Supervisory control's future
Manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble gain advantage as evolving platform technology changes nature of supervisory control
By Jim Fulcher, Contributing Editor -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 9/1/2001 12:00:00 AM
Solutions from supervisory control vendors are casting a broader, architecturally thinner net around the challenge of managing plant-floor information. Good old fat-client supervisory control is still around, but advanced use of technologies from platform vendors is giving rise to new, server-centric applications.
In short, supervisory control has changed. Leveraging component technology from Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp., industrial automation software vendors are developing capabilities such as analytical applications that can be accessed from supervisory control user interfaces. Thin client technology—either in the form of browser-based software or Terminal Services, a Microsoft technology that supports server-side, thin-client deployment of Windows applications—is having significant impact for manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble, the Cincinnati-based consumer products goods giant.
"Use of ActiveX controls, portals, and Microsoft Terminal Services empowers users to build sophisticated yet seamless applications that are innovative and quite useful," says Carl Smith, a technology leader at Procter & Gamble. "The benefits for the manufacturer include a significant cost reduction when creating and maintaining control solutions. Of course, there are benefits for operators as well; they gain an interface that's reliable, efficient, and easy to use."
There are a couple of significant ways in which plant operations software vendors are leveraging new platform technology. One is the emergence of plant portal software packages—or what some analysts are calling enterprise manufacturing intelligence solutions. These often use Java, the programming language and distributed computing technology from Palo Alto, Calif.-based Sun Microsystems. Additionally, open integration technologies such as the eXtensible markup language (XML) and simple object access protocol (SOAP)—an interoperability protocol that uses XML—continue to gain favor among solution developers because they enable applications and services to be linked via the Internet.
Second, industrial automation software vendors' use of Microsoft technology continues to evolve. For example, Windows-based human machine interface (HMI)/supervisory control applications continue to get thinner as developers support Microsoft's Terminal Services. And as Microsoft's distributed computing architecture matures—especially ActiveX components—solution suppliers are introducing plant-level applications that may be accessed from HMI/supervisory control nodes.
See what's happening
Java and the Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platform have emerged as a leading foundation for Web-centric applications. J2EE is especially popular among enterprise and e-Business software vendors whose products require a Web application server architecture. Additionally, its use of Java's write-once/run-anywhere capabilities enables it to integrate disparate systems used on the plant floor and throughout the enterprise.
Consider IndX Software, a vendor of Web-based operations intelligence solutions based in Aliso Viejo, Calif. The company uses Java and the J2EE platform to support its flagship solution, XHQ, which integrates information from disparate sources and presents it graphically through a Web browser to enable real-time monitoring of enterprise and plant activities.
"Using Web technologies, XHQ provides a single, coherent view of information that users need for real-time decision support or performance management," says George Bauer, an IndX director. "By extracting and integrating data from multiple, disparate back-end systems; aggregating and managing content; and distributing information, it increases the value of the disparate systems that support daily enterprise operations."
XHQ's connectors—or pluggable data collectors—extract data from such back-end data sources as relational databases, data sources with application programming interfaces, and object-oriented data sources that use component technology such as Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM). They access three types of data: point data from data acquisition devices or process control systems; collections of relational data based on queries; and time-based data from historical data systems or predictive data engines.
Several technologies reside at XHQ's core. TCP/IP is used to deliver data via the Internet, and Java is used to present and animate data values. The XHQ client uses a standard Web browser and integrates with other Web clients via JavaScript and HTML. In addition, XHQ makes use of XML to transmit structural definitions and live data to other applications, as well as wireless clients.
"There's been a lot of work using Java because it's easy for developers to come up-to-speed, it deploys quickly, offers cross-platform capabilities, and combining Java in the clients and server reduces client administration costs," Bauer says. "On the other hand, XML is central to these type applications, and the amount of activity around it is amazing. Microsoft, Sun, Apache, and IBM all have been quite busy with XML. Of course, developers have been busy with SOAP as well, as it allows different platforms to interoperate."
XML uses tags that describe the contents of each tagged item rather than simply its formatting. As a result, XML carries all the metadata about a message.
Illuminator, a plant information portal from Lighthammer Software, Exton, Pa., makes extensive use of both Java and XML. "Our early decision to leverage openly available Internet technology such as Java and XML enables Illuminator to deliver functionality and value users need," says Rick Bullotta, the company's chief technical officer. Illuminator connects to a range of data sources and types; and then extracts, aggregates, and applies business context to plant data. It then delivers information to Web devices that range from browsers to handheld devices and Web phones, and to enterprise and supply chain solutions.
