Register Now for OpsManage'10

October 18th to the 22nd at the Peabody Hotel in Orlando Florida.  Attend the North American OpsManage'10 Conference and Expo and meet the experts and the latest in IOM and Wonderware Technology.  The time to register is NOW!

Over 98% of last year's OpsManage’09 attendees gave high ratings for the value and experience gained. To add even more value this year, we will be focusing on today’s key industry challenges and solution results centering around four main excellence themes that lead to Operations Excellence:

• Control Excellence
• Asset Excellence
• Productivity Excellence
• Environmental & Safety Excellence

What will I find at OpsManage'10?

An Industry Trade Show that does not overpower you with endless PowerPoint presentations but instead allows ample time for you to explore an always-open Expo Center filled with Wonderware and IOM product demonstrations manned by technology experts.  Freely investigate solutions and dive deeply into products and services that you could leverage in your organization to drive sustainable improvements.

The ability to schedule personalized meetings with product, industry, and implementation experts to discuss projects and initiatives and the technology that can be leveraged to achieve your goals.  And then the ability to walk into the expo and see that exact technology demonstrated just for you and your team.

The ability to meet with members of our extensive Partner Ecosystem and the chance to discuss their capabilities as they relate to the projects you are undertaking in your own company.

The chance to see how our Ecosystem Partners leverage IOM Technology with live demonstrations of system implementations.

The Chance to interact with the entire range of Product and Vertical Market experts from Invensys Operations Management in one, single location.

How Can I Learn More?

Add the link to the OpsManage'10 web site to your favorites and sign up for Newsletter Updates for the event.

• Check out the Operations Management Open Contest
• Make sure to ask your local Account Executive about the event

We hope to see you this year in Florida at OpsManage'10.  If you have questions or need assistance, call us at 877-900-4996 or e-mail us at sales@wonderwarenorth.com for additional information.

Getting More out of Your Packaging Lines

Packaging is the last manufacturing step that adds value to the consumer product - how can you make sure you have visibility into the performance of this critical step of your process?

Based on the White Paper - Achieving Value in Packaging Line Operations  by Yves Dufort (Industry Manager and Business Director, Food & Beverage, CPG) - In the packaging industry, direct material typically accounts for over half of the consumer unit cost. What this means is by the time the process hits packaging, the majority of the direct costs are buried in the product. Any defects or product give-away translates into pure profit loss.

Since equipment vendors have to guarantee certain performance levels to their customers (unit rate per unit of time), very often they are reluctant to change their control system program. Because most packaging lines are an assembly of different pieces of equipment from different OEMs, it becomes very difficult for end users to fully understand how the total line is performing and how different issues for each piece of equipment can impact upstream and downstream equipment performance.

Several Surveys by Packaging World Magazine show that typical manufacturing companies will have packaging lines with the following characteristics:

• 50% of all packaging lines do not have a common network between equipment
• 50% of all packaging lines have between two to four control system vendors
• 50% of all packaging lines have between two to seven pieces of equipment or machines
• 50% of all packaging lines do not have a common standard to exchange data
• Machine vendors/OEMs typically do not account for a supervisory system; only production
  data is typically used

These disconnected islands of automation pose difficulties for customers trying to reduce delivery times, startup times, changeover times, product loss, repair times and downtime.  As manufacturers are also pushing to have more packaging line flexibility and increased throughput, there becomes a great need to be able to connect the islands and understand performance leveraging a common platform that enables continuous improvement.

To make improvements and measure progress, one needs to baseline the ‘as-is’ situation. Only with a baseline can personnel monitor improvements or issues. Performance ‘base lining’ can be as simple as measuring a machine vendors’ equipment uptime and downtime or it can extend into measuring composite indicators like overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).  Additionally, the platform that enables improvement must be able to provide the correct information to different stakeholders in the context that they require.  Unfortunately, today, most organizations have no systems in place to provide this information to those that need it.

The line operator and their supervisor will generally want real-time, actionable information since their goal is to ensure that packaging-line assets deliver products at planned rates. Quality personnel will want to minimize give-away while maintaining product quality attributes while responding to process drifts before defects are produced. Production planners seek to optimize the supply chain while respecting the order fulfillment plan. Maintenance staff wants to maintain asset availability at all times, which is a challenge since there can be many different machine vendors or OEMs, all having different ways to diagnose problems.  Each of these disciplines requires real-time data collection and analysis to perform their part of the improvement process.

In the end, connecting the islands and exposing the information to various stakeholders is part of the process of driving operations value through continuous process improvement.  These processes require a sustainable manufacturing platform to enable improvement.

Continues Process Improvement Value Process

• Define Value
• Implement Value
• Measure Value
• Realize Value
• Sustain Value

Industry leaders engage in this process to drive operational excellence.  By closing the loop between operators and supervisors, tying together their islands of packaging automation, generating data that supports their improvement initiatives, and leveraging a common software platform that supports all of these items, best in class companies focus on a continuous improvement framework that will drive value for many years.  To learn more about this process, read our White Paper - Achieving Value in Packaging Line Operations  by Yves Dufort (Industry Manager and Business Director, Food & Beverage, CPG).

