Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
Schneider Electric Software, a global provider of industry software and part of Schneider Electric, a global specialist in energy management and automation, used the Wonderware User Conference to announce the release of a number of enhancements to its software solutions portfolio.
The event featured 11 customer-led presentations, including an Internet of Things presentation from Avid Solutions, who is using Wonderware System Platform as the basis for an IoT implementation. The presentation focused on core IoT concepts, providing examples of how to integrate these concepts directly into Wonderware System Platform, leveraging technologies, such as MQTT http://mqtt.org/ a machine-to-machine (M2M)/"Internet of Things" connectivity protocol designed as a lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport. MQTT is used for connections with remote locations where a small code footprint is required and/or network bandwidth is at a premium. For example, it has been used for mobile applications because of its small size, low power usage, minimised data packets, and more efficient distribution of information to one or many receivers.
Another presentation on Mobility and Cloud came from Louisiana-Pacific, part of a continuous improvement practice. The presentation focused on Louisiana Pacific’s IT manufacturing team's use of Wonderware solutions as part of an Information Management system, including the application of Wonderware Historian, Historian Client, QI Analyst, Intelligence and SmartGlance software. Also, a presentation on Model-Driven MES was delivered by Wonderware partners Callisto Integration and Crossmuller Technology. centered on the business impact model-driven MES is having on a global quality implementation for the Campbell Soup Company, driven by a need for ongoing product quality guarantees, savings in raw material consumption and a platform for other performance and traceability initiatives. The project provides standardized statistical process control methodologies across the company’s production lines.
The User Conference also coincided with Schneider Electric's announcements of an increased role with the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), a multi-year collaboration with the HKUST-MIT Research Alliance Consortium, and a new global brand strategy focused on addressing urbanization, digitization and industrialization. That strategy, Life Is On, is fueled by Schneider Electric’s Operational Intelligence approach to IoT. The approach will focus on how people and organizations consume energy, better automate industrial processes, and increase the quality of business decisions.
The Life Is On brand strategy will show how the company is helping its global customers leverage this fundamental shift, using Schneider Electric’s experience in operational technology (OT) that controls processes and connecting it to information technology (IT). This approach, which Schneider Electric refers to as building Operational Intelligence, relies on optimized automation and control, advanced remote management, and predictive maintenance, which enables managed services, advanced analytics and actionable information to drive decision-making in homes, manufacturing facilities, data centers, buildings and cities.
Other key elements of the Life Is On brand strategy include delivering new solutions and services that further Schneider Electric’s commitment to connectivity, sustainability, efficiency and reliability and safety.
New Version of Wonderware Intelligence Software from Schneider Electric Helps Manage Industrial Big Data
Schneider Electric Software released its Wonderware Intelligence 2014 R2 enterprise manufacturing intelligence software at the event. The newest version collects, calculates and contextualizes data and metrics from multiple sources across the manufacturing operation, puts it into a centralized storage and updates it all in near-real time. Because it is optimized for retrieval, the information can then be used to monitor KPIs via customizable dashboards, as well as for drill-down analysis and insights into operating and overall business performance.
Wonderware Intelligence is used as a management tool because its visual analytics and dashboards allow those in the operation to see the same version of the truth drawn from a single data warehouse. The interactive and visual nature of the dashboards helps to increase the speed and confidence of the users' decision making, which helps to improve productivity, reduce operating costs and increase profitability.
The Wonderware Intelligence software calculates, contextualizes and stores KPIs and other metrics data from the multiple systems and data sources that are used to run industrial operations, including Schneider Electric's software offerings, data historians and MES, HMI/SCADA and other industrial applications, as well as many other third-party plant sources. It helps users gain near-real-time visibility and access to operating and performance data that often sit in silos, such as within energy, alarm or manufacturing execution systems. Improvements to Wonderware Intelligence 2014 R2 software include:
- The ability to use stored procedures to increase the speed of queries;
- The ability to dynamically use start and end times for more precision queries;
- Streamlined administrator rights for the Intelligence service.
Additionally, Wonderware Intelligence Client (powered by Tableau Software) provides a self-service approach to information gathering, which helps users to create and publish personalized charts, interactive reports and dashboards for collaboration and operational KPI monitoring and analysis.
Industry Collaboration with IIC
To further support the company's vision for IoT-powered Operational Intelligence, Schneider Electric concurrently announced that the company has been elected to the steering committee of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC). Through this appointment, Schneider Electric will take a more central role alongside AT&T, Cisco, General Electric, IBM and Intel in developing recommendations for industry specifications and developing frameworks to speed the adoption of industrial IoT technologies.
IoT technologies are fundamental to Schneider Electric's focus in market segments, such as water, oil and gas, data centers, mining, utilities, healthcare, food and beverage and smart cities, as a way to further maximize efficiency and sustainability for customers.
Schneider Electric Joins with HKUST–MIT Research Alliance Consortium to Further IoT Innovation
Schneider Electric also concurrently announced a multi-year collaboration with the HKUST-MIT Research Alliance Consortium as a key supporter of the consortium's research for IoT technologies for intelligent buildings and transportation. The goal of this global research, with HKUST in Hong Kong and MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is to resolve challenging problems in engineering domains, such as circuits and devices, signal processing, communications and control as well as advanced data analytics, with a focus on enabling IoT technologies for better building infrastructure and enhancing transportation connectivity.
Through collaborations, such as the work with HKUST-MIT Research Alliance Consortium, Schneider Electric is focused on developing new technologies and services that will drive intelligence, efficiency and connectivity to help customers meet these new and emerging challenges.
Keywords: Internet of Things (IoT), Building Infrastructure, Transportation Connectivity, Engineering Domains, Manufacturing Intelligence, Visual Analytics, ARC Advisory Group.