Charlottesville, Va.— GE Fanuc Automation North America Inc. is combining multiple software units into a single integrated software and consulting business. The move aims to "leverage strengths, offer solutions more easily, augment ease of use through product integration, and provide existing customers a migration path," says Lorrie Norrington, GE Fanuc's president and ceo, in a July 11 interview with Control Engineering. Kevin Roach, named vp of GE Fanuc's $70-million software division on April 4, will head the effort, Ms. Norrington says.

The new unit, tentatively named GE Fanuc Software Solutions, includes products and staff from several of GE Fanuc's industrial automation software areas. These include its Cimplicity line; Total Control Product software unit (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), which was formerly Taylor Industrial Software; and this year's acquisitions, CimWorks GageTalker from GageTalker Corp. (Kirkland, Wa.) and DataViews Corp. (Northampton, Mass.). Software brands and offerings include Cimplicity, VersaPro, PC Control, LogicMaster, CNC, fxManager, EnterpriseRT, GE Compare, FrameworX, and DataViews.

"We live on the factory floor in the real-time environment," says Mr. Roach in a July 13 interview with Control Engineering. "Human-machine interface is an excellent place to reach through the business into the supply chain with real-time information to optimize the business."