Having spent the last few years building up its product portfolio through acquisition and pouring money into R&D, GE Fanuc Automation Americas Inc., recently revealed a detailed product roadmap that is based on an open, layered architecture.
At the end of this year, the company will release the Proficy Platform, a data hub for managing real-time manufacturing operations. The architecture, which was announced last year as a strategic initiative, unites the company's disparate plant floor technologies including MES, HMI, SCADA, historian and control technologies using OPC's Unified Architecture and ISA S95 standards. Underneath it all is the Proficy Server, a centralized hub, and the Proficy Console, a real-time information portal with multiple data-model views into operations.
GE Fanuc has been quite acquisitive over the last few years , purchasing Mountain Systems and Intellution to expand its process-industry offerings with MES and HMI/SCADA products, respectively. It also bought embedded systems companies VMIC and RAMiX, to bolster development of its PACSystems controller family. Now, with key technology pieces in place, GE Fanuc is executing the vision laid out last year.
"We've tried to simplify the way those things get delivered to the customers," explained Harry Merkin, GE Fanuc's director of commercial programs. "It is an open and layered concept ... you can have it all integrated or take whatever pieces you [need]. Regardless of which layer you put in it will be all open and communicating through S95," he said in an interview with Managing Automation.
The final piece of the puzzle comes in the form of the Proficy Enterprise Connector. Due in the third quarter, it will provide a real-time bi-directional connection to SAP's ERP through S95 and Business-to-Manufacturing Markup Language (B2MML) schemas.
Many of the major automation vendors, including Siemens, Invensy and Rockwell Automation are embarking upon similar strategies to unite real-time plant operations with the enterprise -- specifically SAP. Delivery of the Proficy Platform was slowed by a year-long transition that combined the company's hardware and software groups under Bill Estep, vice president of the automation solutions business. The company has at least doubled its investment in technology development to also unify roadmaps and provide customers with intelligent production solutions based on their individual needs, GE Fanuc officials said.
One area that customers have been concerned about is the company's HMI/SCADA move-forward strategy, given the overlap of GE Fanuc's Cimplicity software with iFIX, which came with the Intellution acquisition. The company is currently developing a common SCADA engine -- based on the two products -- to be released next year that will include new graphical editors and an expanded block library.
In 2007, an integrated HMI/SCADA platform for operation, supervisory control and analytics will roll out, officials said. However, existing Cimplicity and iFIX products will continue to be supported, Merkin said.
GE Fanuc developed the Proficy Platform to help manufacturers increase productivity, meet regulatory mandates and reduce overall operational costs. And, the company used its "Discover Series" recent user conference to give customers the first glimpse of some of Proficy's new data management techniques and plant-wide production management and controller strategies.
One of the key issues manufacturers need -- on which Proficy is expected to deliver -- is visibility into operations. "The correct tool, whether it be high-speed data acquisition, Proficy Plant applications, Proficy Real-Time Information Portal or others, can allow companies to identify hidden problems and subsequently solve them," said GE Fanuc customer Rick Merritt of Procter & Gamble, in a statement.