplorer software which uses an ActiveX control to communicate with the scales.

This week I spoke with Mettler about how to use their scales with MES and the answer is that we still have to use their ELO box (which is the indicator and the little pc) but in order to use them on a network we would have to write a listening app and install it on each ELO box and then also write an app that would use the ActiveX control to communicate with the scales. (FYI I'm not a developer nor do I do much with networks so I'm definitely pushing past anything I know and understand).

So here we are today. We have some internal developers who could probably create these two apps for us but they are swamped with other projects right now and probably wouldn't be able to get to it for another couple months. Next option is to check out a product offered by Kepware which an Oracle developer recommended that apparently is an all in one solution for integrating devices with MES. If that doesn't work or is too expensive I guess I go back to Mettler and see what they can offer.

Wish me luck.


Interesting Article on the different philosophies of Oracle and SAP pertaining to manufacturing execution systems.

My Oracle Support Community...

During an OPM SIG conference call (held monthly to discuss different issues or topics that the group is facing) Russ Bayless got on and suggested that we all check out this 'cool new' Oracle Support Community feature found on metalink...I mean found on 'My Oracle Support'. He said the intention was to create a forum (much like it.toolbox) where users would be able to help each other not only with technical questions that you'd normally submit to oracle support but also with setup and operation questions that might be specific to each company.

I liked the idea of this, especially since the Process Manufacturing Community is so small, so I created a profile and signed up for some of the 'communities' on the site. Well, it's been a month and a half now and I'm definitely not impressed. I think the biggest problem is that users don't know about this feature and so there are very few people reviewing questions and forums (ie there is not much participation). I've submitted 7 different questions and have had 0 usable responses so far.

I'm writing this blog post to vent a little I guess but also to make others aware of this feature offered by Oracle. If we can get more people on board it will definitely increase participation. For me, IT Toolbox has been a great resource for very technical oracle issue but not such a good resource for day to day usage like creating approver groups in AME, or finding help understanding supply tolerancing. My hope is that somewhere, either on IT Toolbox or on My Oracle Support Community, I can find a forum where I can get more participation and answers to operational questions.

Here is the link to 'My Oracle Support Community'. You do have to have a user name and password to log in but its the same as you would use to log into metalink.