Status and KPIs

First off, what are KPIs?

KPIs are key performance indicators that basically tell you that A: you are doing well or B: you are doing badly.

Next on the agenda: what is visual management?

Visual Management is displaying important information to workers. Why is this important you may ask? Well if you can’t see the information you don’t know what to fix.

So the goal here is to marry these two options. We need a way to easily display our KPIs and have this information delivered effectively across our place of business. Visualizing data is nothing new, especially in the manufacturing and automation world; but the way we see that data and the way we collect that data has definitely changed.

Back in the day you had a person in charge of monitoring and timing the number of widgets being produced. They would then take that number and write in on a chalkboard for the employees to see. Obviously this was not in real time and often this number would fluctuate between readings. But it all started here. People realized that they needed to see the information no matter how delayed it was in order to start making changes to increase productivity.

Well the time has changed and now gathering that information can be made easy. Using technology such as OPC (open connectivity via open standards) you can now take data from numerous vendors and bring it together. This is a big step in helping companies realize that they have the flexibility to choose the right equipment for the job and avoids being locked down to specific vendors.  With a data visualization solution such as Status you can take information from a number of sources, OPC, SQL, and ODBC and display this information across the plant or work place in real time. This will bring your KPIs to the forefront of your business and allow your employees to make changes in order to increase productivity. What can be better than increasing productivity? And with the web solution Status offers you can now reach more employees faster and further than before. 

Confidently entering the New Year 2012 with the Status Vision Designer HMI Solution!

This New Year will bring new customers and new improvements to the Status Vision Designer software packages.

The New Year is already shaping up to be a busy one. We have recently signed agreements with three Fortune 500 companies. Two of those will be embedding the technology into their product while the other, a major electricity producer in the United States is using Status for data visualization. Status is truly a product that can be used in virtually any market. To start the New Year we have licensed the Status Solution to an injection molding plant in Canada, to an online gaming company, a general hospital and a large food manufacture, where there is data, you can use Status!

Mobiform began the New Year with a new version of the Status Solution. We are now on version 4.1. We have come a long way since the initial release in 2009.  Mobiform in now lab certified in OPC DA, and is on the way of becoming lab certified in OPC UA, OPCs newest protocol for industrial communication. Some of the new features that have been added into our HMI solution a new batch/recipe server, dynamic binding (which allows you to easily switch data bindings at runtime), new controls, function key navigation (which allows the user to map to the function keys on the keyboard for navigation), and enhancements made to the Status Client (the windows runtime client) to allow for local users and a “lock-out” feature which will keep the Status Client the top application.

We look forward to another wonderful year filled with new verticals for Status to enter, and new customers to please. If you are interested in seeing more information about our HMI Solution please visit www.statusvision.com

Let's Talk October

Welcome to the new monthly newsletter called “Let’s Talk”. This newsletter is meant to be a personal and informative letter on industry news, and Mobiform’s thoughts and solutions. If during any point you wish to unsubscribe please just reply with “unsubscribe” in the subject line and I will ensure that you receive no future email newsletters.

Most of you have downloaded our industrial solution called Status Vision Designer, a real time data visualization tool that allows for the viewing and controlling of the industrial data most commonly controlled through OPC (Open Connectivity via Open Standards). If you haven’t downloaded a trial, feel free to do so at www.statusvision.com.

A lot of you that have downloaded may not know about all the services that we can offer to help you create a custom solution catering to your company’s needs. Mobiform specializes in graphic design and custom .Net development. Because Status is built on .Net we can easily extend and customize the software and projects you build to satisfy your exact needs.

Some examples of extending our software would be writing a custom data source plugin to communicate to a protocol other than OPC, creating a custom plugin or writing a custom control to fit your needs. We would like to provide you with a solution that you can just install and run.

In short, Mobiform can offer a number of services to better suit your needs. If any of this interests you, please do not hesitate to call and talk; after all, the newsletter is “Let’s Talk”.

Contact: Patrick Barker

Phone: 352.564.9610

Email: pbarker@mobiform.com

Status Lends Itself to Metro with XAML and .NET

Mobiform has built all of its software products on top of the .NET framework leveraging WPF and XAML. What does this mean for companies that invest in Mobiform Technology over the years?

When you invest in WPF, XAML, and .NET you are investing in core Microsoft Technologies that are at the heart of new Microsoft platforms including, Windows 8 as well as Metro, Microsoft’s new .NET platform for Windows 8. Metro applications are full screen apps tailored to the device they are running on. They are very ‘touch’ aware producing an intimate and immersive experience for the end user. When you invest in a technology that is Microsoft’s Core technology you can bet on it lasting, as well as growing and enhancing.

