Proprietary Panel Killers

Wonderware has a complete line of hardware offerings bundled with InTouch or InTouch for CE Software.

Wonderware Hardware sales continue astounding growth as more and more customers understand the value of access to the world's most popular HMI product on a Wonderware supported hardware platform. No longer do customers have to deal with proprietary, closed panel products or multiple development environments, or questions as to how to handle certain functionality within a stripped down panel offering.

Because of the ease of use, power, and flexibility of these offerings and because both hardware and software are fully backed by Wonderware and their award winning support channel, customers continue to realize that there is no longer a need to deal with limitations when they can get everything they need at a very competitive price. Additionally, with the best OEM program around, OEMs around the world can gain access to the breadth of Wonderware offerings and need only learn one development environment to handle any project.

High Level Benefits of Wonderware Hardware:

• Wonderware Panel Computers are developed using the only development System Wonderware provides - The Wonderware Development Studio. This system can be used to work with any product that Wonderware provides.
• Wonderware Panel Computers communicate to all major PLC brands with native Wonderware drivers and can also leverage any Wonderware Certified 3rd party driver on the market. All Wonderware drivers are included so again, one system to work with any hardware.
• Wonderware Panel Computers don't have limited capability because they are running the full version of InTouch - the World's leading HMI. So never worry about what flavor of panel offering to use to accomplish the job.
• If you do need a low end, pushbutton replacement offering, Wonderware makes a CE product running a stripped down version of InTouch - but again, screens on these systems are still developed using the same Wonderware Development Studio.

Wonderware's Hardware Offerings:

• Compact Panel Computers running Microsoft Windows CE (varied screen sizes)
• Compact Panel Computers for Hazardous Environments (varied screen sizes)
• Thin Client Computers
• Box PC Computers
• Operator Interface Computers (varied screen sizes)
• Touch Panel Computers (varied screen sizes)

More on our Powered By Wonderware Offering for CE Systems:

Wonderware recently announced the creation of the new Powered by Wonderware® program which allows customers to leverage Wonderware InTouch Compact Edition Software on their favorite CE hardware platform.  The ‘Powered by Wonderware®’ program introduces a new path to market for InTouch Compact Edition. Working with hardware vendors, Wonderware has certified certain manufacturer’s hardware offerings as "Powered by Wonderware" devices. Vendor hardware will have a unique part number (and be identified with a Powered by Wonderware sticker) which will deliver to the customer a product with the InTouch Compact Edition 10.1 runtime installed (but not licensed).

The customer will then purchase an InTouch Compact Edition license from Wonderware North in the same manner as a full InTouch license is purchased today. The customer will receive a paper license key, and will activate the InTouch Compact Edition 10.1 image using an automated web site. 

To date, several leading manufacturers have already signed up and been certified.  To learn about your favorite vendor, contact Wonderware North and we can guide you in the process of ordering your Powered By Wonderware system.

To learn more about this new offering, contact Wonderware North at 877-900-4996 or e-mail us at sales@wonderwarenorth.com.

Leveraging Microsoft Reporting Services within Information Server

A powerful reporting tool you may not know you already own.

The Wonderware Information Server offers a single web solution for aggregating and presenting plant production and performance data over the web or company intranet. This enables employees across the enterprise to make better informed decisions, based on accurate, real-time information from multiple Wonderware and non-Wonderware data sources. The full spectrum of Wonderware generated content, including process graphics, trends and reports, is made available on a single web site.

Leveraging Microsoft SharePoint and Web Part technology, the Wonderware Information Server is designed for non-programmers. Plant personnel with a minimum of training can install, configure and implement a highly effective plant information web site without the need for custom web programming. Additionally, content from the Wonderware Information Server can be incorporated into other web portals via web parts, making your existing corporate portal more informative and valuable.

Integration of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services and advanced new data retrieval modes from the Wonderware Historian make the Wonderware Information Server a particularly powerful production reporting tool. Now, large amounts of process data can be aggregated into highly informative production reports tailored to the information needs of plant personnel. The entire report creation process has been simplified and made less technical. This empowers plant workers to create their own ad hoc reports and also helps plant IT personnel tasked with building reports to be more efficient..

