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Mobile apps ‘free users from control rooms’

23 March, 2013

GE Intelligent Platforms has announced the first in a series of apps for mobile devices designed to deliver “real-time operational intelligence” (RtOI), and allowing users to transform data into “actionable knowledge”. The app, called Proficy Mobile, provides real-time access to operational data via Apple iOS or Android devices, and an interface with GE’s GEO-intelligence technology which provides intelligent information based on the user’s location, role and asset location.

“Industrial operations need to break free of operating from within a central control room,” says Mark Bernardo, general manager of automation software for GE IP. “Business and operational personnel can now leverage smart mobile devices that have actionable information in context to physical equipment. By harnessing RtOI, productivity is increased by arming each employee with the right information at the right time in the right place, to make the right decision, faster.

“Mobilising existing user interfaces and their associated systems designed for 24x7 monitoring in central control rooms have great value,” he adds. “However, the ‘gold mine’ is achieved by adding intelligence on top of existing data elements from multiple systems, to not only transform into real information, but also to control what is accessible by location and role.”

Proficy Mobile accesses information via equipment models that can be configured to a company’s operations. Once data is mapped into the model, they can add intelligence through easy-to-use tools that can outline relationships and connections to dispersed systems, transforming it into information.

The app allows “point-and-click” server configuration and analytics to be deployed on top of existing systems such as Scada, HMI, MES, BMS, ERP and historians. New visualisation, analytics and collaboration tools allow real-time action in the required locations and with the information operators, engineers, managers and executives need to make quicker decisions.

The app can map data from GE or third-party applications, allowing companies to add context to data. Companies can define key performance indicators (KPIs) and equipment relationships forming plant-wide and asset-level displays accessible from within the app. The KPIs can track assets and processes to notify users of alerts and trends in the plant.

Later this year, GE is planning to release alarming and predictive analytics apps.




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