With the release of its FactoryTalk VantagePoint 4.0 software, Rockwell Automation has added native support for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and simplified configuration, complexity and cost of developing meaningful reports and analytics that enhance performance for manufacturing intelligence applications. This allows for a simplified end-user experience and an unmatched opportunity to expose plant-floor data to the enterprise, as well as other capabilities like business intelligence not typically found in real-time manufacturing operation.
FactoryTalk VantagePoint 4.0 software connects to different data sources – real-time, historical, relational and transactional – to create a single resource that can access and correlate information into a common model that allows trends, reports and dashboards to help customers make fact-based decisions. With FactoryTalk VantagePoint’s web-based dashboards and reports, key performance indicators are monitored and users are empowered at every level of an enterprise to manage their operations in real-time.
The updated version enables pre-configured reporting content for Logix programmable automation controllers (PACs), FactoryTalk Historian, FactoryTalk Metrics and FactoryTalk EnergyMetrix, for faster and easier setup reporting around common equipment types. In addition, FactoryTalk VantagePoint 4.0 allows production intelligence for customers using the PlantPAx process automation system, by providing pre-built reports and a visual model of the process library. Direct connectivity to third-party historians and control systems is also included, which allow customers with a diverse plant floor to make better decisions, and provide easier access to their data.
“Plant-floor equipment continuously generates valuable data,” says Sean Homan, business manager control systems, Rockwell Automation. “With the added connectors and configuration tools to this version of FactoryTalk VantagePoint, access to that information is speedier. These enhancements provide manufacturers with more flexibility in working with their data, and assist them in extracting more value from their manufacturing assets with a smaller upfront investment of time.”
Users can create reports using common tools such as Microsoft Excel and view data through the FactoryTalk VantagePoint portal or Microsoft SharePoint, leveraging a long list of web parts, scorecards, business intelligence and other collaboration tools.
“Our business intelligence and collaboration solutions rely on widely used applications, which significantly reduce the cost of ownership and increase the time-to-value for organisations. Our work with Rockwell Automation enables us to extend this familiar framework into a real-time production environment that helps to dramatically reduce the complexities and cost of reporting in operations,” notes Caglayan Arkan, director manufacturing operation strategy at Microsoft.
FactoryTalk VantagePoint software can be used to address specific manufacturing needs, including downtime reporting, status tracking and multiple control system reporting. Users can work instinctively and interactively with reports and dashboards to view key performance indicators that enable data-driven decision making. The application is based on a unified production model (UPM) that aggregates disparate manufacturing data and gives context for relationships among equipment, product, materials and people. The UPM organises various manufacturing and enterprise data.
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