IT5

Continental AG, headquartered in Hanover, Germany, is a global auto and truck parts

manufacturing company, with 164,000 employees in 46 countries. It is also the

world’s fourth largest tire manufacturer and one of the top five automotive suppliers

in the world.

One of the factories for Continental’s Tire Division is located in Sarreguemines, France.

This facility produces 1,000 different kinds of tires and encompasses nearly 1.5 million

square feet. The production process requires large wheeled carts loaded with sheets of

rubber or other components to be transported from storage to workstations as tires are

being built. Until recently, if a carrier was not in its expected location, a worker had to look

for it manually. Manual tracking was time-consuming and inaccurate, and the plant often

lost track of tire components altogether.

Missing materials created bottlenecks and production delays at a time when business

was growing and the company needed to increase production capacity. Continental found a

solution in a new real-time location system based on a Wi-Fi wireless network using radio

frequency identification (RFID) tags, AeroScout MobileView software, mobile computers,

and Global Data Sciences’ material inventory tracking system software.

The Sarreguemines plant mounted AeroScout T2-EB Industrial RFID tags on the sides

of 1,100 of its carriers. As the carriers move from one manufacturing or storage station to

another, location information about the cart is transmitted to nearby nodes of a Cisco Wi-Fi

wireless network. AeroScout’s MobileView software picks up the location and represents

the carrier as an icon on a map of the facility displayed on computer screens. Fifteen

Honeywell Dolphin 6500 and Motorola Solutions MC9190 handheld computers are used

to confirm that a carrier has been loaded with components or has arrived at a specific

workstation.

Seven of the plant’s tuggers, which are small trucks for hauling the carriers around the

plant, are equipped with DLOG mobile vehicle-mounted computers. When a tugger driver

is looking for a specific component, he or she can use the mobile device to access the

MobileView system, pull up a map of the facility, and see an icon indicating where that

component’s carrier is located. The location tracking system provides a real-time snapshot

of all the components used in the factory.

A bar code label is attached to each component and carrier, and the system starts tracking

that component as soon as it is placed in a carrier. Plant workers use one of the Motorola or

Honeywell handhelds and the MobileView software to scan the bar code labels on both

the component and its carrier, which is associated with the ID number transmitted by an RFID tag mounted on the carrier. The scanned bar code data are stored in a material inventory tracking system.

The MobileView software tracks the carrier’s location as it is being transported to a storage area, and also the location where it is placed in storage.

When components are needed for manufacturing, a tugger driver uses the

DLOG mobile computer to identify the location of the carrier with those specific

components, and then goes to that location. After the carrier has been

retrieved and taken to a workstation, its bar code is scanned by an employee

at that station using one of the handheld computers. This updates the system

to show that the required components have been received.

By enabling tugger drivers to quickly locate components, the new system

has increased productivity and ensures that materials are not overlooked

or misplaced. Fewer materials are thrown away because they expired and

were not used when they were needed. The system is able to send alerts of

materials that have been sitting too long in one spot.

When AeroScout and the new material inventory tracking system were

implemented in September 2011, Continental made sure all production

employees, including truckers, tire builders, and management, received

training in the new system functions. The company also provided workers

with instruction cards with detailed descriptions of system functions that

they could use for reference.

Thanks to the new system, the Sarreguemines tire factory has increased

production from 33,000 to 38,000 tires per day. Wastage of tire components

has been reduced by 20 percent.

Continental Tires’s experience illustrates some of the powerful capabilities

and opportunities provided by contemporary networking technology.

The company uses wireless networking, radio frequency identification (RFID)

technology, mobile computers, and materials inventory management software

to automate tracking of components as they move through the production

process.

The chapter-opening diagram calls attention to important points raised by

this case and this chapter. Continental Tires’ production environment extends

over a very large area, and requires intensive oversight and coordination to

make sure that components are available when and where they are needed

in the production process. Tracking components manually was very slow and

cumbersome, increasing the possibility that components would be overlooked

or lost.

Management decided that wireless technology and RFID tagging provided

a solution and arranged for the deployment of a wireless RFID network

throughout the entire Sarreguemines production facility. The network

made it much easier to track components and to optimize tugger truck

movements. Continental Tires had to redesign its production and other

work processes and train employees in the new system to take advantage of

the new technology.

Here are some questions to think about: How did Continental’s real-time

location system transform operations? Why was training so important?

Chapter 7.1

If you run or work in a business, you can’t do without networks. You need

to communicate rapidly with your customers, suppliers, and employees.

Until about 1990, businesses used the postal system or telephone system

with voice or fax for communication. Today, however, you and your

employees use computers, e-mail and messaging, the Internet, cell phones, and

mobile computers connected to wireless networks for this purpose. Networking

and the Internet are now nearly synonymous with doing business.

