In order to justify the use of S88, it is important to link its technical benefits to the business benefits of such an implementation.
S88 isolates recipes from equipment. When the software (S88-compliant or otherwise) that defines a product (recipe procedure) and the software to run equipment (phase logic) are in the same device (such as a PLC or DCS), the two different sets of code eventually become indistinguishable and, in some cases, inseparable. This makes recipe and equipment control difficult, if not impossible, to maintain. Every additional ingredient and process improvement can lead to lengthy and error-prone software changes. Documenting and validating such a system is also extremely difficult, and doubly so if not S88-compliant.
If recipes are kept separate from equipment control, however, the manufacturing process is more flexible and can provide significant advantages: Automation engineers can design control software based on the full capabilities and performance of the equipment rather than on the requirements of the product. Similarly, scientists, process engineers or lead operators who create the recipes can now easily create and edit them.
