Enterprise software enhancements boost plant analytics

Manufacturing Business Intelligence Solution v. 5.5 from Acumence Inc . adds KPI alerting and a variety of other enhancements to the plant analytics server that reportedly helps manufacturers identify, analyze, and react more quickly to decreasing plant performance.

Enhanced version is built on a comprehensive plant data model that enables greater contextual data aggregation and analysis, company says. The ability to create custom KPIs (such as OEE and other performance measures), combined with customizable alerting, is said to give users tools necessary to quickly identify decreasing performance in the plant. Operators of high-speed, high-volume manufacturing processes can expect less scrap and greater efficiency.

“Acumence’s ability to leverage efficiency KPIs into its real-time solution is enabling high speed high volume manufacturers to keep their lines up and running 24/7,” said Jane Biddle, vice president of manufacturing research at Aberdeen Group. “Its Plant Analytic Server collects, aggregates, and preprocesses operational data, enabling decision makers to make well informed choices in real-time.”

Dashboards improvements are said to make it easier to visualize location and root cause of decreasing performance. Enhanced reports, with analytical drilldown capabilities, are intended to make it easy to provide detailed analysis on the fly. New features enhance retrieval of complex queries and make the system easier to use and o maintain for a lower total cost of ownership. It also makes performance information more widely available throughout the plant and the enterprise.

V. 5.5 provides for full, high-resolution capture of process variables, such as machine speeds, temperatures, and pressures. Performance measures, or real-time KPIs, are fully configurable and integrated into the server. A new, complex alerting engine will notify the right person at the right time when conditions change.

Dashboards in the new version provide immediate status of plant operations, and reports and analysis tools allow for quick drill-down diagnosis to uncover the root-cause of a problem and return to normal production more quickly.

Other features and enhancements or the new version include:

Zero administration client—Client users receive automatic updates as they are made available on the plant server;

Client licensing by plant—A one-time plant license enables as many user connections as desired;

Downtime Gant chart—New object graphs the state of multiple machines over time, allowing for quick identification of cause-and-effect relationships between machines and line flow efficiency losses;

Trend chart—New object plots any number of process variables, KPIs, speeds, or variables on a chart for real-time and historical analysis;

Dashboard designer—A new, friendly environment with easy-to configure objects provides flexibility with ease of use for a lower cost of ownership; and

Export reports—Click of a button exports report data to Microsoft Excel or Adobe pdf formats.

—Renee Robbins, editorial director, Control Engineering, renee.robbins@reedbusiness.com

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