Software solution continues to facilitate good manufacturing practices

Advanced functionality enables lower cost of ownership, regulatory compliance and faster development

GE Intelligent Platforms has announced the availability of an upgrade to its industry standard Proficy software CIMPLICITY, version 8.1, a visualization and control solution used in variety of industries including Oil & Gas, Discrete Manufacturing, Power Generation, Marine and Energy industries. The new solution features programming enhancements, regulatory compliance tools and an innovative alarm association feature, in addition to full compatibility with GE’s CIMPLICITY GlobalView allowing web access to this powerful HMI/SCADA solution.

“With more than 25 years in the field, CIMPLICITY customers are always pushing for lower costs of implementation,” said Gimmi Filice, Product Manager for GE’s Proficy CIMPLICITY product. “This new version delivers key new additions to CIMPLICITY’s objects and classes, enabling programmers and engineers to develop faster and maintain complex systems easier achieving a sustainable competitive advantage and ultimately a lower cost of ownership.”

CIMPLICITY 8.1 introduces enhancements that enable more flexible classes to speed new product development and lower the total cost of maintaining large-scale systems. “Classes are powerful components when developing,” Filice continued. “They are basically the blueprints programmers use when creating templates for CIMPLICITY, and the enhancements we are introducing today further extends the ability to use templates in applications so they can be deployed more quickly. Classes also enable users to accomplish mass updates across an entire system, driving down maintenance costs.”

Standards compliance, regulatory penalty avoidance and good manufacturing practices are supported as CIMPLICITY 8.1 introduces a new change approval feature that enables an electronic signature before allowing setpoint changes, recording results to an audit trail, with commenting capability. A change approval system, or e-signature, enables it to be used in a wider variety of applications and is commonly used for helping meet 21 CFR part 11, NERC and FERC regulations. In addition, the package brings a new ability to perform root cause analysis enabling instant alarm analytics for quick operator resolution.

CIMPLICITY 8.1 also delivers full compatibility with GlobalView enabling a full-featured client within a browser providing expanded application usage and mobilization of workforce enabling support for hundreds of simultaneous users and expanding the application within the plant or across the globe. In addition, the new product offers compatibility with the legacy Microsoft platforms and applicable Proficy products.

“Proficy CIMPLICITY 8.1 is another example of GE’s ongoing commitment to the CIMPLICITY HMI/SCADA platform,” said Claire Cerrato, General Manager Automation Software for GE Intelligent Platforms. “We are consistently bringing this solution forward to address the ongoing needs of the current and future user communities.”

Another gateway

Industrial gateway for data acquisition, visualization and control

GE Intelligent Platforms has announced the availability of its Industrial Gateway Server (IGS) 7.5 drivers for the company’s Proficy® software. The enhanced offering, utilizing industry-standard Kepware KEPServerEX and driver technology, includes more than 100 protocols, which enables connectivity to thousands of different control hardware and instruments. Several of the connectivity solutions support vertical-industry specific hardware, popular in today’s growing markets.

A single IGS 7.5 instance allows for customers to connect to a variety of devices, IGS 7.5 provides users with an opportunity to consolidate information from different control hardware and instruments to visualize, control, analyze and optimize via connected Proficy HMI/SCADA, MES, EMI or Workflow software. It is optimized to use the maximum possible speed supported by the devices with built-in diagnostics for communication errors and complete browsing functionality into devices. This connectivity solution added to GE’s Proficy software portfolio allows customers to manage operations from a more complete perspective, allowing them to process various data points and co-relating multiple process indicators.

“The capabilities and functionalities of control hardware and instruments are being enhanced at the same pace as the software,” said Prasad Pai, Product Manager for GE’s Proficy iFIX software. “Newer communication standards and protocols are being introduced with the view of providing customers the ultimate flexibility in data acquisition and control. Due to these fast paced changes, it is important to partner with a company, such as Kepware, focused solely on keeping abreast with the changes.”
IGS 7.5 provides robust and efficient connectivity through the latest OPC DA standards and also comes with a native Proficy iFIX interface that takes speed and reliability further. It goes beyond Proficy iFIX HMI/SCADA solutions and can be used with the entire Proficy software portfolio, such as Proficy CIMPLICITY, Workflow, Plant Applications and Historian, aligning with GE’s commitment to providing a tightly integrated software portfolio. The native interface into the Proficy iFIX software is also a unique feature of this driver over other offerings.

“Today, with acquisitions/mergers and consolidation, companies inherit a variety of control hardware and instruments in their plants,” said Pai. “The biggest challenge is how to consolidate them and bring them to a common data communication standard. The enhanced IGS 7.5 goes a long way in providing that solution.”

The enhanced IGS 7.5 application supports remote and offline configuration options without disrupting communications. Existing customers can seamlessly upgrade to the enhanced IGS 7.5 and access all the newly added device connectivity options quickly. GE’s on going work with Kepware keeps the product in tune with technology changes and enhanced with connections into newer devices.

Remote Monitoring

More than 1,100 units in turbine fleet monitored
Real-time data on impending failures and performance diagnostics

GE Intelligent Platforms has announced that GE Energy’s Performance & Reliability Centre (PRC) in Atlanta (GA US) has standardised on a remote monitoring and diagnostic platform that utilizes the company’s Proficy® Historian, Proficy SOA, Proficy Workflow and Proficy CIMPLICITY software.

This system monitors more than 1,100 units in GE Energy’s turbine fleet and provides customers with real-time data on impending failures and performance diagnostics. The legacy system utilized an Oracle based relational database architecture that consumed more than 50 terabytes of storage across four database instances. Over time, the legacy solution has become costly to maintain and support and was not sufficiently extensible to sustain future growth.

“GE Intelligent Platforms delivers a solution that is flexible and scalable while lowering ongoing maintenance costs through simplified IT infrastructure and reduced storage demands. Improving availability and access to fleet data while leveraging diagnostic workflow capabilities will drive improved productivity of subject matter experts,” said Justin Eggart, Performance and Reliability Center leader for GE Energy Services. “The new system will enhance our focus on delivering customer value, applying advanced Monitoring and Diagnostics solutions, while proactively managing the performance and reliability of turbines and other assets in the GE fleet.”

GE Intelligent Platforms’ Next Generation M&D platform (Gen X), is based on proven, Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) software products such as Proficy Historian, a best in class platform for data acquisition and storage designed to handle time sequence data at speeds significantly faster than traditional relational databases algorithms that simply aren’t available in relational models, while also supporting a range of data compression. The result is better performance with lower disk utilization without any loss of data resolution.

“This architecture sets the standard inside GE for remote monitoring and diagnostics platforms and the PRC stands as a shining example of how GE can leverage its domain expertise into Knowledge Service offerings,” said Erik Udstuen, Vice President Software and Services for GE Intelligent Platforms. “The solution allows GE Energy to further expand its robust state-of-the art services allowing customers to tap into GE’s deep domain expertise in an efficient and effective way.”

Also key to the solution is GE’s breakthrough work process management backbone for application development, Proficy Workflow, a highly scalable software solution due to its efficient storage model; Proficy CIMPLICITY -client/server based visualization and control solution that helps you visualize your operations, perform supervisory automation and deliver reliable information to higher-level analytic applications resulting in faster responsiveness, reduced costs and increased profitability.

“We proved that our Proficy Software’s integrated capability to collect, organize, analyze, and drive work processes around massive volumes of real-time data could meet the needs of GE Energy now and into the future,” Udstuen concluded.