Where does Status fit in all of this…? For the next generation of Status we are looking at using loose XAML with a .NET runtime application to the cloud for data. The current Status product uses Visual Studio projects and compiles to a WPF applications or a Silverlight web site Silverlight is fully supported in Windows 8 and is still the most powerful technology in existence today for delivering high performance, graphics intensive applications over the web. Mobiform’s current version of Status will live on as Status Machine Edition and will continue to grow, improve and support new releases of Silverlight as they are available.

As Microsoft rolls out Windows 8 and Metro, Mobiform will be releasing Status Enterprise to run on any device that supports XAML and .NET. These include the Windows desktop, Windows 8 tablets; Mobile Devices with Windows Phone 7 or Metro … even Xbox.

For those looking to use other devices that are not running .NET friendly operating systems, the real time data services that Status communicates with will be web socket friendly allowing for the development of completely cross platform solutions for devices supporting HTML 5.

Keep checking back with Mobiform, we are going to have some pretty exciting products in the next two years…you won’t want to miss it!

www.statusvision.com

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Increase Visibility.. SCADA/HMI and SharePoint

We are reaching a point in the industrial market, as well as others that it is becoming necessary to share data and increase collaboration between all departments of the organization. By taking advantage of Status and SharePoint you can do just that.

One reason companies are taking advantage of SharePoint is to increase visibility, this can be safety information, downtime and quality. If companies take advantage of the Status web clients you can see real time operational data presented in Silverlight in your SharePoint client.  Many companies are still using paper to track down times, quality and production, or they have a separate application for each. By using SharePoint there will be no need to use paper, or separate applications to track your data.

The Status web clients operating in SharePoint will display all OPC data, or any custom data source inside SharePoint in real time. You can also monitor alarms and all historical data while inside SharePoint. By implementing a SharePoint solution, corporate wide visibility is now possible. 

www.statusvision.com 

Becoming more efficient

In recent years the need to become more energy efficient has gained prominence in today’s business society.

In a recent survey commissioned by energyrethinking, 40% of respondents said that one of the biggest barriers to becoming more energy efficient has been the upfront initial investment.  I tend to agree with that, but on the other hand if you invest in a solution like “Status” to monitor your energy consumption and turn off equipment that is not being used, or replace equipment that is drawing to much energy you can save anywhere from 9-11% in the first year. These savings have been realized by a company in South Korea called ChunCheon BioIndustry Foundation.

The ChunCheon BioIndustry Foundation is optimizing their HVAC controllers on time by a schedule using the Status Vision Designer. They reported saving 3-4% on energy consumption.  They have 3 buildings and each building had its own control room. By implementing a web solution, the have moved to a central control room reducing the need to hire additional engineers to monitor the buildings.  These savings were realized through a small investment. So although I would agree that some energy saving efforts can be a big initial investment, this customer realized a benefit by purchasing a remote monitoring solution at a small cost.

For companies looking to reduce energy consumption and become more efficient the first question needs to be, are you monitoring the data? If you or your employees do not know your business’s energy consumption, how can you improve?  So if you are looking for a way to monitor your energy usage and don’t know where to begin feel free to give us a call 352.564.9610.

Data got you Tangled?

Step out of this tangled web we call SCADA

Many companies today are looking for a change. They have complex systems that have been fused together over the years to provide more functionality and connectivity. Unfortunately with every new piece of technology added on to the system you get a bigger spider web that will eventually entangle your organization and reduce your ability to operate efficiently.  Having a system that has been pieced together over the years makes it difficult to maintain in a consistent manner, and will require an increasing amount of time for training staff, and the hiring of external consultants. One way to stop this snowball effect is through the introduction of standardization.

OPC is a great stepping stone to standardization. OPC is open connectivity via open standards. So now you have a way or a protocol to allow many devices from all sorts of vendors to communicate with each other. Once the protocol is in place you now can choose an HMI/SCADA vendor that is going to read and write back to your equipment via the OPC protocol.  This opens many doors for companies as you are not locked into a specific vendor.  There are many vendors that are OPC certified and will be able to communicate to your devices and display your information.

But what if you can’t standardize or you have devices that are using protocols not currently supported by industrial standards like OPC and BACNET or Modbus? That’s when the Status Vision Designer would be a perfect fit. The Status Vision Designer can be extended to talk with any type of data source. The data that you normally would have to manually pull out of a database to build a report is now displayed in real time from our HMI system.

For more details on how the Status Vision Designer can help you step out of the web please email or call Patrick at 352-564-9610 or pbarker@mobiform.com to book a web demonstration.