What are Microsoft SQL 2005 Reporting Services?

SQL Server Reporting Services is a comprehensive, server-based solution that enables the creation, management, and delivery of both traditional, paper-oriented reports and interactive, Web-based reports. Imbedded in Microsoft SQL Server (part of the Wonderware Historian), Reporting Services combines the data management capabilities of SQL Server and Microsoft Windows Server with familiar and powerful Microsoft Office System applications to deliver real-time information to support daily operations and drive decisions.

SQL Server Reporting Services supports a wide range of common data sources, such as OLE DB and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), as well as multiple output formats such as familiar Web browsers and Microsoft Office System applications. Using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework, developers can leverage the capabilities of their existing information systems and connect to custom data sources, produce additional output formats, and deliver to a variety of devices. SQL Server Reporting Services supports the full reporting life cycle, including:

• Report authoring - Report developers can create reports to be published to a report server by using Microsoft or other design tools that use Report Definition Language (RDL), an XML-based industry standard used to define reports.
• Report management - Report definitions, folders, and resources are published and managed as a Web service. Managed reports can be executed either on demand or on a specified schedule, and are cached for consistency and performance. New in SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, administrators can use SQL Server Management Studio to organize reports and data sources, schedule report execution and delivery, and track reporting history.
• Report delivery - SQL Server Reporting Services supports both on-demand (pull) and event-based (push) delivery of reports. Users can view reports in a Web-based format or in e-mail.
• Report security - SQL Server Reporting Services implements a flexible, role-based security model to protect reports and reporting resources. The product includes extensible interfaces for integrating other security models as well.

When combined with the power and flexibility of the Wonderware Information Server, SQL Server Reporting Services makes a powerful and easy to use reporting tool to generate reports that can be pushed out to users via the Wonderware Information Server Web Portal.  To learn more about this new application, contact Wonderware North at 877-900-4996 or e-mail us at sales@wonderwarenorth.com.

Add Value to any Legacy Systems

Leverage the Data and Systems you already have to drive Plant Performance.

Almost every company we speak with has an interest in gaining a better understanding of their process, in implementing methods to improve the reliability of equipment, or in understanding methods to increase equipment uptime, etc. The challenge is - how to implement this capability across the myriad of systems that already exist in the plant. You may have several different existing HMI systems in place or you may have varying brands of control equipment so the effort of employing some of the above capability may be too large of an integration and customization challenge to get a project moving. How do you accurately track and report on production when part of the information exists in a custom relational database, and part exists in an existing HMI and yet another subset of information exists in some sort of proprietary panel and the option of replacing these existing systems is just not viable?

The answer is the Wonderware System Platform. You may be familiar with this technology as Wonderware's Object Oriented system that allows users to implement any kind of capability (Basic HMI, SCADA, Geo-SCADA, MES, ERP Integration) within one single environment but I bet that your perception is that to make use of this offering, you would need to abandon what you already have. This is simply not true and it does not matter if your existing systems are products that are competitive to Wonderware offerings. The System Platform can be implemented on top of your existing infrastructure and can actually extend the value of those existing systems.

Normalizing your Existing Systems:

The key to the Wonderware System Platform is its ability to connect to virtually any systems (PLCs, DCS, HMIs, relational databases, etc.) and model the data from those systems as a single data model built in the image of your working plant. This single data model (the plant model) becomes the "glue" that ties together all of the information from your disparate systems together into a single, common, normalized model that you can then leverage to start to understand the complete workings of your facility. This ability allows you to manage information form multiple sources as part of a single system. Once the model is created it can be used to:

• Normalize several disparate alarm systems into a common alarming model that accounts for all areas of the plant in within a single system. View and work with these alarms in a common front-end solution.
• Normalize data collection into one common data repository so that you can easily create reports that leverage data from multiple systems and structures without endless data transformations and and intermediate data tables.
• Provide access to all of this varied information through a common HMI front end or through a common web portal.
• Begin to use this information as part of a new tracking and tracing application or a new performance monitoring application or perhaps to drive condition based work orders in your CMMS system - all by extending your new plant model.

