GE Fanuc Announces Proficy Process Systems Upgrade

Charlottesville, VA -- GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, a unit of GE Enterprise Solutions, announced that it has released the latest version of its process control system, Proficy Process Systems 1.5. Proficy Process Systems is a fully integrated process control system that will provide customers with improved quality and reliability, increased throughput, performance and efficiency, and reduced total cost of ownership.

"This latest version of Proficy Process Systems, less than a year from our launch last year, emphasizes our commitment to the process market space," said Steve Ryan, General Manager, Process Solutions. "With the new added features of dynamic changes to the global namespace, run mode store transfer lists, iFIX 4.5 visualization technologies, and connectivity to our latest Proficy Batch 5.1 release, we have increased the capabilities to provide high availability solutions to our customers."

Proficy Process Systems features a common global namespace that provides simplified configuration and maintenance for the user. Tags in the system are defined once and then referenced and used commonly throughout the system. This global namespace capability can reduce system configuration time by 30%.

"One of the key features that Proficy Process Systems 1.5 provides is dynamic changes to the global namespace," continued Ryan. "The global namespace allows for tags configured with the process control function blocks in the controller to be seamlessly available throughout the system. This dynamic configure-once capability provides a significant savings of development time over traditional HMI- and PLC-based systems. Now there is no reason for the controller to be stopped to make online changes to the system."

The foundation of Proficy Process Systems is a contemporary hardware and software infrastructure that offers the benefits of both traditional DCS and PLC/HMI systems, without many of the historic limitations of those approaches. GE Fanuc's multi-disciplined PACSystems controllers can handle process, discrete, and motion-control, applications, giving users unparalleled flexibility in their control system. GE Fanuc's powerful Proficy software technologies empower users with unprecedented visibility, analytics and connectivity throughout their enterprise. The award-winning HMI/SCADA and Historian technologies, coupled with batch and a complete production management suite, allows customers to finally close the gap between automation and information.

The system is also packed with powerful control features, including a comprehensive set of function blocks for advanced regulatory control. In addition, user-defined function blocks can be created for the freedom and flexibility to define control algorithms as necessary, and system integrators can lock these blocks to protect their intellectual property. Customers can choose the fieldbus technologies they need for their applications because Proficy Process Systems provides an open-fieldbus approach by supporting Foundation Fieldbus, Profibus DP and PA, HART, Ethernet, and ASI.

Additional information about Proficy Process Systems:

About GE Fanuc
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 head-quartered in Charlottesville, VA, and is part of GE Enterprise Solutions.