Rocking out to the Beatles “Revolution”, Invensys software announced “The Industrial Software Revolution Begins Now.” About 1,000 people gathered at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas for the second Invensys conference in a little over a month. Last month it was the process solutions side of the company. This conference focuses on Wonderware, SimSci-Esscor and Avantis.
Expect a stream of new product announcements this week.
This morning I had breakfast with Saadi Kermani and Maryanne Steidinger to discuss mobile, cloud and related technologies. Hint—you can find an app on iOS, Android and Windows 8, just search SmartGlance in your app store. Invensys Wonderware has been on the leading edge of mobility for several years.
System Platform 2014
Invensys kicked off the event with the release of its Wonderware InTouch 2014 and Wonderware System Platform 2014 software. Delivering powerful, additional capabilities to its flagship HMI and supervisory offerings, the new software promises to improve operator awareness, optimize performance and minimize disruptions during startup, operation and shutdown.
“While other HMI providers have been focusing solely on graphics to improve the operator experience, Invensys has been collaborating closely with some of the world’s most recognized industrial companies—large and small—to understand their most pressing challenges and issues, and then devise the most innovative ways to solve them,” said John Krajewski, director of HMI and supervisory product management for Invensys.
One major operating challenge is the ability to more quickly identify and address abnormal situations before they impact operations. The company’s Wonderware InTouch 2014 and Wonderware System Platform 2014 software take what the company labels “a revolutionary new approach to HMI design” and supervisory systems by providing new capabilities in alarm management, color representation, information presentation and window navigation, all intended to maximize user performance.
The updates include new object templates; styles for consistent and standardized colors and fonts in HMI applications; and consistency in the way alarms are represented throughout systems, all simply managed from a central repository.
“Utilizing 15 years of human interface studies, we have delivered a toolkit that transforms the way industrial users design and interface with their HMI,” Krajewski said. “We’ve moved from simply presenting data to displaying information in context. Instead of developing a library of ‘graphics,’ these new capabilities enable application builders to focus on creating content, easily assembling the most effective HMI applications and user interfaces for abnormal situation management.
“Initial testing indicates that these new styles and standardized colors can help users reduce situation interpretation time by 40 percent and can lead to a five-fold improvement in detecting abnormal situations before they occur. After the initial detection, our enhanced navigation can improve the success rate for handling abnormal situations by as much as 37 percent, and we’ve seen a 41 percent reduction in the time required to complete tasks.”
These new capabilities implement and encourage best-practices to bring clarity, consistency and meaning to integrated data, allowing senior, experienced and entry-level operators to identify, understand, react to and resolve abnormal situations, thus optimizing their operations. The new capabilities can also empower and train new operators, helping companies address another major issue: the retiring workforce.
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