If you want to learn more about driving more value from your packaging lines, request our white paper at 877-900-4996 or e-mail us at sales@wonderwarenorth.com.

Wonderware Intelligence

Wonderware Intelligence Wins Control Engineering’s Reader Choice Award for Best Dashboard 2010.

Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence (EMI), or simply Manufacturing Intelligence (MI), is a term which applies to software used to bring a corporation's manufacturing-related data together from many sources for the purposes of reporting, analysis, visual summaries, and passing data between enterprise-level and plant-floor systems. As data is combined from multiple sources, it can be given a new structure or context that will help users find what they need regardless of where it came from. The primary goal is to turn large amounts of manufacturing data into real knowledge and drive business results based on that knowledge.

Wonderware Intelligence is that tool.  Intelligence allows you to access, aggregate, contextualize (provide relationships) and visualize your plant data, whether it is from Wonderware or other sources. Built on top of Wonderware System Platform, Wonderware Intelligence creates an information framework to take both Wonderware and non-Wonderware data sources (such as an OSIsoft PI Server database, SAP ERP, Quality data, LIMS data, etc.), and format, store, and present that data in an intuitive dashboard, allowing you to make immediate decisions on your plant’s performance. Data is updated according to your needs, to provide you with a current view of plant asset utilization; product quality and yields; throughput; or labor, resource, and energy consumption.

Wonderware Intelligence software transforms data and information from multiple sources into business intelligence by aggregating process and production data in real time and adding contextual elements, such as equipment, product, work orders, material and personnel. This information context enables end users to gain insights into the root causes of problems and understand how production events are related — another unique benefit.

The formatted information is saved and optimized for fast reporting and analysis, allowing end users to create and publish dashboards using the Wonderware Intelligence Analytics Client into a wide variety of web portals. Users can also configure customized metrics without programming. Ask questions such as:

• How much product is available per site today?
• How many work orders contained a specific raw material ingredient last week?
• How does Line or Plant OEE compare against corporate goals?
• How does improved workforce automation impact equipment or plant performance?

Create Metrics Specific to your Organization

Wonderware Intelligence creates PERSONALIZED Key Performance Indicators, allowing you to view the metrics that are important to you to determine plant performance or adherence to operating goals. Use Wonderware Intelligence to determine uptime over plants, by specific lines, shifts and personnel. Look at quality plant by plant. Perform ad-hoc analysis of any data that is stored in any of your plant applications, whether it’s in a historian, MES, LIMS, or SAP ERP system. These analyses are published in a dashboard format, using the Intelligence Analytics Client, allowing you to share your findings over the web for greater collaboration.

If you are interested in learning more about Control Magazine's Dashboard product of 2010, contact Wonderware North at 877-900-4996 or e-mail us at sales@wonderwarenorth.com.

Mobile Systems for Any Application

With a recent doubling of our manufacturing space, STRONGARM continues to grow and provide innovation and value to customers needing specialized, ergonomic computing systems.

In many areas of an industrial environment, having a fixed computing station is not feasible or the need for an operator to be able to travel with his systems throughout a process area requires mobility. Perhaps your process requires the operator to interface with several tools (scanners, test equipment, biometric readers, etc.) while entering information in a computing system that allows for mobility. For any of these applications, Mobile Computing Stations can be invaluable. STRONGARM is the leader in mobile computing stations for industrial environments.

From basic Pedestal Stations on casters to systems incorporating computers, wireless Ethernet, printers, scanners, scale systems, and Lithium Ion Batteries for untethered computing, STRONGARM has designed mobile stations for many different needs in many different industrial environments. These systems allow users to place computing solutions wherever they are needed by operators and are perfect for Quality Stations, Plant Floor ERP access, MES solutions and more.

Features of STRONGARM Mobile Solutions:

• Stainless steel or painted construction
• Integrated LCD displays with many size offerings
  Integrated keyboards with a variety of pointing device options
• Wheel selections specific to floor surfaces and environmental needs
• Integrated computers or thin clients
• Designed around specific use requirements and built as a finished, integrated and tested product
• Tethered options for localized mobility vs. completely untethered for complete mobile operation

Other Options to Consider:

• Integrated sampling equipment for use in mobile quality stations
• On-board battery or UPS for untethered operation for up to 8 hours
• Scanner integration
• Label Printer Integration
• Wireless Ethernet capability
• Biometric security integration
• Scale integration
• More...

Remember that STRONGARM specializes in customized solutions so if you don't see something above that meets your exact needs, call Wonderware North at 877-900-4996 or e-mail us at sales@wonderwarenorth.com.

Desktop Production Alerts

Stop Hunting for Manufacturing Operations Information and Simply leverage Software Toolbox's Desktop Tools - FactoryWidgets.

Along with weather, news, and stock trackers, FactoryWidgets conveniently reside on your PC desktop. They deliver easy-to-read, Wonderware-based live indicators of data such as production rates, energy usage, order goal attainment, yield, safety, and asset utilization — to name just a few.

