Schneider Electric has released a new version of StruxureWare Plant Operation Ampla, its innovative operations management and optimisation system (OMS) software. New features include materials and inventory management, conformance to plan, user experience enhancements, and improved systems performance, extensibility and scalability. The latest release reinforces StruxureWare Plant Operation Ampla’s position as the leading technology for integrated production and inventory management, and accounting systems.
Designed primarily for the real-time, demanding continuous process environments of mining, minerals and metals industries (MMM), StruxureWare Plant Operation Ampla version 6.1 helps improve operational performance and reduces cost per ton. Ampla’s innovative operation management functionality delivers real-time visibility of accurate and relevant operations information, so that MMM organisations can improve their competitiveness in global markets and maximise shareholder returns. By driving the optimisation of production: processes, costs and performance, it increases operational efficiencies and can also reduce direct input costs, such as energy consumption.
Inventory management
Ampla 6.1 introduces the concept of material classes and test specifications to its material model. Materials can now be categorised based on the amount of processing they have undergone – for example, from un-prepped ore to blended ore. Material classes can be used together with structured material naming to allow material origins to be readily identified when data from multiple sites are combined. The result is fewer configuration points while delivering greater visibility that is traceable throughout the entire value chain.
Conformance to plan
Ampla 6.1 delivers enhancements to its planning module with easy comparison of planned and actual figures. This powerful tool delivers superior visibility of your processes and performance. Deviations from plan can be highlighted in real-time and provides intuitive presentation to the most effective decision maker, thereby providing an initiation point for root-cause analysis and alteration to 'get back on target' in the shortest time possible.
Improved user experience
Ampla 6.1 improves support for enterprises and larger sites, distributed systems and higher numbers of users accessing data. Aimed at making the creation and management of such systems easier, the introduction of dynamic movement items allows further simplification of configuration, while bulk WebService submission reduces “chattiness” of integrations with other systems and enables improvements in data integrity.
Performance and scalability
Ampla 6.1 enables load distribution through SQL Server Always On, which combined with many other internal optimisations improves performance and scalability. In addition, the expanded use of Web Services and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) reflects an ongoing commitment to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) for customers.
The key benefits of Plant Operation Ampla 6.1 include:
• Reduced modelling effort and complexity.
• Centralised method for storing information or properties common across materials.
• Simple aggregation of like materials, while still being able to identify unique materials and their origins.
• Superior visibility of planned versus actual results acts as an initiation point for root-case analysis.
• Improved availability for both server and client.
• Greater tolerance for slow networks, and more tuning options for complex or unreliable networks.
• Reduced configuration time and cost.
Plant Operation Ampla software is part of the Integrated Planning and Optimisation Solutions (IPOS) in the unified StruxureWare software applications and suites for supporting company-wide performance optimisation. StruxureWare software applications and suites make up a comprehensive platform that gives industrial customers the ability to see, measure, and manage an efficient enterprise from in situ resource-to-market delivery, and across three levels of your business systems landscape: enterprise, operations and control. By addressing the primary challenges of each area, it delivers the right information to the right person, anywhere, anytime. Interoperable applications work with virtually any software, hardware or system.
For more information contact Ntombi Mhangwani, Schneider Electric SA, +27 (0)11 254 6400, ntombi.mhangwani@schneider-electric.com, www.schneider-electric.com
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