NETWORKING AND COMMUNICATION TRENDS

Firms in the past used two fundamentally different types of networks:

telephone networks and computer networks. Telephone networks historically

handled voice communication, and computer networks handled data traffic.

Telephone networks were built by telephone companies throughout the twentieth

century using voice transmission technologies (hardware and software), and

these companies almost always operated as regulated monopolies throughout

the world. Computer networks were originally built by computer companies

seeking to transmit data between computers in different locations.

Thanks to continuing telecommunications deregulation and information

technology innovation, telephone and computer networks are converging

into a single digital network using shared Internet-based standards and

equipment. Telecommunications providers today, such as AT&T and Verizon,

offer data transmission, Internet access, cellular telephone service, and

television programming as well as voice service. Cable companies, such as

Cablevision and Comcast, offer voice service and Internet access. Computer

networks have expanded to include Internet telephone and video services.

Increasingly, all of these voice, video, and data communications are based on

Internet technology.

Both voice and data communication networks have also become more powerful

(faster), more portable (smaller and mobile), and less expensive. For instance, the

typical Internet connection speed in 2000 was 56 kilobits per second, but today

more than 68 percent of the 239 million U.S. Internet users have high-speed

broadband connections provided by telephone and cable TV companies running

at 1 to 15 million bits per second. The cost for this service has fallen exponentially,

from 25 cents per kilobit in 2000 to a tiny fraction of a cent today.

Increasingly, voice and data communication, as well as Internet access, are

taking place over broadband wireless platforms, such as cell phones, mobile

handheld devices, and PCs in wireless networks. In a few years, more than half

the Internet users in the United States will use smartphones and mobile netbooks

to access the Internet. In 2012, 122 million Americans (50% of all Internet users)

accessed the Internet through mobile devices, and this number is expected to

grow to 135 million by 2015 (eMarketer, 2012).

WHAT IS A COMPUTER NETWORK?

If you had to connect the computers for two or more employees together

in the same office, you would need a computer network. Exactly what is a

network? In its simplest form, a network consists of two or more connected

computers. Figure 7.1 illustrates the major hardware, software, and transmission

components used in a simple network: a client computer and a dedicated

server computer, network interfaces, a connection medium, network operating

system software, and either a hub or a switch.

Each computer on the network contains a network interface device to link

the computer to the network. The connection medium for linking network

components can be a telephone wire, coaxial cable, or radio signal in the case of

cell phone and wireless local area networks (Wi-Fi networks).

The network operating system (NOS) routes and manages communications

on the network and coordinates network resources. It can reside on

every computer in the network, or it can reside primarily on a dedicated

server computer for all the applications on the network. A server computer is

a computer on a network that performs important network functions for client

computers, such as serving up Web pages, storing data, and storing the network

operating system (and hence controlling the network). Server software such as

Microsoft Windows Server, Linux, and Novell Open Enterprise Server are the

most widely used network operating systems.

Most networks also contain a switch or a hub acting as a connection point

between the computers. Hubs are very simple devices that connect network

components, sending a packet of data to all other connected devices. A switch

has more intelligence than a hub and can filter and forward data to a specified

destination on the network.

What if you want to communicate with another network, such as the

Internet? You would need a router. A router is a communications processor

used to route packets of data through different networks, ensuring that the data

sent gets to the correct address.

Network switches and routers have proprietary software built into their

hardware for directing the movement of data on the network. This can create

network bottlenecks and makes the process of configuring a network more

complicated and time-consuming. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a

new networking approach in which many of these control functions are managed

by one central program, which can run on inexpensive commodity servers

that are separate from the network devices themselves. This is especially helpful

in a cloud computing environment with many different pieces of hardware

because it allows a network administrator to manage traffic loads in a flexible and

more efficient manner.

Networks in Large Companies

The network we’ve just described might be suitable for a small business. But what

about large companies with many different locations and thousands of employees?

As a firm grows, and collects hundreds of small local area networks, these

networks can be tied together into a corporate-wide networking infrastructure.

The network infrastructure for a large corporation consists of a large number

of these small local area networks linked to other local area networks and to

firmwide corporate networks. A number of powerful servers support a corporate

Web site, a corporate intranet, and perhaps an extranet. Some of these servers

link to other large computers supporting back-end systems.

Figure 7.2 provides an illustration of these more complex, larger scale

corporate-wide networks. Here you can see that the corporate network infrastructure

supports a mobile sales force using cell phones and smartphones,

mobile employees linking to the company Web site, internal company networks

using mobile wireless local area networks (Wi-Fi networks), and a videoconferencing

system to support managers across the world. In addition to these computer

networks, the firm’s infrastructure usually includes a separate telephone

network that handles most voice data. Many firms are dispensing with their

traditional telephone networks and using Internet telephones that run on their

existing data networks (described later).

