New online white papers tackle scheduling, network issues

A series of new white papers are now available at the Engineer’s Resource Guide (ERG) at www.plantengineering.com focus on a variety of issues affecting the plant floor – everything from network systems to efficiencies scheduling:

Scheduling the Manufacturing Workforce: Since labor is the most significant cost of production and management is under pressure to keep their workforce lean, automating the scheduling process stands out as an area where IT should focus. Unlike call centers or airline crewing, Tugboat Software notes, in manufacturing the absence of a leading IT solution has been a conspicuous problem. Based on experience adapting IT to the scheduling requirements of several large manufacturing facilities, the structure of the problem becomes apparent and when new optimization technology is applied, a solution has emerged.

Fundamental principles of network systems: This paper covers the fundamentals of secure networking systems, including firewalls, network topology and secure protocols. Best practices are also given that introduce the reader to some of the more critical aspects of securing a network.

Network-critical infrastructure for RFID systems: Radio Frequency Identification technology helps automate a variety of business processes, improving their efficiencies. It generates a huge volume of data that needs to be filtered, processed and stored, and generally requires its own virtual local area network (VLAN). This paper provides an understanding of an RFID network and its components and explains how to plan for high availability.

The 7 Types of Power Problems: Many of the mysteries of equipment failure, downtime, software and data corruption, are the result of a problematic supply of power. This white paper will describe the most common types of power disturbances, what can cause them, what they can do to your critical equipment, and how to safeguard your equipment, using the IEEE standards for describing power quality problems.