INTERACTIVE UNIX Installed at BMW

In the chassis manufacturing division for the new 300 series BMW in Munich and Regensburg, Germany, BMW has installed a system (called ROLF) which automates the manufacturing of the chassis.

Just a quick glance at the ROLF monitor is enough to get a visual representation of the current status of the assembly line in chassis manufacturing. Color-coded signals indicate the status of different stations in the assembly line. If a red light flashes at any stage, just a simple click of the mouse is enough to find out more detailed information about the problem. These graphical representations within the system enable maintenance personnel to react very quickly to any problem which may occur.

All alerts and problem indicators within the system are stored in an ORACLE relational database. Using ORACLE and other data analysis software, different types of evaluation of the data are possible. For example, the maintenance personnel can check all stages of production, find out which stations are particularly problematic and determine the causes of these problems. With this information, BMW's managers can take appropriate steps to rectify the problem immediately.

When asked what he requires from an operating system, Helmut Schmidbauer from the Department of Automobile Production Techniques at BMW responds, "Since 1989, it has been our strategy to use UNIX for our manufacturing and process systems."

In September 1989, after several different operating systems were tested for their applicability to specific situations within the company, BMW decided to use INTERACTIVE UNIX®, the most advanced UNIX system on the Intel architecture. Since then, SunSoft, Inc., based in Mountain View, California, with a subsidiary in Grasbrunn, Germany (near Munich) has acquired INTERACTIVE and assumed distribution of the INTERACTIVE product.

One of the basic conditions in choosing an operating system was the long-term lifespan of the product. "The lifecycle of our application is longer than eight years," explains Schmidbauer. "For that time period, we need competent and comprehensive support. Equally important is full upward-compatibility of all software releases."

The BMW catalog of purchase requirements was developed to meet present as well as future demands. Major points were strict adherence to the X/Open standards, conformance with Unix System V, POSIX-compliance, and the ability to support an SQL-based relational database system Another requirement was a graphical and intuitive user interface. BMW also requires that the operating systems be hardware- and vendor-independent.

"A connection to our corporate information systems is also very important. Currently, there are solutions in place that allow us to exchange valuable information between different departments such as manufacturing, planning and administration," adds Schmidbauer.

INTERACTIVE UNIX turned out to be the best solution for the ROLF 'visualization stations', especially since BMW wanted to use Intel-based personal computers at the low-end. "For the front-end of the system, we are using 486 Siemens PC30-32 Rs, with 16 Megabytes of RAM and VGA graphics cards. For the host, we installed an HP 9000/835SE with HP-UX. High performance is obviously important if you get 70,000 responses from 142 manufacturing station a day," explains Schmidbauer.

The PCs are being used in the BMW offices as well as the manufacturing stations and the production area. According to Schmidbauer, SunSoft's VP/ix technology offers BMW the ideal solution, allowing them to use DOS as well as UNIX applications.

The success of a project such as BMW is undertaking also depends on the support capabilities of the system vendor. Schmidbauer remembers, "In the beginning, we were experimenting with INTERACTIVE UNIX just to find out how easy it is to handle. Part of that ease-of-use, for me, is the need to refer to the manuals as little as possible. Who has time to go through piles of manuals these days?"

When he does have to refer to the manual and the documentation was unclear, external support has to be available. BMW has had good relationship with INTR-UNIX, a systems integrator. The long life-cycle of BMW s application requires competent support, but they are not helpless without external support. For example, changing from standard time to daylight savings time is one that is completed internally.

Schmidbauer also had his developers create a user interface that would allow even less-competent users to react to system failures. "We developed our own menu-driven interface with the help of shell scripts that supports the most important operating tasks. For example, many applications consist of several small modules that must interact with other modules to create a fully functional application. If one of the modules crashes, the whole application has to be rebooted and synchronized. This synchronization is supported by special systems administration script."

All in all, Schmidbauer feels the system works very reliable. Over time, there have been some small problems, but they have been completely solved, including one problem with the networking software: Through an error in the driver software for the PC network cards, a broadcast message was dispatched that halted the process production-calculation-unit and the production line. After finding the cause of the error, a bug fix from INTERACTIVE solved the problem.

BMW is planning an extensive test of Solaris 2.0 from SunSoft in the near future. They do not expect any compatibility problems with INTERACTIVE UNIX to be found regarding BMW-specific expectations, and that consequently, a transition to Solaris 2.0 will occur.

Projects of the magnitude of BMW s ROLF project illustrate the advantages that an advanced operating system such as INTERACTIVE UNIX has to offer.