ActiveFactory - WONDERWARE - #6

The use of regular production reports is still an important part of the decision-making process at many manufacturing and industrial operations plants. Plant IT personnel tasked with creating and maintaining production reports now have a new tool for streamlining data queries needed to pull important information out of the huge volume of plant process data stored in Wonderware Historian. New data retrieval modes supported include time-in-state, "best fit," time-weighted average, integral (rates), rate of change (slope), counter rollover and others. ActiveFactory software can now use these data retrieval modes directly to dramatically reduce the time needed to create sophisticated data queries. Users can add new content to existing production reports or create new production reports that were difficult or impossible to create in the past.

Production workers and decision-makers directly benefit from easily available plant data. Today, Web delivery of plant data is becoming the norm. ActiveFactory software provides many .NET or ActiveX® controls for adding trend data or other plant information to custom web applications. This enables web designers to add valuable plant data to a company's web applications in a fraction of the time needed to create the content manually.

ActiveFactory software is built from the ground up using ArchestrA technology, which allows unprecedented scalability and functional richness in industrial applications. Manufacturers can now build complete production and performance management solutions using the single, integrated development platform that ArchestrA delivers — saving time and development resources. Applications can start small and grow into a complete plant-wide or enterprise solution as requirements dictate or evolve.

The Wonderware System Platform (including Wonderware Application Server, Wonderware Historian and the Wonderware Information Server) provides ActiveFactory with the ideal platform for a plant-wide production and performance management solution. Functional modules such as the Equipment Performance Module and the Equipment Operations Module add additional analysis and reporting capabilities, further expanding the value of the system.

In addition, when installed on Wonderware Industrial Tablets or Touch Panel Computers, ActiveFactory software gives mobile workers access to real-time data trends and reports anywhere in the plant.

ActiveFactory software is a key component of Wonderware's modular, sustainable family of real-time production and performance management solutions.

Every manufacturing or industrial operation facility has process bottlenecks that rob profits and reduce plant performance. ActiveFactory software provides real­time trend plots and reports that help identify process bottlenecks, enabling decision-makers to focus their resources on removing them.

In the same respect, sustainable and profitable business performance requires physical processes to be operating continuously at their maximum capabilities. However, process inefficiencies are difficult or impossible to discern without accurate, real-time and historical plant data. ActiveFactory Trend can provide detailed, real-time data on plant equipment, allowing engineers, operators and managers to quickly identify any deviations from expected process values, and ensure that variances between similar processes are constantly reduced.

ActiveFactory software is fully integrated with Wonderware's Historian software, enabling a complete view of plant performance. This increased understanding of current as well as historical performance of equipment and processes helps the user assess which assets are doing well and which ones need attention. Using this valuable information, managers can shift production to the most important assets and help ensure that their plants meet order commitments and remain competitive.

Having detailed, accurate and timely plant data reports that can be easily created on an ad hoc basis is crucial to the process of exposing the root causes for costly plant process problems. Traditionally, plant data reports were created by experts and rarely available on an ad hoc basis. Now, plant personnel with Microsoft Office skills can quickly create a report using included sample reports to help troubleshoot plant process issues. There is no need to request scarce plant IT personnel to create special reports.