Adding the Capability you need to Improve your Plant

So the System Platform can easily be added over top of any of your other existing systems to normalize all of the disparate data, alarms, data collection, etc. so that this information can be managed as a single system (without the need to change or remove any of your existing infrastructure). This ability to leverage data from existing InTouch Systems or other non-Wonderware based systems allows users make use of previously disparate data to drive capability like basic production tracking or equipment performance monitoring, etc.

By adding objects into your new Plant Model that were built for activities like track and trace, or downtime tracking, or condition-based work order generation, users can begin to gain access to information that can truly transform their manufacturing processes. This capability is unlike any other system on the market. From a single development environment working on a single system, users can communicate to virtually any other system, extract data into a single data model and begin to add MES capability.

• Performance Monitoring - Extend your new Plant Model with a standard Wonderware generated equipment template object and use a simple trigger (from your existing systems) to collect and store detailed downtime information or real-time OEE from your plant systems. View the stored process data in the context of your production to allow detailed analysis that can improve operations.
• CMMS Connectivity - Extend your new Plant Model with objects that allow you to connect to your CMMS System (SAP PM, Maximo, Datastream, Indus, etc. and drive condition based work orders from real-time meter data. Allows operators to gain visibility into live work orders via their plant floor HMI terminals.
• Tracking and Tracing - Extend your new Plant Model with a standard Wonderware generated equipment template object and use a simple trigger (from your existing systems) to collect and store production information . View the stored process data in the context of your production to allow detailed analysis that can improve operations. This capability could be layered into your plant in just a couple of days.
• Corporate Energy Management - Extend your new Plant Model to be able to provide detailed usage/cost information around electricity, natural gas, chilled water, oil, compressed air, etc. and correlate this information to production lines and products running on lines.
• More...Again, simply by leveraging the information that already exists around your plant, you can start to gain access to actionable information.

So if you have a need to gain access to information that could transform your manufacturing environment, there is a way to easily start the process and it does not require a change from the systems you already have working.  To learn more about this capability, contact Wonderware North at 877-900-4996 or e-mail us at sales@wonderwarenorth.com.

Why Settle for a "Closest Fit"?

Ergonomic: 1. (used with a sing. verb) The applied science of equipment design, as for the workplace, intended to maximize productivity by reducing operator fatigue and discomfort.

For years, STRONGARM Designs has been the leader in ergonomic plant floor computing systems. Our model has always been to not just provide a hardened station for a plant floor terminal but to create a solution that meets industrial requirements while also taking into account the operators using the system, the environment in which it will be used and the application itself. When these additional aspects of a project are included in the thinking of a system, the result is a custom solution that meets the specific needs of the project and people rather than the traditional "closest fit" options that were typically available.

That sounds interesting so let me see your product catalogue...We hear that with new customers but if you read more closely to what I wrote above, it will become clear that there can be no catalogue for items that are designed specifically to meet your needs. What we do have are examples. Our conversations with customers often start by pointing customers to a similar system that has already been designed and proven. From there, a dialogue starts to really understand your application and needs. These conversations can result in simple tweaking to an existing design to a completely new system that was built ground-up to meet your needs.

But I need something quickly...Certainly it takes a bit more time to design and build a complete system than to buy a "closest fit" solution from a catalogue but we think you will be surprised at just how small the real difference will be. We have perfected the customized solution approach and our manufacturing operation is systemized and automated to move things from conception to reality with relative ease. Additionally, the solution you get is tested and complete so you need only mount it and run wires and everything else is done. The "closest fit" solution still requires mounting of displays, keyboards, and electronics along with the need to cut out holes and conduit fittings. So the closest fit solution takes your engineering, fabrication and installation resources to work and in the end, your are still left with something that is just close to what you wanted.

So take a minute and consider some of the scenarios below and call us so we can start a discussion based on a proven example. We think you will like what we can provide since it should be exactly what you need in the time that you need it.

