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all the intelligence they need by em-bedding intelligence directly in the templates — all application logic, security confi guration, I/0, graph-ics, messages and alarms and rout- ing, and data storage requirements. Templates are developed once and deployed as multiple instances to individual plant servers running separate facilities. “It enables you to build a strong template set where you can centrally standardize applications and nor-malize information, and then deploy instances to each site with the ability to customize the application at the local level,” says Harsy. The tools in System Platform 3.0 software make it the central engi-neering space for creating uniform presentation to end users and other enterprise systems. “Best practices include not only what the deployed applications can provide — but how you use the tools,” Harsy says. “It starts with building a good set of templates that are critical to a global rollout. You can test and validate and deploy; and then leverage by evolving your templates over time. The system is very capable of sup- porting an evolving process.”

Control Engineering Magazine System Integrator Supplement - 12380 Enc±psul±ting Best Pr±ctice Intelligence

The unifi ed plant model is what ensures standardization of practices from plant to plant. People mak-ing strategic comparisons on OEE, for example, must have confi dence that the data is being captured con-sistently across the enterprise, re- gardless of variety of equipment or control systems or idiosyncrasies of engrained plant preferences. “You have to have the concept of a global standard,” says Grasley. “It has to be implemented in the same way. In a non-object environment, that was very hard to do. But with objects, you create templates centrally and deploy instances that inherit those global standards at every site.”In addition to the local instance having all the requisite intelligence embedded within it, each site can customize a template to support ex- ecution of local best practices with- out impacting the global standard. When multi-site comparisons are made, they’re based on the standard, enabling confi dence in identifi ca-tion of best performance instances. Modifi cations from a particular site that support best practice perfor-mance can then be made in the stan-dard template in the global platform model — and then subsequently de- ployed to all sites, instantly updating all sites simultaneously with the new global standard. “One customer had 60 packaging lines running 20 different versions of a particular control system — even though all the machines were identical,” says Mike Peters, Aseco account manager. Though the com- pany had an improvement process in place, any change to a process required repeatedly making changes to multiple systems. “The benefi t of the Wonder-ware System Platform 3.0 software is that it is a lot easier to maintain and enhance the system to capture performance best practices because the templates encapsulate so much functionality in each object,” says Ulrich of Stone Technologies.

Building Best Pr±ctices

The fl exibility and power of System Platform 3.0 software makes the discovery process integral to global system deployment across multiple sites. “You’re constantly building up and improving best practices that you discover from having deployed a standard set of applications to multiple locations,” says Sowell of Wonderware. “The model provides you with a consistent measurement based on uniformly consistent prac-tices – plant to plant. With each discovery, you’re adding to the stan-dard model and then re-deploying.” As a result: “You’re always improv- ing the model,” he says. Where you might start, for exam-ple, with a template for quality, you can easily add and deploy additional functionality to dive deeper into monitoring processes to determine the root cause of problems. That discovery process can then lend to modifi cation of the overall process by modifying the standard object template in the standard model. “You need unifi ed, consistent data to see the all information in the cor- rect context,” Sowell says. “First you understand; then you analyze; then you take action based on what you discover. You’re constantly le- veraging the lessons you learn. It enables you to embrace and absorb change.”The process is seamless and with-out complex disruption to what is already in place. “You can start with gross level functionality and add to it as you gain understanding of what you need,” says Harsy. “You can propagate change across all plants with a few clicks of the mouse. Be-ing able to make centralized modi- fi cations and deploy globally is the greatest strength of the platform. It enables you to sustain and evolve your investment.”Says Ulrich of Stone Technolo-gies: “the Wonderware System Plat-form 3.0 software concept has been steadily evolving over the last three or four years — getting better and better. It’s truly a world-class solu- tion.” WW
A SUPPLEMENT TO CONTROL ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

JANUARY 2008

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