GE Fanuc Automation Americas, a unit of the GE Infrastructure global business platform, has introduced the new Proficy Intelligent Production Solutions, which provide a full range of integrated, easy-to-use software applications and services to continuously improve productivity, profitability and competitive advantage by enabling the real-time enterprise.
In combination with GE's manufacturing domain expertise and Six Sigma methodologies, Proficy solutions control and optimise processes, gathering, analysing and transforming data into information and allowing users to operate in real time - helping to ensure that production runs smoothly, efficiently and with greater return on investment.
This is according to Daniel Coetzee, Business Manager Sub-Saharan Africa for GE Fanuc Automation.
"The demand for speed, agility and responsiveness in production operations has never been greater," Coetzee maintains. "As a result, real-time performance management - which offers the most significant opportunity for revolutionising manufacturing - must be the cornerstone for every profitable company. GE understands this critical need and can deliver the seamless, knowledge-based infrastructure that brings together business and manufacturing for improved performance across an entire enterprise."
Featuring a wide range of unified modules to meet individual requirements, Proficy allows information to be shared freely between business and plant floor applications, helping organisations to better plan, execute, and deliver to meet customer needs and improve their competitiveness. Modules are focused on specific production requirements and can be implemented individually or as part of an overall solution.
Says Coetzee:"The Proficy open architecture allows companies to start with a single point solution and expand as needed - from a single machine to a production line to a plant to an enterprise, from a single machine operator to thousands of global users. By embracing and extending a company's existing equipment and technologies, Proficy also helps users leverage an installed base of automation assets for faster implementation and return."
According to AMR Research analysts Bill Swanton and Alison Smith in the Alert, Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence Helps Global Manufacturers Raise Performance and Responsiveness, November 26, 2003, "GE Fanuc is aggressively positioning itself as a plant intelligence provider. With its recently acquired historian and MES functionality from Intellution and Mountain Systems, it has significantly enhanced its software story and established a solid presence in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) and Batch Process industries. GE Fanuc has a well-articulated manufacturing intelligence vision and the most cohesive offering of all the automation vendors."
Craig Resnick, ARC Advisory Group Research Director, comments: "Manufacturers recognise that each and every process provides a vital link to real-time data for the enterprise as a whole, which is especially critical with the move towards Real-time Performance Management (RPM) that uses dynamic performance targets to drive an enterprise to its optimum potential and competitive advantage. GE's Proficy, which is categorised as Manufacturing Performance Services (MPS) software, provides a common basis for using manufacturing information from the plant floor to enterprise systems and business partners, delivering manufacturing visualization and information to people, processes, and applications. This results in new performance capabilities for users at the plant-level and throughout the distributed manufacturing enterprise and supply network."
Proficy from GE Fanuc provides a single, integrated infrastructure to reduce cost of ownership. Examples of the integrated infrastructure include:
"GE's industrial productivity software has evolved over more than 25 years from its roots in large project implementations by our corporate consulting organization to robust, easy-to-use, highly configurable manufacturing productivity software," Coetzee explains. "The resulting layered, step-wise approach in Proficy to human machine interface, machine and plant supervisory control, production management, quality, asset management, and plant analytics makes these powerful capabilities available to all OEMs and manufacturers.
"Using Six Sigma rigor to meet our customers' needs, we have built on our capabilities, acquired additional, proven solutions, and developed a new integrated platform with one of the most powerful toolsets available today," Coetzee continues. "We are using these technologies in our own world-class manufacturing facilities and, as we have done in the past, combined them with our application knowledgebase to bring the real-time enterprise and the resulting competitive advantage to customers."
Available now in South Africa, the Proficy Intelligent Production Solutions provide the following capabilities:
Real-Time Information Portal - A web-based production intelligence solution enables companies to collect, aggregate, and disseminate data from multiple disparate backend sources and securely deliver a personalized view with a browser or internet-enabled device. This consistent and timely view of all information allows employees, customers and suppliers to act on real-time information, resulting in better and faster decision-making. The solution delivers data to key decision-making platforms, such as ERP, supply chain and CRM, extending the investment in these systems. Modules include: Proficy Real-Time Information Portal.
