Bob Gates, market director of manufacturing, announced significant updates to GE Intelligent Platforms’ suite of Proficy manufacturing software and explained how these apply to the new realities of business potential enabled by the industrial Internet, at the 2014 ARC Forum.
GE Proficy software transforms manufacturing with a roadmap to the industrial Ethernet to mitigate risk, bundle offerings, with proven results, said Bob Gates, GE’s market director of manufacturing at the 2014 ARC Forum new product press conference. Gates said quality + responsiveness + capacity = profit.
Data is everywhere in homes, banking, factories, he said. Change is necessary in a competitive world. Factories that don’t use available data will close or get purchased. Integration is important.
GE Proficy software enables:
- Interactive test verification. Brand protection keeps customers up at night. This provides real-time connection.
- Responsiveness is enhanced with interactive Gantt charts. Weekly status views don’t help because things change often.
- Capacity with interactive overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), drill in to charts to check relationships and root causes.
The most recent release is easier to update, offers built-in interoperability, and gives updates annually for better planning.
Here are other points of emphasis from the product presentation:
- 7 of 10 customers are global food and beverage, 6 of 10 global consumer packaged goods (CPG), and 6 of 10 global discrete manufacturers, and GE uses the products, as well.
- Benefits include improved product quality by 25%, increased responsiveness of 15%, and increased capacity of 20%.
- Security is layered into the product.
- These capabilities were part of Proficy v6.2 in fourth-quarter 2013.
Return to the ARC product press conference summary.
-Mark T. Hoske and Jordan M. Schultz, content managers CFE Media, Control Engineering, and Plant Engineering, [email protected], [email protected].
GE Intelligent Platforms is a CSIA member as of 3/5/2015