FactoryWidgets leverage your investments in Wonderware software applications. The WidgetServer component (included) is lightweight, installs in minutes and connects to existing data sources. FactoryWidgets are secure and read-only. They do not burden your network; updating only when you need them to. Easy to setup and low maintenance, IT teams will find FactoryWidgets honor and support their security and management practices. Users get the data they want, how and when they want, without a need for ongoing IT support.

Features:

• Sits on your PC desktop just like other desktop Widgets
• Configure units of measure and title on each Factory Widget to match your business terminology
• Set colors on each Factory Widget to suit your needs
• Link FactoryWidgets to drill down to detail behind the data
• Suitable for desktop, laptop or shop floor message displays
• Simple setup: no complicated software to install on the client PC; no web browser to open
• Connect to Wonderware data sources locally or throughout your enterprise
• Centrally managed licensing

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

Eliminate Plant Floor PCs

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 and no moving parts allowing us to replace temperamental plant floor PCs with bullet-proof, ruggedized, dumb terminals. These Thin Clients connect to sessions running on servers located in a controlled, managed environment that is running a server based operating system.  As such, these clients never require software upgrades on the local node because they are not running any software.

The Terminal Servers themselves are running Windows Server - a mature and stable operating system that has been in use for years.  These servers run in a controlled environment and it is these machines that will actually run the various sessions that will display on the thin clients.  Your software and projects are loaded on these servers and managed only on these servers.  When a client wants to run an instance of your HMI application (as an example), it connects to the appropriate server and starts an instance of this application.  The client now has complete access to this application just as if it was running locally on a PC.  This architecture provides the best of both worlds. Stable tested operating systems on servers, centrally managed applications, and plant floor systems that never become obsolete, almost never fail, never get viruses, have no security issues and never need upgrading.  If you do have a plant floor client failure, simply grab another client off the shelf, plug it in and in less than two minutes you are up and running again.  It is that simple.

To fully realize the savings of a Terminal Server environment you need the right tools. ACP has responded with ThinManager® Platform 4 which lets you configure, maintain, upgrade and replace client devices on your network quickly and efficiently. Its intuitive Windows Explorer®-like interface provides at-a-glance management of all connected ThinManager-Ready thin clients, PCs running WinTMC, IP cameras and Terminal Servers. Because ThinManager is a thin client enabling technology, each connected ThinManager-Ready thin client device is guaranteed to have the same internal software, assuring uniformity of operation across a wide variety of models.

ThinManager allows you to manage all of your clients, servers, applications, and users from one centralized environment.  If you have not investigated Thin Clients for your manufacturing environment, please take the time to investigate ThinManager.

Key Features and Capabilities

• Manage your entire network from ThinManager by viewing all ThinManager Servers and all Terminal Servers in one tree
• ThinManager allows up to five monitors to be run from one thin client
• Simultaneously connect to two or more Terminal Servers and run the applications you need from any designated client
• Automatic Load Balancing with SmartSession
• Have multiple sessions running anywhere on the ThinManager network to be viewed through one thin client monitor
• Leverage Term Secure to allow a users Applications to "Follow Them" around a facility at any client node
• Automatic Failover
• Less Power Consumption
• Less Maintenance Costs
• Much Much More...

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):

• Wonderware® DAServer Runtime Components 3.0 SP1
• Wonderware ABCIP Version 4.1 Service Pack 1 DIObjects
• Wonderware ABTCP 2.0 DIObjects
• Wonderware ABTCP DAServer 2.0
• Wonderware FactorySuite Gateway 2.0
• Wonderware MBTCP 2.0 DIObjects
• Wonderware MBTCP DAServer 2.0
• Wonderware S7 DAS Tag Creator 1.0 SP1
• Wonderware S7SIMATIC DAServer 2.0
• Wonderware S7SimaticNet Version 2.0 DIObjects
• Wonderware SIDirect DAServer 2.0
• Wonderware SIDirect DIObjects 2.0
• Wonderware® ABCIP DAServer 4.1 Service Pack 1
  

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

• Historian Client 10 SP1 ISO
• Wonderware® Corporate Energy Management Application (CEM) 1.0 - ISO file
• Wonderware® InTouch® HMI Version 10.1 Service Pack 2 Patch 01
• Wonderware Application Server 3.1 SP2, Patch 01
• Wonderware® Intelligence Software Version 1.0 with SP1
• Wonderware® MES 4.0 ISO File
• Wonderware Information Server 4.0 ISO

The following Tech Notes and are now available:

• Tech Note 709 - Recovering from Same-Server Standalone DAServer and DIObjects Running on the Same Node
• Tech Note 708 - Enabling MES 4.0 Operating System (OS) Group Security
• Tech Note 706 - Migrating AFWeb Configuration from IndustrialSQL Server 9 to Historian 10
• Tech Note 705 - Wonderware Application Server Migration Tips
• Tech Note 704 - Configuring ActiveFactory Reporting from Wonderware Information Server (WIS)
• Tech Note 703 - Installing Wonderware Information Server (WIS) 4.0 on a Non-System Drive
• Tech Note 702 - Rainbow Sentinel Setup Fails

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