Power generation, transmission, and distribution utilities provide critical services to people every day. A proper redundant architecture can prevent failures from leading to loss of control or a disruption of electrical service. In order to ensure the constant operation of applications, industry leaders turn to OPC vendors and products like Matrikon OPC that provide mission critical redundancy.

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White paper by Invensys: The end users of modern industrial systems are constantly searching for methods of improving the availability and maximizing the efficiency of those systems without compromising the quality of their offerings or safety of their operations teams. One of the areas where improvements can have significant impacts in this pursuit is quite literally star ing them in the face; the human machine interface used to control and operate these systems. By implementing improvements in the mechanisms used to control and operate industrial systems, operations teams can significantly improve both the business value and the safety of their industrial systems.

Over the past several decades the way people have interacted with industrial systems has changed dramatically as depicted in Figure 1. These changes were driven by the needs of the operations staff to improve the way that they use, manage, and maintain those systems coupled with advances in technology that facilitated those improvements. Changes like this will continue to naturally occur over the coming decades and will be driven by market needs coupled with advances in technology that address those needs and provide further opportunities for improvements. There are several trends in the current implementations of industrial automation human machine interface (HMI) systems that are driven by the current market needs.

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I have a 5 MB connection out to my remote sites in the field. For each site, I need to poll for status, alarm, and historical data. If I have one hundred sites, how fast can I poll each data set? How long will it take to send a control signal? Do I need to upgrade the connection? Downgrade?

Ever find yourself asking these questions? If yes, you are officially a SCADA geek—but you are not alone. In Oil & Gas, Water & Wastewater, and Power, remote facilities like wellsites, pump stations, and substations can number in the hundreds or even thousands, and remote monitoring of these assets results in huge efficiency gains to the business.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could run dedicated fiber lines out to each site, and never worry about bandwidth? Of course this isn’t practical, and instead we need to use technologies like radio, cellular, and satellite communications that are lower bandwidth and more costly per byte. As a result, SCADA owners are required to fine tune how and when they collect data from the field.

In this whitepaper, we’ll discuss scheduling needs and how the new Scheduler Plug-In for KEPServerEX addresses them.

Case Study: Kepware Technologies, a software development company focused on communications for automation, announced today that its flagship product, KEPServerEX, has been integrated with Molex Incorporated's SIS shop floor program to significantly increase operational efficiencies and interoperability across numerous locations. By using KEPServerEX, Molex can now support multiple PLCs, process monitors, and controllers from a variety of vendors using a single communications platform.

While expanding the SIS shop floor program, Molex found that varying machine ages and protocols made communications across each of its forty-five facilities challenging. The company also needed to find a solution that could scale to fit into any industrial environment that may be encountered in the future. With its support of the OPC standard and over 150 different protocols, KEPServerEX enabled the efficient global expansion of the program across the 17 countries in which Molex operates.

Kepware's KEPServerEX is specifically engineered to connect, manage, monitor, and control disparate automation devices and software applications across diverse architectures. Its robust platform supports an array of open standards, proprietary communication protocols, APIs, and automation systems' interfaces. Its single user interface provides consistent and reliable data throughout the enterprise and reduces training, support, and maintenance.

By using KEPServerEX, Molex experienced an average 37 percent reduction in equipment downtime. The company was able to decrease costs by providing reliable access to accurate and complete shop floor data, and is now poised to adapt to the needs of any future manufacturing environments it comes across.

"The smarter and more nimble our business decision-making, the better products and cost savings we can deliver to our customers," said Steve Behlen, Controls Engineering Manager, Molex. "Kepware is instrumental to our interoperability across forty-five locations and happy customers across the globe."