Adroit Technologies, the global market supplier of Proudly South African scada software has announced the release of its next-generation supervisory control and data acquisition software (scada), Version 6.0. At the forefront of scada development, Adroit 6.0 sports a new user interface (UI) built solidly on the company's pioneering .Net visualisation framework, VIZNET. Simultaneously, the company announced its manufacturing execution systems (MES) strategy going forward.
According to Dave Wibberley, managing director, "Adroit Technologies is taking the lead in offering a solutions focused suite of products to meet the most demanding requirements of industry. With the release of the VIZNET Industrial Portal along with the various modules means Adroit Technologies now offers its partners and customers the capability of delivering solutions covering HMI, Reporting, Business Intelligence and full MES capability."
Mike Lamusse, technology director for Adroit says, "VIZNET is the culmination of over 30 man years work that delivers an Internet capable, smart client, built on Microsoft's .Net framework, to the Adroit scada product. It basically sets us up as the leading HMI vendor in this field."
Adroit Version 6.0 includes the new VIZNET powered UI as an alternative to the classic UI and brings a host of new features to market. Amongst these is server side data security that provides safe individual data elements and/or controls on forms, roaming profiles, OEM extensibility, improved CAD-like drawing tools and product support for Windows controls, and the provision of hosting third party or legacy ActiveX controls. Powerful product enhancements to the system include scripting at the graphic form and server levels using the new Microsoft programming language C# or VB.NET.
On upgrading to the full VIZNET Industrial Portal product, extended direct connectivity to third party data sources such as OLE DB, Web Services, OPC as well iFix and iHistorian are also available.
Improved market versatility comes from Adroit 6.0's ability to connect over low bandwidth networks, this being possible through the use of Smart-Client technology inherited from .Net. Workforce productivity and user efficiency is improved through the integration of documents in a single document interface (SDI).
A major benefit of the new Client application of Version 6.0 is the internationalisation that it provides, whereby all text properties in any form can be dynamically changed based on language settings of the logged-in Users profile. This allows users to build mimics in multiple languages including double-byte character sets used in a lot of the Asian languages.
According to Dave Wibberley, "The most exciting spin-off from the VIZNET development was when we entered into a partnership with NASDAQ listed company; Cimnet, who chose to partner with Adroit Technologies to develop the next version of their manufacturing executing system (MES) software, Factelligence on the VIZNET framework. This gave us entry into the MES world with a highly successful and deeply knowledgeable partner with over 20 years experience in manufacturing systems."
Advantages of the VIZNET development partnership include that fact that Cimnet can now run all of its MES visualisation components like overall equipment efficiency (OEE), machine downtime and production management through VIZNET, accessing aspects of the system separately or as a composite picture across the array of data sources. The have also released a business intelligence module that allows for the integration of HMI, MES and BI which offers opportunities for great productivity gains - all in the same user interface application. With built in interfacing for ERP systems such as SAP, JD Edwards, Factelligence can be found in a number of Fortune 500 manufacturing plants where it forms the critical execution of the manufacturing process.
SDAS, another of Adroit's local early adopter partners have built a GIS and other realtime applications using the VIZNET framework. Bokkie Fourie of SDAS says, "The VIZNET framework allowed us to develop a complete .Net application in record time. All we had to do was concentrate on the value-add portion of our application and VIZNET took care of all the connectivity, security and distribution."
Communication with the VIZNET platform is exclusive to Adroit Version 6.0 and higher. But those with an earlier version of the Adroit scada have not been forgotten. Enhancement to the legacy UI features includes a new, user-friendlier scan dialogue that allows for stopping and starting the current device (PLC) driver without having to open the details dialogue. It also allows for configuring the scan inhibited and output enable for each scan point, and easier viewing and sorting of the scanned tag list.
In addition to the powerful addition of the VIZNET technology, Adroit 6.0's new server features include an SMS driver that allows for the sending and receiving of SMS messages via SMS modems. This new driver does away with the need for the 'User Defined' driver for sending SMS messages and works exclusively through an SMS modem. Together with the new Command agent, this driver is able to receive SMS commands that are passed to one or more command agents for processing. This technology allows for users to communicate in realtime with an Adroit Agent Server, requesting values, changing values, acknowledging alarms are all possible with Version 6.0.
Adroit includes a new timer agent that can be driven manually or automatically by subscribing to another tag in the agent server. The enhanced timer agent negates having to use expressions, recipes and scripts. This component can be configured to operate in one of four modes: on timer for the timing of specific events; on delay timer for the filtering out of specific events; pulse shaper for stretching (shaping) fast events; and pulse generator for generating free running square waves.
The WGP file structure has been changed to contain versioning information, and all agents now have an agent picture associated with them that is saved in the WGP file, so users can track configuration changes more easily.
More functionality has been provided in the Adroit set-up program to allow easier configuration of the agent server service. These include service dependencies to force important Win32 or other third party services to start prior to starting the agent server service. Typically Modbus Plus users would use this make the agent server dependent on the Modbus Plus subsystem device drivers.
Adroit Technologies markets its products worldwide through appointed partners and distributors. Its global customer base consists of multinational organisations including enterprises in the utilities, oil and gas, mining, petrochemical, automotive and environmental sectors. Adroit 6.0 is available immediately.
For more information contact Adroit Technologies, 011 658 8100, [email protected], www.adroit.co.za
| Tel: | +27 11 658 8100 |
| Fax: | +27 11 658 8101 |
| Email: | [email protected] |
| www: | www.adroit.co.za |
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