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Facility Energy Management Center Stage for New Partnership Sign Up to receive Daily News Alerts in your E-mail Inbox
Posted on Thursday, February 28, 2008 5:31:00 PM |
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With impeccable timing, Wonderware, a unit of Invensys, and Echelon Corp. today announced an integration effort aimed at sharpening manufacturers' energy management capabilities.Echelon and Munich Software in Germany have developed a technology interface that enables Wonderware System Platform 3.0 software and Echelon's i.LON SmartServer to work together to deliver a single software platform for real-time operations management functions, which, the companies said, lets users achieve energy savings, higher levels of safety, and lower maintenance costs.With the price of oil marching past $100 per barrel this week, news of technology that provides a way to monitor and control energy usage may be music to manufacturers' ears.The pairing enables manufacturers to integrate their facilities management systems with their industrial automation systems. Through that integration, they can "receive all the energy signals to help manage their energy usage" in one cohesive environment, regardless of how distributed their operations are, said John Bishop, Wonderware senior applications consultant, in an interview with Managing Automation. "As the cost of energy increases, companies are more aware of that overhead as a component they can save energy from," he said.In the event of a work shift change, for example, manufacturers can now manage automated lighting, heating, and other energy-consuming systems via one central scheduling scheme, rather than synchronizing two separate management systems, explained Michael Haedrich, president of Munich Software, in the same interview. Manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic are watching their energy consumption closely. European companies typically are further down the energy-saving path and are now focused more on monitoring and controlling their usage, while North American companies are still searching for ways to save energy, the executives said. "If you look at the initiatives going on right now, energy is a huge focus," Bishop said, "Green buildings are a huge focus. Energy management is part of that."The Wonderware-Echelon integration supports installation and remote deployments, and lets users leverage the features of the Wonderware System Platform 3.0 software. The integration is flexible enough to support wireless technology, on both the device level and the IT level, Bishop said. "We see wireless becoming a bigger and bigger component in industrial facilities," he added. Generally, systems integrators with user domain knowledge and an understanding of how to operate the Wonderware platform are needed to develop the user applications for the integrated i.LON SmartServer and Wonderware System Platform 3.0.Wonderware unveiled System Platform 3.0 late in 2006, touting the platform as a single architecture that bundles human-machine interface, SCADA, MES, and manufacturing intelligence applications to make it easier for customers to license and deploy the software across dispersed plant operations. According to Wonderware's Web site, the platform supports consistency across industrial operations and manufacturing facilities, and promotes sustainable production and operational performance improvements. The platform works on top of most existing systems and is built on the industry-standards-based ArchestrA real-time, service oriented architecture (SOA) technology. The Internet-based i.LON SmartServer remotely controls, monitors, and manages any electronic device on a network, according to Echelon's Web site.In a statement, Anders Axelsson, Echelon's senior vice president of sales and marketing, said, "Building owners, facility managers, industrial plant operators, retail chains, and city personnel will all find the solution easy to use and quick to install." The three companies are co-marketing the technology, according to Bishop, who added that Wonderware is "still looking at opportunities for a tighter relationship" with Echelon and Munich. "Our business relationships are becoming closer with companies that have domain knowledge that is needed to provide a total solution."
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