Evolution, Not Revolution The GE Fanuc HMI/SCADA Customer Protection Strategy

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1 GE Fanuc Automation Evolution, Not Revolution The GE Fanuc HMI/SCADA Customer Protection Strategy HMI/SCADA software applications have come a long way since their inception in the 1980s as a means of automating and regulating simple plant floor processes. Increased sophistication and availability of graphics, greater connectivity with other plant floor devices and a wide range of functionality enhancements have brought HMI/SCADA users to new levels of efficiency and productivity in their operations.

2 Evolution, Not Revolution The GE Fanuc HMI/SCADA Customer Protection Strategy HMI/SCADA software is currently installed in thousands of manufacturing and processing facilities throughout the world. Current installations are spread throughout a fairly even mix of continuous, batch, discrete and hybrid manufacturing facilities, with many locations running multiple types of operations at any given time within the same plant. Traditional HMI/SCADA applications have met the needs of these varied manufacturers reliably and consistently over the years. However, with companies seeing increased global competition, tighter regulatory standards and significant advancements in production management software and other related productivity tools, there is unprecedented pressure to remain as efficient, productive and profitable as possible. And as the margin for error has shrunk, the need to draw more value from installed HMI/SCADA technologies has grown. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In the past, HMI/SCADA systems essentially acted as the hammer that was required to solve every production problem on the plant floor. Users around the world cobbled together a diverse range of simple to highly sophisticated customized implementations and add-ons that would enable them to run their plants more effectively. As years passed and the number of technology layers being built on top of HMI/SCADA programs continued to increase, so too did the projected costs of replacing that network of legacy systems. This is particularly the case for manufacturers in regulated industries, where facilities go to great lengths and expense to validate and maintain systems according to those standards. The struggle between keeping up with technology enhancements and leveraging the significant infrastructure investments already made has historically been a daunting challenge. The advent of new analytic tools that can provide meaningful context to plant data may be appealing, but few companies have the resources to make sweeping changes across their manufacturing and production infrastructure. Fortunately, there is now a way to extend the power of HMI/SCADA software with a full range of production management tools without replacing or interrupting your current infrastructure investments. The HMI/SCADA Evolution HMI and related software has become a critical component in the infrastructure for successfully managing manufacturing operations, according to ARC Research Director Craig Resnick, the principal author of ARC s HMI Software Worldwide Outlook Market Study. Ensuring connectivity across the manufacturing enterprise is a primary value proposition for manufacturers employing automated production systems. These manufacturers want to access and aggregate real-time production process information to drive factory visibility and intelligence. Enterprise connectivity translates into both manufacturing efficiency and a lower cost of goods sold. The manufacturing and production software space is evolving. Applications continue to mature while user demand for continuous improvement continues to grow. HMI/SCADA solutions are increasingly becoming a component in a much broader automation strategy. The pervasive use of this technology is enabling a focus on the natural progression of automation, providing the ability to take data collected by HMI/SCADA applications and put it to greater use. This level of sophisticated analysis has historically not been available to HMI/SCADA users. At best, customized solutions could be engineered to provide certain low level analytics. But when advanced higher level analytic and production management tools are added, the value of HMI/SCADA information increases substantially. The ability to add those tools on an evolutionary basis (fitting seamlessly into an existing infrastructure) rather than a revolutionary basis (requiring a rip and replace approach for current systems) is a tremendously appealing strategy. It is a strategy that GE Fanuc strongly believes in, and we have designed our technologies to allow customers to adopt that approach throughout their operations, regardless of what other systems they may currently have in place. 2

