While the COVID-19 pandemic may have fueled a surge toward more reliance on remote operations, the past year has proved that incorporating digital strategies and infrastructure may be the key to future success. GE Digital is helping to make that easier for a range of industries with the latest enhancements to CIMPLICITY, its human-machine interface and supervisory control and data acquisition (HMI/SCADA) solution, and Tracker, part of its Proficy Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) software.
“The combination of remote workers and centralized knowledge centers that were deployed or greatly accelerated as a result of the pandemic—and will remain in a hybrid form post-pandemic—require a new set of digital transformation software tools to both leverage and optimize the operational functionality and productivity of this new normal workforce,” said Craig Resnick, ARC Advisory Group vice president.
According to GE, the latest versions “provide critical decision support for operators to make them more efficient.”
“Today’s digital plant and its mobile, connected workforce accelerate and sustain continuous improvement to drive greater productivity and efficiency, lower total cost of ownership, and increase profitability,” said Richard Kenedi, GE Digital’s Manufacturing and Digital Plant business general manager. “Connected workers enable industrial companies to accelerate digitization enabling more advanced insights into operations. Whether you are looking at multiple sites that you need to manage or you have multiple applications at a site, centralizing views makes operations more efficient.”
CIMPLICITY, which was first released as a 32-bit system in 1995, has established itself as a go-to solution for manufacturing and utilities organizations. It has steadily grown as a solution for client-server visualization to monitor and control operations, whether a business has one site or multiple sites across the globe.
The latest upgrade includes:
- Multisite view for lean operations, which reduces training through a consistent operator experience
- The ability to leverage displays and data from existing sites
- A new Operations Hub Widget that displays CIMPLICITY screens in Web apps
- Enhanced multi-domain support and production traction
A main element of the latest version is the Proficy Operations Hub integration. According to GE, the software enables businesses with multiple locations or large sites to centralize operational views and remote access to information and control to support site operations, increasing efficiency and reducing downtime. No matter where different team members are located, they can easily access a paperless view of operations.
As part of its Proficy MES offering, Tracker is designed to automate routing and sequencing. Along with accelerating time to market, this makes it easier to reduce warranty and recall exposure while incorporating lean operations. Often used by automotive companies due to its focus on routing, tracking and orders, the recent update includes multiuser development designed to accelerate configuration and deployment.
When used with CIMPLICITY, Tracker enables better access to real-time information, which reduces risk and boosts time to market. Designed to support lean initiatives, the software gives remote teams a clearer picture of the plant floor without being on-site. Tracker is designed to minimize recalls via genealogy and traceability data, which is vital information for audits and compliance regulations.
Interested in other technologies aimed at keeping workers remotely connected? Check out New Version of NVIDIA vGPU Targets Administrator Efficiency and Digitizing the Industrial Workforce with Innovapptive.