GE Fanuc has strengthened its Proficy operations excellence platform for plant and enterprise management using locally developed software from CSense Systems.
GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms has introduced advanced analytics solutions for its software portfolio that are designed to maximise the information that already exists in production operations, extract knowledge from that information and identify the opportunities to solve potential production issues before they impact the process. The introductions of Proficy Troubleshooter and Proficy Cause+ and the updated release of Proficy Historian version 3.5 combine to provide companies with intelligence they can use to enhance process performance. This powerful combination of solutions enables:
* Better understanding of the causes of variation and problems in the process as well as the realtime impact of the process on production assets.
* Learning the relationships between disconnected data, extracting knowledge and building business cases with benefit estimations.
* Preventing unnecessary conventional ‘alarm bursts’ with more intelligent alarms that work in multivariate space, indicating causes of problems and providing corrective actions.
* Expert knowledge capture for making modelling and expert system technology available to all users.
Step 1 – Proficy Historian 3.5
These solutions provide essentially a three-step process for advanced analysis starting with Proficy Historian 3.5, a powerful plant-wide data historian that collects, archives and distributes tremendous volumes of realtime plant floor process information at extremely high speeds. Built specifically for production and process data acquisition and presentation, Proficy Historian enables users to leverage increased process visibility for better and faster decisions, increased productivity and reduced costs. Proficy Historian is built to store, and more importantly, retrieve production/process data in the way companies need it. This capability enables better responsiveness by quickly providing the granularity of data needed to analyse and solve intense process applications.
Step 2 – Proficy Troubleshooter
The second component of the advanced analytics process is the new Proficy Troubleshooter product. Proficy Troubleshooter is an off-line, value-add product to Proficy Historian that analyses process variation. It is used to identify causes for production problems and identify the opportunity for preventing these problems in the future. Proficy Troubleshooter acts as a bridge between Proficy Historian and Proficy HMI/scada obtaining relationships between process variables and preparing benefit estimations for realtime deployment.
Proficy Troubleshooter packs powerful multivariate modelling and data-mining techniques, which is appealing to a broad user base of historian users and process engineers. It does not require a background in advanced statistics or modelling. It also provides a clear path to realtime solutions for the user – deploying insights as a realtime intelligent monitoring and advisory solution in Proficy Cause+, with outputs displayed in Proficy HMI/scada and web-based reporting.
The components of Proficy Troubleshooter are:
* Proficy Continuous Wizard for troubleshooting time-based and/or continuous process data.
* Proficy Discrete & Batch Wizard for troubleshooting generic index-based, discrete and/or batch process data.
* Proficy Architect for data preparation, simulation and solution development.
Proficy Cause+
After Proficy Troubleshooter models the solution, the next logical step is to put the process into production. Proficy Cause+ wires in the realtime data and introduces alarms based on causal relationships within the process. It extracts more value from realtime data, in the form of likely causes of process or asset-related problems and variation in realtime, with pre-configured corrective actions to the operator if alarm-conditions are triggered.
Proficy Cause+ is a value-added decision-support solution that enables production engineers, and process specialists, to generate realtime causes for production process deviations. During such realtime key performance indicators (KPIs) deviation, in-depth process knowledge is delivered to an operator to provide specific actionable message guidance for correction. It is a realtime application by which production process variation is identified, and whereby root causes for such variation is visualised.
“Progressive companies are achieving even greater benefits by extracting and applying knowledge from historical and realtime data with advanced analytics,” says Tom Fiske, senior analyst ARC Advisory Group. “Traditionally, the use of advanced analytics required high domain expertise to apply effectively. This is no longer the case. Solutions such as those offered by GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms bring the power of realtime visibility and advanced analytics to the masses.”
The core Troubleshooter and Cause+ software were developed by CSense Systems, headquartered in Pretoria, and are sold and supported globally by GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms. According to Derick Moolman, president of CSense Systems, “GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms has collaborated with CSense Systems to address current market requirements. Our solution is achieved through providing a new more intelligent Historian and HMI/scada, aimed at the general broad user base, providing off-line and realtime analytics with the option to scale to advanced process control for ready clients, all on one integrated technology platform.”
For more information contact Daniel Coetzee, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, +27 (0)31 583 3640, [email protected], www.gefanuc.com or Andre Brits, CSense Systems, +27 (0)12 347 3110, [email protected], www.csensesystems.com
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved
printer friendly version