Illuminator's connectors—which recognize communication requirements and capabilities of these systems—expose information and present it in a secure, focused, and personalized view, Bullotta says. "There's a popular misconception that use of straight data from the plant floor improves supply chain execution capabilities," he says. "The reality is that straight data with no context is useless. For example, there's little value to feeding information about the temperature in a certain oven on the shop floor into an enterprise resources planning solution. Instead, competitive advantage comes from having real-time access to key performance indicators such as asset utilization, production efficiencies and yield, inventory levels, order status, and quality and traceability data via a standard Web browser."
COM, Microsoft DNA and .Net, and Web technologies such as XML are useful technologies, but it's more important to focus on underlying solution architecture, says Mitch Vaughn, chief technology officer at USDATA, Richardson, Texas. "The name of the game is to improve visibility of plant-level activities and operations, as manufacturers need to view processes, production, orders, yield, quality levels, and so on," Vaughn says.
Thin is in
Although casual users may access plant-floor information via portals, there continues to be strong demand for HMI/supervisory control solutions used by operators on the shop floor. To be sure, however, the nature of these solutions continues to evolve.
For instance, some supervisory control vendors now support Microsoft's Terminal Services capabilities to offer thin-client access to their solutions' screens and functions. Terminal Server, the multi-user server core, enables organizations to deliver the Microsoft Windows user interface to diverse desktop hardware through terminal emulation. According to some analysts, initial implementations of thin clients on the plant floor may save as much as 40 percent over the deployment costs associated with client/server systems.
Earlier this year, Intellution, Foxborough, Mass., introduced iFIX 2.5, an HMI/supervisory control solution that offers full Terminal Services support, and in turn supports centralized software management, says Tim Donaldson, an Intellution technical marketing manager. "Thin-client services are hardware-independent and can use existing PC. They don't obsolete older PCs that may be used as so-called 'dumb-terminals,' he says. "Under this solution, terminals also may be location-independent or even be remote wireless devices. Additionally, thin-client services are easy to implement, it isn't necessary to create new HMI screens, and application deployment and management costs are greatly reduced because everything resides on the server."
Indeed, those benefits appeal to manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble, which runs more than 1,000 nodes of InTouch, an HMI application from industrial automation software supplier Wonderware, Irvine, Calif. "We're enthusiastic about Terminal Services because it offers a lot of promise as a means for remote locations to access plant data," says Procter & Gamble's Smith. "Furthermore, we already have been able to save significant money at one plant because we upgraded a server, but used existing PCs."
Do more with less
ActiveX controls have become the primary technology for deploying software components that are lightweight and may be used in a variety of "containers" such as Windows-based supervisory control applications. This eliminates the need for a separate user interface and minimizes operator training time.
For example, Wonderware recently added DT Analyst, a downtime tracking and production efficiency monitoring solution. DT Analyst's client may be deployed as an ActiveX control and dropped into a suitable container such as Wonderware's InTouch HMI, says Keith Jones, product manager for DT Analyst. "The DT Analyst client doesn't need to be accessed as an ActiveX control, but it's another option," he says.
The DT Analyst solution acquires and decodes information from plant systems and equipment to determine whether or not a particular subsystem or piece of machinery is in a down condition. Its use also offers the ability to evaluate long-term equipment productivity to correct production weaknesses, Jones says.
"Using DT Analyst, a manufacturer is able to identify production weaknesses, optimize production processes, and tap into potential capacity by reducing overall downtime, changeover time, and maintenance problems," Jones says. "It also enables users to improve product flow and minimize bottlenecks because, in addition to determining if machines are down and what the downtime cause was, it identifies downtime consequences such as upstream and downstream problems."
Although Procter & Gamble isn't using DT Analyst, it does use Wonderware's InTouch HMI to deliver a single integrated view of control and information resources, including acting as a container for ActiveX controls. For example, operators access trending and historical data from the Wonderware Industrial SQL Server database as an ActiveX control within InTouch, Smith says.
"Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for operators to run the plant and make adjustments. That means they need access to necessary data and controls without switching screens," Smith says. "When we incorporate something into the HMI, the operator doesn't need to know if data came from an Access database, or an Excel spreadsheet. All they need is the necessary information in the HMI format, which boosts productivity. Wonderware promotes 'openness,' which enables us to build seamless applications."
| FOR MORE INFO: | ||
| IndX Software www.indexsc.com |
Intellution www.intellution.com |
Lighthammer Software www.lighthammer.com |
| USDATA www.usdata.com |
Wonderware www.wonderware.com |
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