3 Follow the Leader Before examining the future of GE Fanuc s HMI/SCADA technologies, how they fit into our open and universal Proficy architecture and what the addition of higher-level analytic and production management tools can mean to your business, it s important to understand the differentiation between our three HMI/SCADA applications and how they combine to form the leading set of solutions to this marketplace. Each of these products has been brought forward with new releases and expanded functionality over many years, and GE Fanuc remains entirely committed to continuing that trend for all three products in the future. Proficy Machine Edition View is a well-recognized HMI product that is primarily designed for controlling machine level functions. The application originally became part of the GE Fanuc product portfolio in a 1999 acquisition of Taylor Industrial Systems, an expert supplier of HMI and PLC technology for machine control. Proficy HMI/SCADA ifix was added in the 2003 acquisition of Intellution. It was, and continues to be, a leading HMI/SCADA technology in process and hybrid markets. Featuring Designed for 21 CFR Part 11 functionality, this powerful, user-friendly application features extremely strong market presence in the life sciences industries, in addition to water/wastewater markets, food and CPG, and oil & gas. Proficy Machine Edition View Proficy HMI/SCADA CIMPLICITY is a legacy GE Fanuc product offering. Designed with significant input from the automotive and manufacturing marketplaces, Proficy CIMPLICITY offers technology that is ideally suited to meet the needs of discrete and hybrid environments. Each of these products has been brought forward with new releases and expanded functionality over many years, and GE Fanuc remains entirely committed to continuing that trend for all three products in the future. Each of GE Fanuc s HMI/SCADA products is being used by successful companies in successful applications around the world. We are installed in many of the world's leading manufacturing and process facilities across a full range of industries, including automotive, electronics, aerospace, water/wastewater, power, oil & gas, food & beverage/cpg, and many more. Proficy HMI/SCADA ifix GE Fanuc fully stands behind these and all of our HMI/SCADA customers, and we will continue to do so in the future. And it is a bright future indeed. Proficy HMI/SCADA CIMPLCITY 3

4 Evolution, Not Revolution The GE Fanuc HMI/SCADA Customer Protection Strategy Proficy While data warehouses and business intelligence systems can leverage standard data models and standardized order-to-cash and procure-to-pay processes in ERP applications, manufacturing metrics must be constructed from complex production models and a heterogeneous landscape of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), MES, quality management, Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), and other point applications deployed across manufacturing sites. This complexity explains the meteoric rise of EMI software vendors that provide tools to aggregate, contextualize, visualize, analyze and propagate manufacturing performance to enterprise systems Extending HMI/SCADA with Proficy Production Management Tools HMI/SCADA systems have been improving automation environments for many years now, offering visibility to real-time information and layering real-time alarming, analysis and archival of plant floor data. These systems were wildly successful since the mid 1980 s, and the HMI/SCADA market developed so well during that time that customers often tried to solve every problem in the plant with these technologies. From this approach, we as a provider of this technology learned how powerful the systems are and, just as importantly, where their limitations lie. AMR Research Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence Helps GlobalManufacturers Raise Performance and Responsiveness, November, 2003 Proficy is an open, scaleable and functionally complete family of software products, delivering HMI/SCADA applications along with capabilities that provide a natural extension of functionality to those solutions. Proficy is a broad set of software solutions designed to deliver value to everyone from the plant floor operator to the plant manager to business decision makers throughout the organization. Most importantly, Proficy provides users with the unique ability to leverage real-time information, and to analyze and optimize their production operations, according to the needs of the business. Together as an integrated suite, or separately as individual components, Proficy serves process, hybrid and discrete industries with a unique breadth of functionality around the world. Where HMI/SCADA systems are excellent for real-time visualization, alarming and collecting data, it was primarily up to the customer, with a host of tools and technologies, to analyze that data and turn it into actionable information. This is where the production management capabilities of GE Fanuc s Proficy family become apparent. One of the suite s functions is to add unprecedented analysis capabilities, turning data, both real-time and historical, into information and automation knowledge. Proficy provides the ability to link data elements together with context and the dimension of time. The result is an understanding of the production process that was never before possible. 4

