Saturday, November 11, 2006

New Wonderware Products This was a first. I saw two press releases from Wonderware yesterday that was not preceeded by a press briefing or emailed directly to me. It appears to be significant, though, so I hope I'm not reading too much into the releases. Remember how Wonderware has been known for many years by its "Suite" of applications? It has been building a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) for some time now that has been branded ArchestrA. The new press releases dispense with the word "suite" and instead talk about the new offerings in terms of a platform with services built on top. This fits with discussions I've had with Kevin Tock, who is now VP in charge of the production/performance management business unit. He has been talking of the importance of a modular structure where users (and integrators) can purchase and implement just the software modules they need at the time without worrying about problems down the road when they wish to add more functionality. The Wonderware System Platform is comprised of a number of "services" and uses a number of standards including ISA 95. New modules announced are Equipment Operations, Equipment Performance and Manufacturing Execution (an update of InTrack). Also released are a number of preconfigured "Quick Start" modules to allow users to get up and running more quickly. Says Tock in the press release, "The customer directly benefits because leveraging a unified system platform, along with the modular nature of Wonderware's new components, offers a common data model for manufacturing resources that decreases the risks associated with initial implementations, as well as increases application flexibility for rapid change over time." 11:31:11 AM    comment []