Enterprise integration made easy

Wonderware has enhanced its enterprise integration offering designed to reduce the complexity and costs of business-to-manufacturing integration.

Wonderware, a business unit of Invensys Systems, whose products are distributed and supported in the UK and Ireland by Stockport based Pantek, has announced the release of a new, enhanced version of its enterprise integration offering designed to reduce the complexity and costs of business-to-manufacturing integration.

The Wonderware Enterprise Integration Application 2.0 enables manufacturers to improve operational performance by integrating diverse sets of manufacturing systems and business applications to achieve greater levels of business productivity.

Built on Invensys' innovative ArchestrA software architecture, the Enterprise Integration Application bridges the gap between the real-time domain of the plant floor and the transactional domain of business systems.

By openly sitting on top of existing multivendor, plant-floor applications such as human-machine interfaces (HMIs), historians or manufacturing execution systems (MES), the Enterprise Integration Application aligns business and manufacturing processes.

This is achieved by using powerful workflow functionality and transformation mappings configured in a nonprogrammatic environment to define reusable and maintainable integration solutions.

"Since the initial release of the Wonderware Enterprise Integration Application in October 2004, we have experienced a surge in demand for the standardised and maintainable approach it represents", said Claus Madsen Abildgren, Wonderware's program manager for production and performance management software solutions.

"Our customers see this application as the key to transitioning from custom integration to affordable B2M interoperability".

"Wonderware is currently involved in major rollouts with several strategic clients that span several industries".

"More than 10 projects are already underway, which include implementation rollouts at more than 40 manufacturing sites".

Version 2.0 extends the library of pre-built integration templates to better facilitate the integration of business applications that include middleware or computerised maintenance management systems.

The software also supports industry standards such as WBF B2MML and ISA-95, and enhancements have been added to the built-in event-handling feature.

It offers the ability to operate securely between nontrusted environments with guaranteed message delivery through robust, high-availability architectural options.

In addition, the Enterprise Integration Application 2.0 offers a new production dispatch client functionality.

This enables the independent release of production orders regardless of business system or network availability, enabling continuous plant operations.

As part of Wonderware's production and performance management software solutions that include a complete range of MES, reporting and analysis applications, the Enterprise Integration Application enables manufacturers the architectural freedom, flexibility and scalability to adapt to local plant requirements and budgets, while supporting customer multiple-plant standardisation initiatives aimed at operational excellence and higher profitability across the manufacturing enterprise.

It also features re-useable application templates that are suitable for deployment across multiple customer facilities and throughout the entire enterprise.

With the release of version 2.0 of its Enterprise Integration Application, Wonderware has launched a strategic initiative to reduce the complexity and risks associated with large-scale deployments through its consulting services and collaborating more closely with the broad network of Wonderware's ArchestrA-certified system integrators.

The goal is to establish a worldwide group of qualified system integrators for successful implementations of Wonderware applications.

Aseco Integrated Systems, a system integration company that has acquired top-level ArchestrA-certified status in the Wonderware SI Program, is one of many integrators that have recently enjoyed success with this product.

"The two main benefits we've received from using the Wonderware Enterprise Integration Application - compared with previous approaches to custom development - are that it takes away a lot of risk while maintaining the flexibility to meet specific requirements", said Robert Peters, President of Aseco.

"It also has helped us pursue new opportunities because the ability to integrate business and plant-floor information improves our standing with potential customers".

Business demand for increased operational performance across multiple sites has been the impetus behind enterprise integration.

In addition to overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and dashboards with real-time key performance indicators, enterprise integration offers increased consistency in product quality driven by tighter specification management, better planning and faster execution of production orders.

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