Plant Performance and Execution - Based on a decade of experience providing Production Execution Systems to major manufacturers, GE Fanuc offers automated production scheduling, tracking, broadcast, and routing control. These newly expanded systems enable flexibility in executing manufacturing schedules from ERP systems, monitoring production flow through the manufacturing facility, making automated routing decisions, and synchronizing subsystem delivery including external suppliers.
Furthermore, these solutions integrate real-time performance management capabilities with order execution and inventory management, enabling production managers to make real-time decisions. Companies achieve closed-loop data integration, Key Performance Indicator (KPI) monitoring and analysis, and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) management. Modules include: Proficy Batch Execution, Proficy Batch Analysis, Proficy Efficiency, Proficy Production, and Proficy Tracker.
Integrated Quality - Quality of parts, products and process is critical to predictable production yields that make key business decisions possible and result in sellable goods. The systemic use of Six Sigma quality analysis, the implementation of real-time quality monitoring (SPC), and long term quality process correlations (SQC) are the differentiators in an effective manufacturing environment. The key to quality involves monitoring appropriate parameters, traceability, quick corrective implementation, sustainability of high levels of quality production, and compliance with industry regulations. Modules include: Proficy Quality, Proficy Non Conformance, and Proficy Shop Floor SPC.
Plant Data Repository - The supplement of runtime production and process tracking with automatic record keeping is essential in many advanced manufacturing environments. Additionally, ever-increasing regulations by government or industry bodies make the irrefutable link between as-processed data and product genealogy mandatory. Electronic tracking, electronic batch recording and the capture of electronic signatures from machines and personnel are becoming critical to the overall effectiveness of many production environments. Modules include: Proficy Historian.
Asset Management - The significant investment in capital equipment mandates a systematic approach to maintaining equipment for maximum performance as well as to extend its useful life. Solutions are required that closely link maintenance tactics to the needs of the equipment and that utilize factory floor information to close the loop between equipment performance and machine status.
Proactive monitoring of equipment - both on site and remotely - permits early recognition of problems and identification of corrective actions to dramatically increase user productivity and reduce downtime.
Additionally, software asset management and Device Relationship Management help to protect the investments of manufacturers by automatically monitoring, controlling and protecting the wide range of data assets being generated throughout the manufacturing operation. As a result, manufacturers can achieve data security and greatly enhanced disaster recovery, enabling them to maintain operations, increase security, improve productivity and meet crucial regulatory requirements. Modules include: Proficy Enterprise Asset Management, Proficy Remote Monitoring & Diagnostics, and Proficy Change Management.
HMI / SCADA - By communicating with facility hardware and extracting real-time data from industrial processes, HMI and SCADA solutions help manufacturers visualize plant floor operations, interact with the processes, manage alarms, perform supervisory automation, and deliver reliable production data to analytic and production applications. As a result, manufacturers can increase production, maximize quality and efficiency and improve regulatory compliance through user accountability. Modules include: Proficy HMI/SCADA - iFIX and Proficy HMI/SCADA - CIMPLICITY.
Control & Operator Interface - A universal development environment for machine-level control -- including logic, motion and machine-level visualisation -- helps companies save time and speed products to market. Web-enabled functionality such as a built-in web server delivers real-time data across the enterprise while drag-and-drop editing and industry-standard technologies enable fast, powerful object-oriented programming. Modules include: Proficy View - Machine Edition, Proficy Logic Developer - Machine Edition, and Proficy Motion Developer - Machine Edition.
Services - A successful automation solution involves a structured cycle, designed to align a company's manufacturing practices with business objectives. Comprehensive assessment and analysis lead to a tailored solution design, integration, project management, implementation, improvement control and support, and financial return. Modules include: Proficy GlobalCare Support, Proficy Professional Services, and Proficy Training.
With a strong commitment to the Proficy architecture, GE Fanuc will continuously bring new and innovative modules to users. Future modules include Workflow, allowing users to encapsulate complex business rules for a variety of tasks such as business system data exchanges and supplier non-conformance; enterprise reporting providing powerful business reporting from the Proficy Plant Datamart; and a Plant Wide Alarming and Advanced Notification system integrating alarms throughout the enterprise into a single environment and making use of modern wireless technologies for notification.
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