As you can see from this figure, a large corporate network infrastructure uses

a wide variety of technologies—everything from ordinary telephone service and

corporate data networks to Internet service, wireless Internet, and cell phones.

One of the major problems facing corporations today is how to integrate all

the different communication networks and channels into a coherent system

that enables information to flow from one part of the corporation to another,

and from one system to another. As more and more communication networks

become digital, and based on Internet technologies, it will become easier to

integrate them.

KEY DIGITAL NETWORKING TECHNOLOGIES

Contemporary digital networks and the Internet are based on three key

technologies: client/server computing, the use of packet switching, and the

development of widely used communications standards (the most important

of which is Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP) for

linking disparate networks and computers.

Client/Server Computing

Client/server computing, introduced in Chapter 5, is a distributed computing

model in which some of the processing power is located within small,

inexpensive client computers, and resides literally on desktops, laptops, or in

handheld devices. These powerful clients are linked to one another through

a network that is controlled by a network server computer. The server sets

the rules of communication for the network and provides every client with an

address so others can find it on the network.

FIGURE 7.2 CORPORATE NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE

Today’s corporate network infrastructure is a collection of many different networks from the public

switched telephone network, to the Internet, to corporate local area networks linking workgroups,

departments, or office floors.

Client/server computing has largely replaced centralized mainframe

computing in which nearly all of the processing takes place on a central large

mainframe computer. Client/server computing has extended computing to

departments, workgroups, factory floors, and other parts of the business that

could not be served by a centralized architecture. The Internet is the largest

implementation of client/server computing.

Packet Switching

Packet switching is a method of slicing digital messages into parcels called

packets, sending the packets along different communication paths as they

become available, and then reassembling the packets once they arrive

at their destinations (see Figure 7.3). Prior to the development of packet

switching, computer networks used leased, dedicated telephone circuits to

communicate with other computers in remote locations. In circuit-switched

networks, such as the telephone system, a complete point-to-point circuit is

assembled, and then communication can proceed. These dedicated circuitswitching

techniques were expensive and wasted available communications

capacity—the circuit was maintained regardless of whether any data were

being sent.

Packet switching makes much more efficient use of the communications

capacity of a network. In packet-switched networks, messages are first

broken down into small fixed bundles of data called packets. The packets

include information for directing the packet to the right address and for

checking transmission errors along with the data. The packets are transmitted

over various communications channels using routers, each packet traveling

independently. Packets of data originating at one source will be routed through

many different paths and networks before being reassembled into the original

message when they reach their destinations

TCP/IP and Connectivity

In a typical telecommunications network, diverse hardware and software

components need to work together to transmit information. Different

components in a network communicate with each other only by adhering to

a common set of rules called protocols. A protocol is a set of rules and procedures

governing transmission of information between two points in a network.

In the past, many diverse proprietary and incompatible protocols often forced

business firms to purchase computing and communications equipment from

a single vendor. But today, corporate networks are increasingly using a single,

common, worldwide standard called Transmission Control Protocol/Internet

Protocol (TCP/IP). TCP/IP was developed during the early 1970s to support

U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

efforts to help scientists transmit data among different types of computers over

long distances.

TCP/IP uses a suite of protocols, the main ones being TCP and IP. TCP refers

to the Transmission Control Protocol, which handles the movement of data

between computers. TCP establishes a connection between the computers,

sequences the transfer of packets, and acknowledges the packets sent. IP refers

to the Internet Protocol (IP), which is responsible for the delivery of packets and

includes the disassembling and reassembling of packets during transmission.

Figure 7.4 illustrates the four-layered Department of Defense reference model

for TCP/IP, and the layers are described as follows:

1. Application layer. The Application layer enables client application programs to

access the other layers and defines the protocols that applications use to

exchange data. One of these application protocols is the Hypertext Transfer

Protocol (HTTP), which is used to transfer Web page files.

2. Transport layer. The Transport layer is responsible for providing the Application

layer with communication and packet services. This layer includes TCP and

other protocols.

3. Internet layer. The Internet layer is responsible for addressing, routing, and

packaging data packets called IP datagrams. The Internet Protocol is one of the

protocols used in this layer.

Network Interface layer. At the bottom of the reference model, the Network

Interface layer is responsible for placing packets on and receiving them from

the network medium, which could be any networking technology.

Two computers using TCP/IP are able to communicate even if they are

based on different hardware and software platforms. Data sent from one

computer to the other passes downward through all four layers, starting with

the sending computer’s Application layer and passing through the Network

Interface layer. After the data reach the recipient host computer, they travel

up the layers and are reassembled into a format the receiving computer can

use. If the receiving computer finds a damaged packet, it asks the sending

computer to retransmit it. This process is reversed when the receiving

computer responds.