Just three months after leaving SAP to become chief software solutions officer at Wonderware, Sudipta Bhattacharya has been named president of the Invensys business unit, succeeding Mike Bradley, who is retiring.
Bradley, 61, has been Wonderware's president since 2002, and under his leadership the company has consistently achieved double-digit growth. Part of that success, industry observers said, stemmed from Bradley's ability to reposition the company from a pure-play HMI/SCADA vendor to a purveyor of operations management products.
"He definitely recognized that HMI is moving from just purely a factory floor application to something that [should be] doing visualization of the enterprise," said ARC Advisory Group analyst Craig Resnick in an interview with Managing Automation.
Wonderware, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, recently took some important strategic steps. After parent company Invensys acquired MES provider Cimnet Inc. earlier this year, Wonderware in September rolled out version 2.0 of its Equipment Performance Module (EPM), based on Cimnet technology, along with a new version of its InTouch HMI software that adds intelligent graphics and Microsoft .NET support, which enables enterprise-wide visualization for a wide range of applications.
The announcements continued in September with a Wonderware Development Studio, an application-modeling and change management tool for IT and engineering teams, and the System Platform 3.0, which provides a set of software services for creating, deploying, and managing real-time applications.
But perhaps the most significant additions to the product portfolio include three new SAP xMII-certified composite applications, the building blocks of the ERP vendor's broad-based initiative to tie factory operations to enterprise systems and data. In February, Wonderware unveiled Real-Time Finance, which aligns process operations with business objectives, and Real-Time Production Execution, an integrated solution for dispatching, executing, and monitoring production. These were followed in August by Wonderware Production Execution 1.0, another xApps composite application for manufacturing execution systems.
Wonderware and SAP have been working cooperatively for a number of years to connect Wonderware's Archestra architecture — which can tie together existing control technologies — with SAP's NetWeaver and xMII (manufacturing integration and intelligence) technology.
In the course of that cooperative effort, observers said, Bradley recognized Bhattacharya's strong understanding of the manufacturing sector and influence on the industry. While at SAP, Bhattacharya spearheaded efforts within the plant-to-enterprise interoperability initiative, which includes support for industry standards, such as ISA-95.
In a statement announcing his retirement, Bradley said he had hand-picked Bhattacharya to succeed him at the helm.
"My time at Wonderware has been some of the most gratifying years of my career to date," Bradley said. "After collaborating with Sudipta as an SAP business partner and later helping to bring him in as my successor, I have every confidence that Wonderware is in capable hands."
Bhattacharya, who served as SAP's senior vice president of solutions management for supply chain, manufacturing, and product lifecycle applications, has the right mix of experience and knowledge to drive an industrial automation company forward, Resnick said.
"Based on Mike Bradley's feelings of where Wonderware needs to be in 10 years from now, it makes sense to point to someone who has a blend of understanding," because ultimately all of the plant floor systems will have to interact with ERP, supply chain, logistics, and other business systems, he said. "You could not put someone in that role who comes from the ERP world but who doesn't have strong grasp of manufacturing concepts," Resnick said.
Bhattacharya, who is attending meetings in London today, was unavailable for comment.