5 What is causing downtime? With the cause identified, uptime can be increased, improving yield. Why is waste being generated? With knowledge of the sources, waste can be minimized and production optimized. What are the root causes for the problems? By seeing those root causes, they can now be corrected. In this way, Proficy s production management applications deliver true value in conjunction with HMI/SCADA systems. Turning Plant Data into Production Knowledge Interpreting plant floor data is like trying to read a strip-chart or a black-box flight recorder. There is simply a continual stream of data flowing from the plant floor devices and equipment used for controlling the production processes. Buried under the mounds of data are nuggets of important information, but there s no easy way to find them. That s what makes Proficy production management software so important. Its role is to interpret the bits-and-bytes that are being generated in production and turn them into meaningful information, such as downtimes, production counts, cycle times, lots, batches, etc. When an event is defined, we know when it happens and can collect all production and processrelated data associated with it. Traditional plant floor systems have never had this capability, and business systems (even ERP systems with portals and dashboards) likewise cannot provide this meaningful context. Evolution, Not Revolution With Proficy, GE Fanuc is delivering on an open and layered product development strategy that is based on industry standard data architecture models. This allows customers to choose from our best-of-breed components at every layer of their system, regardless of what technologies they currently have in place. As a result, each of the Proficy solutions will work with GE Fanuc s products or any other manufacturers systems that may already exist in a plant. This approach significantly reduces costs and protects existing investments. It also ensures that the solutions can be implemented on a large scale throughout different facilities that operate with different infrastructures at the automation layer. GE Fanuc provides Controllers and I/O. Our HMI/SCADA systems can work with these systems, but more importantly, they can work with other PLCs and controllers equally well. In fact, 80% of GE Fanuc s HMI/SCADA products are used with non-ge Fanuc hardware. We offer a Historian that acts as a repository for automation data generated by the manufacturing floor. This has been designed to work with our HMI/SCADA systems, but through open technology interfaces such as OPC, it is also able to work equally well with third party products. In the areas of plant performance and execution, we deliver our Proficy Plant Application Solutions. These products are able to optimize production execution with our Historian application as well as most third party historian applications. Finally, our Proficy Real-Time Information Portal application works with all data sources from automation systems to business systems. This web-driven solution delivers data visibility and user-based context to anyone, anywhere at any time. This open and layered strategy allows users to continue to utilize existing systems, preserving the hard work and investment that companies have already made in their infrastructure. It also allows easily adding the pieces needed to complete a fully integrated suite of manufacturing software solutions, through the process of evolution and not revolution. Open and Layered Architecture Allows Users To: Preserve existing automation infrastructures Reduce system costs Remain non-intrusive to controls layer systems Work in tandem with GE Fanuc and other products GE Fanuc s open and layered architecture ensures that our applications can connect seamlessly to most third party systems, allowing customers to continue leveraging existing investments. 5

6 Evolution, Not Revolution The GE Fanuc HMI/SCADA Customer Protection Strategy Moving forward doesn t necessarily mean leaving the past behind. In summary, GE Fanuc is committed to bringing our HMI/SCADA customers forward with the benefits of new technologies, while never compromising existing system investments. GE Fanuc s Proficy production management products provide capabilities that go well beyond our market-leading HMI/SCADA functionality. These solutions deliver information that spans the automation systems currently in place, combining the various data sources and delivering results for use back into the HMI/SCADA systems. And, more importantly, this full suite of solutions is not available from any other HMI/SCADA vendor. The addition of production management to our three market-leading HMI/SCADA applications enables GE Fanuc s Proficy to provide users with an evolutionary approach to driving unprecedented value and performance across the enterprise. Proficy Applications Include: Proficy HMI/SCADA ifix Proficy HMI/SCADA CIMPLICITY Proficy View Machine Edition Proficy Real-Time Information Portal Proficy Batch Analysis Proficy Batch Execution Proficy Efficiency Proficy Production Proficy Tracker Proficy Machine Tool Efficiency Proficy Quality Proficy Non Conformance Reporting Proficy Shop Floor SPC Proficy Historian Proficy Enterprise Asset Management Proficy Remote Monitoring & Diagnostic Proficy Change Management Proficy Logic Developer Machine Edition Proficy Motion Developer Machine Edition GE Fanuc Automation Information Centers Americas: GE FANUC or (434) Asia Pacific: Europe, Middle East and Africa: (352) Europe, Middle East and Africa (CNC): (352) Additional Resources For more information, please visit the GE Fanuc web site at: GE Fanuc Automation. All Rights Reserved. All other brands or names are property of their respective holders GFT-???