APPLICATIONS

FactoryTalk VantagePoint and VantagePoint EMI offer you powerful and versatile new avenues for managing the many different monitoring and reporting applications that are so useful to manufacturing companies. These include common functions such as:

• Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)
• Key performance indicator (KPI) monitoring
• Downtime tracking
• Alarm & event monitoring
• Quality monitoring
• Laboratory information management systems (LIMS)
• Production reporting
• Environmental reporting
• Process optimization
• Condition-based maintenance
• Asset management
• Waste reduction
• Energy efficiency
• Batch reporting
• Statistical process control (SPC)

How versatile?

If you already have point solutions like these implemented, there’s no need to rip-and-replace them. Continue to use them as you already do – and VantagePoint can enhance them by integrating the data from all of them so it’s available from a single source. VantagePoint will provide the input data to them and will provide their output analysis and reporting as a web service for users. If you haven’t already implemented some of these point solutions, you can develop the same functionality within VantagePoint and save the time and expense of installing silo applications that can’t interact with each other.

How powerful?

Creating single instances of these typical applications within VantagePoint offers tremendous power and capability because:

• Network and data overhead is reduced dramatically
• System configuration and maintenance are simplified (and lower cost) for multiple vertical functions operating on the same platform
• A single user interface for all applications means less training of personnel
• One data source can serve both deeply technical and casual users anywhere in the company
• No client software needs to be installed on hundreds or thousands of computers

One of the biggest problems with deploying multiple point solutions that solve one set of problems at a time is the overhead associated with engineering and maintenance over the life of the program. If you install separate downtime tracking, OEE and process optimization systems, for example, there will be duplication of effort in creating the data model that each uses. Having multiple applications accessing the same control systems and equipment on your plant floor all the time creates unnecessary overhead on the data sources and network resources. Plus, your people will need to learn how to use multiple systems to do their jobs.

And what happens when you change your equipment configuration or control devices? You need to change the data model and all connections to the data sources independently for each application. That’s three times the work. Or more. You end up in a maintenance nightmare by spending all your time keeping systems alive and you don’t have the time or staff to enhance them because you’re stuck in maintenance mode.

Separate point applications also have the disadvantage of having different user interfaces, which means you have to train your people to use multiple different systems. It implies potential errors in the way people may interpret the data. Wouldn’t you want similar user interfaces and user mechanisms so people can look at a glance and decide if that thing is good, bad or indifferent?