Form and Function

• Enclosures are designed to meet your space dimensions leaving minimal waste of space.
• Enclosures are designed to fit your mounting requirements exactly.
• Enclosures can have any cutout or option added that is required to fulfill your project needs (pushbuttons, lights, biometric scanners, card readers, bar code readers, wireless devices, etc.)
• Enclosures can be built to suit any environment (dust tight, general purpose, washdown, hot washdown, hazardous, outdoor, etc.)
• Enclosures are built to consider cleanability and maintenance.

Adjustability

• Ability to move displays side to side and rotate the display for perfect viewing at the location the unit needs to be used.
• Ability to tilt the display for perfect viewing angle.
• Ability to adjust the unit up and down to meet height requirements of each operator (via adjustable arms or posts).

Mobility

• Perhaps your application requires more than fixed location repositioning and requires movement from work cell to work cell.
• Tethered Power for mobility through a wide radius from the power source or Ethernet connection.
• Tethered Power at the work cell but the ability to move from cell to cell without shutting down.
• Completely mobile operations for a full shift.
• Completely mobile operations over multiple shifts.
• Mobile power options for use in a completely sealed and air-tight environment.

Meeting your Exact Needs

• Special Mounting Solutions.
• Completely new designs.
• Hybrid solutions.
• Integration of a wide variety of computing platforms and peripherals.
• Anything you can think of, let us work to make your perfect solution.

To learn more about our capabilities, contact Wonderware North at 877-900-4996 or e-mail us at sales@wonderwarenorth.com.

Why Consider Thin Clients?

No more plant floor upgrades, no more viruses, no more obsolete hardware.  The power of Thin Clients.

Never worry about plant floor computers becoming obsolete - Never worry about plant floor software upgrades - Reduce the chance of viruses - Increase security - Reduce energy costs...this is what Thin Clients will do for you.

Terminal services allows us to deploy plant floor clients (HMI, MES, ERP, Quality, etc.) that have no operating system. These Thin Clients connect to sessions on a server that is running a server based operating system and as such, never require software upgrades on the local node. From the server end, the computers are running Windows Server 2003 - a mature and stable operating system that has been in use for years. This architecture provides the best of both worlds. Stable tested operating systems on servers and plant floor systems that never become obsolete, almost never fail, never get viruses, have no security issues and never need upgrading.

But moving to this environment means throwing out all the computers we already have in place, correct? Simply said, the answer is no. You can leave the computers you have now in place and not migrate to a full thin client until they actually fail. By using ThinManager from ACP, you can convert your existing plant computers to a thin client and run its applications from a 2003 Server Platform. Once the computer fails, it can be easily swapped out for a true thin client and the move to an operating system-less plant floor is on its way.

The Power of Thin Clients

• True Plant floor thin clients have no hard drive or moving parts so they almost never fail and never need upgrades.
• Using WinTMC, you can turn traditional plant floor computers into ACP enabled thin clients so you can move to this architecture now and slowly replace these computers as they fail with true thin clients - as you want to and need to.
• Never worry about plant floor PCs becoming obsolete again and never worry about operating system upgrades to the plant floor systems.
• Manage your entire facility centrally as a set of clients, servers, users, and applications.

How do Thin Clients Save Money and Support Green Initiatives?

As energy prices rise, reducing consumption becomes an important way to cut costs. Increasingly companies are turning to Thin Clients as part of the solution. A side benefit? The lifespan of a Thin Clients is two or three TIMES the lifespan of a PC, and when it finally is replaced there are far fewer parts to dispose of.

Energy Savings - Consider that most blade servers consume roughly the same energy as a PC, and then realize that with Thin Client technology one of these servers can host from 15 to 100 Thin Clients. That means that for every one server you add you can replace up to 100 PCs with Thin Clients, consuming, by some estimates, 90 percent less energy. All without having to change any of your existing applications!

If you could replace 1,000 PCs, in a year you could probably save over $10,000 in energy cost alone. This does not even take into account the reduced cooling requirements - you do your own calculations for CO2 emissions savings...

Waste Not... Another important part of "Green Computing" is not throwing away computers. Most IT departments consider it a success when they can keep a PC for 3 years, but ACP has customers who are still running the same Thin Client hardware they installed in 1999 - almost 10 years ago! The increased lifespan not only saves replacement costs but also greatly reduces the amount of hardware that has to be decommissioned.

