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Friday, March 30, 2007 |
I was trying to figure out what to do for my 1000th post. I could pay tribute to everyone I've learned from. Then I saw this link twice just now. It's called Universcale. It really puts things in perspective. It looks at the universe in scale. Fantastic. So after 39 months of this experiment of blogging--here's my gift on number 1000.
3:45:34 PM 
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GE Fanuc Automation has released the latest version of its HMI/SCADA software application, Cimplicity 7.0. Gimmi Filice, Cimplicity product manager, told me,"This release features four major themes: tighter integration with the Proficy software family of products, enhancements for developer productivity, operator productivity and serving additional customers with added CNC (computer numerical control) connectivity."
The reason Iâo[dot accent]m blogging a product revision press release is that it confirms the direction GE is taking with it two software platforms. When GE Fanuc purchased Intellution and its iFix HMI/SCADA product line in 2002, there was speculation that the company's existing Cimplicity product would be merged with the iFix product to produce a new application. This is not to be, says iFix Product Manager Roy Kok. "iFix is a time-based product perfect for certain applications, while Cimplicity is event-based and best for other applications. So they can share technologies, but they will remain separate products."
2:52:15 PM
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Good news on the wireless networking for process industries front. This is a somewhat general press release, but apparently the SP100 committee is making good progress while not shutting any technologies out of the running. Here is the news item Wes Iversen (sort of guest blogger today) wrote for Automation World.
Unanimous working group approval on scope and systems architecture will lead to a draft standard by October, the organization says.
The Instrumentation, Systems and Automation Society (ISA) has reported a milestone on the road to the development of a wireless industrial standard. At a recent ISA-SP100.11a working group meeting in Karlsruhe, Germany, 60 attendees unanimously approved the scope and systems architecture of Release 1 of thedraft standard, the ISA said.
"ISA-SP100.11a Release 1 will be an open standard for anyone to implement and deploy. The standard will be simple to use, and will be focused on serving process industry applications without excluding factory automation," said ISA-SP100.11a lead editor and co-chair Pat Kinney of Kinney Consulting LLC, Export, Pa.
Release 1 is intended to provide technology to address Class 1 (non-critical) to Class 5 applications, such as monitoring. The standard will assure multi-vendor device interoperability, and will include only 2.4 Gigahertz (GHz) IEEE 802.15.4-2006 radios, the ISA said, in reference to the latest revision of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-promulgated standard. The work of the committee will adhere to a comprehensive coexistence strategy, and will use channel hopping to support coexistence and increase reliability. The standard will use a single application layer, providing both native and tunneling protocol capability for broad usability, and provide simple, flexible, and scaleable security addressing major industrial threats. The standard will also offer field device meshing and star capability.
The system architecture will include provisions to accommodate alternate physical layers in future releases, support factory automation applications, support low latency applications, and will not preclude low cost implementations over the life cycle of the intended deployments.
Coming this fall
A draft of the standard will be complete by October, 2007, the ISA said. "The contributions of technology and knowledge from suppliers are proving to be an invaluable part of allowing us to move our work forward. Several companies have made significant technology and resource contributions throughout the initial stages of the standard committee's work. Likewise, the input from asset owners about their experiences and needs are critical to the work of our committee," said ISA-SP100 Committee Chair Wayne Manges of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Oak Ridge, Tenn. "The extensive use case data that we have collected over the past year provides a solid foundation on which we can merge user needs with practical technology solutions to achieve a useful standard."
Evolving options
During the meeting in Germany, the working group also agreed that the second release will include critical Class 1 to 5 applications in addition to monitoring; additional gateway functionality as needed; additional network manager functionality as needed; and dual or alternate physical layers such as narrow band frequency hopping, sub-GHz, licensed bands, high speed, 5 GHz, and other options. All requirements will be user-driven.
"We expect that the technical options that we explore will evolve and change as we work on this draft. If we continually keep our goal in mind of making sure that this standard is the best possible standard for the users in the process and manufacturing communities, we'll be successful," said Manges.
2:46:58 PM
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MESA has issued a call for papers for its annual conference, Integration to Innovation, that will be held in Orlando September 16-18. Here is a list of suggested topics and a speaker profile. I'll put in a pitch, people like to hear how someone has done something--experiences and gotcha's that had to be overcome. They don't like going off to a general conference and just getting vendor sales pitches. Those come when the sales guy visits.
Suggested topics:
- Key concepts in IT-enabled innovation
- Security
- Industry standards 101
- Solution requirements development
- Departmental focus (IT vs. Operations vs. others)
- Support and support structures
- Justifying systems -- integrating into corporate initiatives
- Technology selection
- Implementing solutions
- Systems
- Enterprise/business manufacturing intelligence
- Metrics
- Change management
- Quality & Compliance
- Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)
- Business Process Management (BPM)
- Services Oriented Architecture (SOA)
- Asset management
Here is the speaker profile:
We are primarily interested in end-user/manufacturers and/or joint vendor/end-user presentations. If you have additional topics you would like to present that would complement this year's theme, "Integration to Innovation," feel free to submit for our consideration.
7:36:57 AM
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The latest report from the World Future Society has been released. It includes discussions about wealth in the UK, potential problems caused water scarcity and a rise in the number of female CEOs. I used to be a member of WFS, but I never felt like I got a benefit from the few dollars I sent there. These articles are interesting, but I feel like they do some research (often for the "scare" value of the statistics) then throw in some obscure generalizations not based on facts. But it is food for thought. Take the water situation. In the US, many people choose to live where the land says not too many people should live (like southern California or parts of Arizona). But in other crowded areas with existing political tensions (Palestine, Darfur), water can be an additional source of friction leading to armed combat.
7:24:05 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Gary Mintchell.
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