Charlottesville, VA -- GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, a unit of GE Enterprise Solutions, announced the release of its vertical solution pack for the water industry. The Water Solution Pack 2008 delivers new tools and functionality that drives a sustainable advantage for Proficy HMI/SCADA – iFIX customers with the addition of an extensive industry-specific dynamo library, NERC-recommended security features, and tighter integration with OPS Systems' water/wastewater reporting software.
A superior SCADA solution, Proficy HMI/SCADA – iFIX is a next-generation visualization, control and real-time information management solution, enabling users to drive better analytics and leverage more reliability, flexibility, and scalability across the enterprise. With GE Fanuc's recent release of iFIX 5.0, customers in the water/wastewater industries are already benefiting from new features, such as enhanced failover, integrated historian, and new trend charts. When iFIX 5.0 is coupled with the Water Solutions Pack 2008, customers can drive their applications to the next level of functionality and decrease deployment and ownership costs. The release of both products this year solidifies GE Fanuc's commitment to consistently adding real value to its HMI/SCADA software products.
"GE Fanuc's deep understanding of the water industry is incorporated into this product," said Alan Hinchman, GE Fanuc's Global Industry Manager for the Water Industry. "It is designed to provide a rich set of tools addressing the broad needs of this industry with benefits to users that address key needs like security and regulatory reporting."
Proficy HMI/SCADA – iFIX is a leader in visualization software, and with the addition of the Water Solution Pack 2008, users can reduce development time and promote standardization with features including:
- 150+ new water industry dynamos
- Advanced pump and valve objects
- OPS SQL reporting software integration
- NERC-recommended electronic signatures and biometric toolkit for increased security
The Water Solution Pack 2008, which can be ordered for both Proficy iFIX 4.5 and 5.0, is targeted at municipal, regional, and industrial water and wastewater customers looking for ways to further reduce the total cost of installing and operating sophisticated SCADA control systems at their sites. The solutions pack, along with the other significant enhancements in iFIX out this year, provide customers a rich set of tools and features that expose the power of iFIX quicker and easier, resulting in reduced total cost of ownership and accelerated system deployment.
"This is the first pack in a new annual series that demonstrates our continued investment in the iFIX brand," said Claire Cerrato, Director of GE Fanuc's HMI/SCADA products. "Our goal is to create a sustainable advantage for customers by reducing deployment and ownership costs, improving quality and reporting, and providing security and secured systems that meet the needs of the water industry every day."
The Water Solution Pack 2008 offers advanced features, such as iFIX's PLC Discover and Auto Configure tool, in addition to special database blocks and dynamos for popular PLCs, as well as advanced pre-scripted dynamos that greatly reduce development time. Tighter integration with OPS Systems' reporting software not only provides existing and new customers with an easy to configure regulatory reporting option, but for advanced users, it also provides superior analytical tools for greater optimization of their operations.
To enable companies to address security concerns, the Water Solutions Pack extends NERC recommended electronic signatures and includes a Biometric toolkit for increased security with SCADA systems. These tools come built in with audit trails that enable customers to maintain critical security reports on their systems.
"Municipal water distribution and water treatment companies will find that this solution pack will reduce the need for custom manual monthly reporting and will increase security of their HMI/SCADA platform," concluded Hinchman.
About GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms
GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, a joint venture between General Electric and FANUC Ltd. of Japan, is a high-performance technology company and a global provider of hardware, software, services, expertise, and experience in automation and embedded computing, with products employed in virtually every industry, including manufacturing automation, defense, automotive, telecommunications, healthcare, and aerospace. GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms is a worldwide company headquartered in Charlottesville, VA, and is part of GE Enterprise Solutions.