The reason for the increased lifespan is a byproduct of the technology. All a Thin Client has to do is display the screens generated on the server and receive the user input. The hardware required to do this is essentially the same whether it is showing an old application running on Windows NT 4.0 or the latest HMI programs running on Windows 2008. So while the servers may have been upgraded 3 times in the past 10 years the Thin Clients can remain unchanged.

To learn more about this product, contact Wonderware North at 877-900-4996 or e-mail us at sales@wonderwarenorth.com.

Stop Manual Data Collection

Are you still spending time collecting data manually, recording it on paper, passing it along to someone to record in Excel and then turning that data into reports that must be passed around?

There are not many plant personnel that would argue against the value of having immediate access to detailed plant data in the context of their manufacturing processes or key process parameters. That said, we still visit many plants where the process of collecting their most critical process data is left to manual collection or collection into proprietary flat files that are not built for serious reporting. It can take days or weeks to pull manual data together with information from flat files to create the reports that we need to run our plants and often, this data is susceptible to error as it is recorded and re-recorded. Plus, think of all of the zero value add labor that is invested in this process.

Being able to understand key process parameters during a batch run along with critical alarms can be a very telling report. Having access to basic downtime information per shift or per machine can go a long way to helping increase uptime and reducing cost. In both cases, the need to easily correlate different types of information are critical but more often than not, companies forgo this kind of analysis because they would need to try to cobble the information together from several different data sources using several different data formats. The engineering effort to create and maintain these reports is too large, so companies just try to make do with manual data collection and comparisons to basic SCADA system trend charts or alarm grids.

This is not necessary. You can install a true, high-speed process historian for minimal cost and have it installed, running, and collecting all of your plant data in less than a day. Once installed, you have access to discrete, time based, and string based information from a single, accurate source. Additionally, this data can be viewed via a built-in web portal and can be turned into reports using simple, off-the-shelf tools.

The Wonderware Historian is designed to collect a wide variety of plant data, at full resolution and very high data rates, ensuring that decision-makers at all levels will have the data they need to drive vital productivity improvement initiatives. The Wonderware Historian is hundreds of times faster than standard database systems and saves data in a small fraction of the hard drive space. Advanced data retrieval modes enable plant personnel to quickly generate the detailed, focused information needed to accelerate the decision-making process and provide access to the right information when a problem is identified or an opportunity uncovered.

High Level Benefits of the Wonderware Historian

• Designed for all industrial manufacturing and infrastructure operations.
• Generate actionable information for faster, more accurate decision-making.
• Unify information from multiple manufacturing and HMI/SCADA systems.
• Scalable for any sized application.
• Easy correlation of time-based, discrete/event-based, string-based information.
• Easy installation, immediate benefits (Can be up and running in less than a day).

Wonderware Patchfixes, Device Integration Releases & Tech Notes

Are you a member of Wonderware Customer First?  Wonderware Customer First members gain access to a wealth of online tools and services to help you be successful wherever you are in your system lifecycle.

The Wonderware Developer Network offers extensive resources and a venue for online collaboration between Customer First members, integrators, 3rd party suppliers and Wonderware subject matter experts.

If you are interested in learning more about Customer First, call us at 215-675-5800 or e-mail us at support@wonderwarenorth.com.

Registered Wonderware Customer Support subscribers can download the following Wonderware device integration releases: (www.wonderware.com/Support/MMI):

• None at this time

Registered users can now download the following Wonderware software patchfix releases (www.wonderware.com/Support/MMI):

• IntelaTrac 3.2.3 (Hotfix 10)
• IntelaTrac 3.2.3 (Hotfix 9)

The following Tech Notes and Tech Alerts are now available:

• Tech Note 679 - IntelaTrac 3.2.3 (Hotfix 10) Release Notes and Installation Instructions
• Tech Note 678 - Wonderware IntelaTrac Trends using Wonderware Historian Data
• Tech Note 677 - IntelaTrac 3.2.3 (Hotfix 9) Release Notes and Installation Instructions

Registered users can view and download these and other Tech Notes from the Wonderware Technical Support website.