Wonderware Corporation, represented exclusively here in South Africa by Futuristix, has announced the release of new Version 7.11 upgrades for multiple components of its FactorySuite 2000 industrial automation software family. The revisions include enhancements to the InTouch HMI, the InTrack manufacturing execution system (MES) and the InControl realtime application engine.
InTouch 7.11 provides major enhancements for alarm and alarm logging systems, including a new distributed alarm subsystem that enhances configuration and handling of alarms and replaces older NetDDE technology with TCP/IP functionality - which reduces CPU and network traffic while improving alarm update rates. The new subsystem incorporates three modes of acknowledgment including condition-oriented alarms, which is the new name for 'traditional' alarm-handling; event-oriented alarms that support compatibility with the OPC alarm model and expanded summary alarms that support acknowledgment of every individual transition into and out of an alarmed state.
In the new release, InTouch introduces the concept of alarm 'providers' and alarm 'consumers'. Providers handle determination of alarm conditions and publishing of alarms to the distributed alarm system. Consumers are client entities that subscribe to and receive the alarm information from the distributed alarm system. The new alarm subsystem comes with an alarm toolkit that enables custom enhancement of InTouch systems by tailoring providers and consumers to particular applications. All alarms receive up-to-the-millisecond time stamping within SuiteLink.
InTouch 7.11 supports Windows Terminal Services and Terminal Services Advanced Client, providing users with the easier deployment, lower cost and centralised maintenance aspects of thin client InTouch versions. The new version supports both Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 (SP6) operating systems. It offers a new tagname browser that allows users to select tagnames and fields from any FactorySuite application for easier application development. It has a new Application Explorer that provides direct access to all scripts, thus further extending ease of use to script functions.
InTrack 7.11 provides new abilities for deployment through browser clients and on mobile wireless devices, permitting users to port their existing work-in-process (WIP) tracking applications to Internet and remote users without costly re-engineering efforts. The new InTrack version supports Windows 2000 and Windows Terminal Services to permit the deployment of MES applications in thin client installations. In addition to supporting Microsoft SQL Server 2000, InTrack also now supports the Oracle Net 8 database connectivity layer, which supports database interface to enterprise applications.
InControl 7.11 has new features that make it a robust control package, with a wide range of connectivity and sophisticated logic execution capabilities for handling complex scripting, discrete and process applications. In addition, it has new capabilities that enhance its use as a scripting engine for the FactorySuite - including a new event-based execution enhancement, support for asynchronous OCX, FB and function calls, runtime engine-specific enhancements and new I/O support for a broad array of control device interfaces.
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