Software upgrade eases supervision

A GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms UK product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team May 1, 2008

The digital graphical replay allows users to go back in time and replay Cimplicity screens based on logged historical data.

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms has released Proficy HMI/Scada - Cimplicity 7.5, offering more diagnostic tools, security, development tools, connectivity and flexibility.

"Cimplicity 7.5 extends the product's ability to develop and improve supervisory monitoring and control projects", said Bernard Cubizolles, European Commercial Product Leader for Software Products.

"Whether upgrading an existing system, or implementing a new project, Cimplicity 7.5 will provide users with the power, flexibility and ease of use they need".

Enhancements include digital graphical replay (DGR), enhanced screen navigation and easy to use application deployment.

The digital graphical replay allows users to go back in time and replay Cimplicity screens based on logged historical data.

Events can be replayed in real time, in slow motion or in fast forward to analyse systems and troubleshoot or optimise applications.

The new Screen Navigation bar saves time for developers and operators Frequently, HMI/Scada developers add a method of navigation to their application, requiring them to build buttons or frames containing links to other screens.

Cimplicity 7.5 has now made configuring navigation as simple as drag and drop.

By simply dragging screens into a hierarchy, users can easily build a task bar menu, with colour coding options so that operators can locate screens quickly and make them more effective.

Cimplicity now contains an application deployment system to allow development changes to be propagated automatically to all the viewers in the system, helping reduce total cost of ownership.

By simply configuring when and how they want to deploy the changes, viewers will then detect changes, copy the necessary files and alert the operator that changes are coming that can be deferred if needed, or configured to force the change.

In addition to the standard client/server architecture in Cimplicity, the new advanced viewer gives even more flexibility for how to architect a system.

The advanced viewer allows users to visualise data captured by the server just like the standard viewer, with the option of capturing data directly from OPC DA servers locally or on the network.

Often applications need simple enhancements or the ability to grab a piece of information local to the viewer.

Rather than going to the server and configuring a data point to make the data available to the viewer, the viewer can access the OPC data directly.

This provides flexibility in architecture and the ability to enhance the local application without modifying the server.

With the growing need to securing HMI/Scada systems and the increased dependence on IT standards, Cimplicity has added Windows Domain Security integration.

This allows users to take advantage of current IT configurations, so that they can assign roles and resources in Cimplicity based on Windows groups.

Cimplicity will use the configured Windows Domain to authenticate user credentials and the IT rules that come with it for password expiration.