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Incuity Software - What is it
and how does it fit? |
Sometimes it is
difficult to determine which solution to use to resolve a particular need. There are usually many ways to present information.
- IT Managers may think the ERP system has all data and knowledge so every system
must present the information from the ERP.
- Production Engineers may look at a production tracking system, downtime system,
or quality and statistical system to “see” what is happening in production.
- IT Analysts may look to a custom written program or database and control
engineers may depend on the HMI for all information.
You may be hearing
that Incuity manufacturing intelligence solutions are complementary to other
software systems. This is true. Remember manufacturing intelligence provides the
ability to view data from any system, transform the data to a format that can be
organized and analyzed within the MI system, and presents this information in a
portal or stores it back to another database.
This month we will compare manufacturing intelligence with
some other business software systems. Next month we will take a few examples of
specific functions like Downtime Reporting, SPC or Alarm Management to see how
accomplishing them with a manufacturing intelligence solution compares with accomplishing them in other systems.
How does Incuity compare with some other well known
industrial software systems?
HMI Software like InTouchTM,
Intellution, Factelligence IPTM, CiTechTM
–
Human machine interface systems interface to
controllers to present real-time information to operators for control of the
process. They are good at graphics for operators, short term trending for
operators, and alarm management for operators. HMI software typically has a
heavy client-side software package. Of those mentioned only Factelligence IPTM
has a thin client portal as a standard operator graphic.
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Incuity |
HMI |
| Creates a view of data from any source |
Creates a tag in the system – data now resides in
HMI. Difficult to get data from anything other than a controller or
OPC-DA source. |
| Great tool for reporting and trending process
information from historian for operators and non-operating personnel |
HMI poor tool for trending other than short term
for operator. Advanced trending requires another software package such
as Incuity. |
| Great tool for non operators – uses Excel and
intuitive tools. |
Poor tool for non-operators as configuration cost
is high requiring engineers, software/user cost is high, and software
does a lousy job of showing data from anything other than controllers. |
| Includes a web portal and easy generation and
publishing reports |
Web portals are typically accomplished with another
software package. Generation and publication requires an engineer and is
very difficult. |
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software
–
ERP software is built for a corporation to match production
with orders. The ERP is a database of scheduling, order entry, production
information and other data to help the corporation run it's business. The ERP is
often the data of record.
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Incuity |
ERP |
| Creates a view of data from any source.
Does not replecate data already residing in another system. |
Creates a
database of information – data now resides in
ERP. |
| Great tool for reporting and trending process
information from historian for operators and non-operating personnel |
ERP is for running a corporation - not a plant and not a line of
the plant and certainly not a process. |
| Great tool to see the operation of plant, line, process in
fixed and impromptu reports – uses Excel and
intuitive tools. Can show data from ERP as well as other systems. |
ERP is built for scheduling and reporting of plant
information. It is usually a poor tool for plant or process
managers to improve their operation. Reports are generally
expensive as configuration cost
is high, software/user cost is high, and software does a lousy job of
showing data from anything other what is put into the ERP
database. |
| Includes a web portal and easy generation and
publishing reports. Manufacturing intelligence systems are built for
visualization. |
Web portals are typically accomplished with another
software package. Generation and publication requires an engineer and is
very difficult. |
Process Historians like IndustrialSQLTM,
OSI PITM –
These software packages are process
historians. Their job is to interface to real-time data sources and store that
data in a file that is retrievable from a visualization tool set.
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Incuity |
Process Historian |
| Collects and stores real-time data from process in
a SQL Server 2005 database. Incuity performs the functions of a
historian quite well if the system is less than 5000 tags. Incuity can
not compete with Process historians when tag count is extremely high |
Collecting and storing real-time data is the only
function of a high-end process historian software. They are good at very
high tag counts above 20,000 real-time tags |
| Presentation of history data from Incuity is
excellent. Incuity is the best. |
Historians do not have visualization capability.
This requires another software package like Incuity or a package
dedicated only to that one historian. |
Industrial Trending and Reporting
Packages – ex: ActiveFactoryTM, ProcessBookTM
These software packages are to provide
trends and reports from process data. Their job is to interface to a historian
and put that time series data in a trend or report.
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Incuity
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Other Trending/Reporting
|
| Incuity can connect to any data historian and
provide trending and reporting. |
Others are a tool only for one historian!
Everyone has more than one
historian. Using proprietary
visualization tools forces you to
create another instance of the data
in both historians to view it. This is unnecessary and expensive. |
| Incuity has a built in portal
|
Other tools use a separate portal that is another
product and another cost. |
| Incuity has advanced trending, X-Y Charting, and
dashboards |
Features are not up to Incuity standards. |
| .NET enabled ZERO TOUCH deployment of client
software and tools! |
Other tools are mostly software that must be loaded
on all client computers! Much higher management/maintenance costs. |
| S95 plant model so that users don’t need to know
tag names |
Most access information from tag names |
| Power users can easily create and publish reports
to analyze data immediately. |
Most users will require a technical person to built
reports and in some cases even trending |
Portals like SuiteVoyagerTM,
Factelligence IPTM, SAP, –
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Incuity
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Portal Products
|
| Incuity
portal
uses
MicrosoftTM
technology
and takes advantage of MS security. |
Many other tools are not built upon MS
and users must review security and determine firewall port openings
needed. |
| Incuity portal is built to allow
users to
easily publish trends, charts and reports. |
Most other industrial portals require significant
configuration from IT engineers and programmers. Users have little
ability to change what they see on the portal. |
| Incuity Portal lets the user design his view of web
parts and design his own workspace. |
Most other industrial portals require significant
configuration from IT engineers and programmers. |
| Incuity is not an HMI tool. |
Factelligence IPTM and SuiteVoyagerTM
are portals designed to show operator graphics. |
| Incuity is not built on JAVA and is not super
expensive |
What else would you expect from SAPTM? |
Industrial Suites of Software products
like FactorySuiteTM, ProficyTM, others
–
These software packages are separate but
"pre-integrated" software packages that are sold in groups.
| Incuity |
Industrial Suites |
| Incuity is a manufacturing intelligence software
product. It has basic functionality to connect to, analyze and present
information and intelligence from any data source. The three basic components – Server, portal and client tools are part of every system. |
Each package is a separate product. Together they
are more expensive and less functional than a real manufacturing
intelligence solution. |
| Incuity offers an add-in component for online SPC
that provides outstanding real-time SPC – without building a new
dataset. Incuity SPC contains grade specifications for instant correct
SPC alarms after a grade change. Incuity SPC can be run against data
from any data source. |
Most of the Suites have a separate product for SPC.
However, the SPC product is limited to getting data from only their
“suite mates”. The SPC suite products are often build datasets of
duplicate data, have trouble with changing grades, and work for
operators but not others. |
| Incuity has the capability to produce downtime
reporting through the same excellent user tools that are used for
reporting other Key Performance Indicators. |
Downtime systems are highly functional and very
expensive. These separate software packages use significant engineering
resources learning a system that can do nothing else. Dedicated downtime
reporting from a “Suite Mate” can generally be accomplished with a more
multifunctional product just as well and much less costly. |
| Incuity Portal is great and included |
Suites may include a portal as an expensive add-on.
Configuration cost is high – user functionality is low. |
| Incuity includes a MS SQL ServerTM 2005
database to store information. |
Suites often include a historian. Add-on historians
are expensive software tools that require specialized training and
installation. Many customers do not need the functionality of big
historian for storage of a few thousand tags. |
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