Multi-vendor historical data access

DataWorks Systems, a developer of real-time business intelligence software for manufacturing enterprises, has released its Incuity HDA historical data access solution for integrated deployment of plant-wide production information.

By Control Engineering Staff August 11, 2005

DataWorks Systems , a developer of real-time business intelligence software for manufacturing enterprises, has released its Incuity HDA historical data access solution for integrated deployment of plant-wide production information.

“Power users like engineers, technicians, and production supervisors need tools for analyzing manufacturing performance (gathered from the historians already in place) and sharing insights with the rest of the organization,” says John Nichols, DataWorks chief operating officer.

Incuity is said to provide one toolset for access to all major process historians. DataWorks also provides services to integrate and manage that data according to user-defined needs.

Users can build numerous arrays of reporting and information management applications, including:

Pre-configured and custom executive dashboards, within Incuity’s open portal application;

Automated production reporting;

Key performance indicator (KPI) monitoring and alerting;

Downtime and operating equipment efficiency analysis;

Process verification; and

Process optimization.

Incuity HDA is backward-compatible with versions 8.5 and earlier of ActiveFactory—originally developed by DataWorks and licensed to the Wonderware unit of Invensys. According to Incuity, these previous versions of ActiveFactory are no longer sold by Wonderware, which now markets its own version of the product based on a different code base.

Incuity HDA also enables ActiveFactory users to access data from several popular industrial data historians, such as OSIsoft’s PI System, General Electric’s Proficy historian, Rockwell Software’s RSBizware historian, and Wonderware’s IndustrialSQL Server, as well as any other OPC HDA-compatible historian.

In addition to compatibility with ActiveFactory desktop client applications, new Incuity HDA clients include:

Zero install trend and X-Y plotting applications;

Web application for data sharing throughout a plant;

Reporting subsystem; and

A Microsoft Office add-in that provides wizards for bringing data from multiple control and business systems into Microsoft Word and Excel for data analysis, reporting, and presentation.

Nichols adds that Incuity HDA provides an upgrade path to the Incuity EMI enterprise manufacturing intelligence system, which allows connection to multiple data sources, such as real-time control systems, enterprise business systems, and databases of all types—in addition to plant historians.

—David Greenfield, editorial director, Control Engineering, dgreenfield@reedbusiness.com