Intellution Introduces iHistorian and Redefines the Plant-Wide Manufacturing Historian Market
Application sets new standard for historian performance and price; marks first major release in Intellution's "Plant Intelligence" initiative
Foxborough, MA – September 19, 2001 — Intellution, Inc., a business of Emerson Process Management and leading provider of industrial automation software, today announced the general availability of iHistorian – the company's revolutionary new plant-wide historian application.
"Customers within every vertical market have expressed the need to acquire and retain data from virtually every aspect of the manufacturing and production process," said Robert Yeager, president of Intellution. "iHistorian delivers this functionality in a critical yet cost-effective way, and serves as a foundation for a diverse array of applications designed to apply business context to production data."
iHistorian marks Intellution's entry into an entirely new market, that of the plant-wide historian – a breed of data historians that can collect, aggregate, retain and present data from multiple points throughout an entire manufacturing plant or production process. Plant-wide historians are playing an increasingly important role in the evolution of industrial automation, acting as a central data repository for all aspects of production – from raw material tracking at the beginning of a production process to end-product loading and shipping as production is completed – and the vehicle from which applications can transform raw production data into valuable business-enhancing information.
"Having the ability to collect and utilize data on a plant-wide basis is an absolute must for manufacturers who seek to acquire or maintain a competitive edge via their production processes," said Harry Merkin, Intellution vice president of global marketing. "With the introduction of iHistorian, Intellution is simultaneously expanding the definition of a plant-wide historian while extending the competitiveness of companies who choose to leverage this powerful new tool."
The Plant Intelligence Market
In addition to propelling Intellution into the plant-wide historian market, iHistorian also represents the next evolutionary stage in the company's eManufacturing strategy. As a plant wide repository for all types of production data, analysis and visualization tools can be employed to extract, interpret and present the data in a way that address the business of running a manufacturing operation. Key performance indicators, asset utilization statistics, unscheduled downtime events and a virtually unlimited number of other revealing analysis applications can be leveraged from the "straight-from-the-source" data that iHistorian holds – providing plant intelligence to both improve operations and provide visibility of manufacturing activities throughout the enterprise.
Despite iHistorian's ability to serve as a stand-alone plant-wide historian, it is also tightly integrated with our award-winning iFIX™ HMI/SCADA application. (iFIX includes a robust charting solution for the analysis of data taken from iHistorian.) For those who elect to use iHistorian without iFIX, Intellution has bundled a robust Excel add-in with iHistorian. The add-in enables off-line analysis of historical data in several different formats, as well as a true thin-client administration tool, making iHistorian fully configurable via the web, from anywhere in the world.
Intellution also offers a powerful downtime analysis application – iDownTime™ 2.0 – designed to pinpoint manufacturing inefficiencies due to unscheduled downtime events and underperforming areas of the production process. A series of additional analysis and visualization tools for iHistorian is currently in development by Intellution.
As a result of the inherent data collection and retrieval capabilities of iHistorian, coupled with the limitless ways to analyze and leverage the volumes of data it holds, Intellution views iHistorian as the hub of a new breed of tools designed to serve the evolving information needs of manufacturer and business-level personnel alike. These tools create an entirely new space – dubbed Plant Intelligence – which empowers companies to unlock the latent potential of their production processes and transform manufacturing into a true competitive advantage.
Key Features
The introduction of iHistorian establishes a new standard for the performance and versatility of plant-wide historians. Capable of collecting data from 100,000 distinct points per server, iHistorian is highly scalable. Despite the large volume of information sources it accommodates, iHistorian is also remarkably fast, capable of collecting 20,000 pieces of data per second, per point. The data can be represented in many different formats –including process values, discrete values, strings and even Binary Large Objects (BLOB) – further enhancing iHistorian's versatility and ability to support the information needs of the enterprise.
Because the data housed within iHistorian plays a crucial role in the information infrastructure of an organization, the application has been designed as part of the IT infrastructure. iHistorian is fault-tolerant to ensure data integrity and reliability, and can be accessed and configured remotely for easy maintenance by IT administrators and support staff.
Facilitating both initial and sustained accuracy of time-stamped data from multiple collectors, iHistorian's time synchronization functionality supports both multiple time zones and Daylight Savings Time.
Finally, iHistorian utilizes an ultra-efficient compression algorithm designed specifically for the optimal storage of manufacturing data. In addition to enabling the storage of vast amounts of information in a comparatively small space, this also accelerates iHistorian's storage and retrieval speeds to the 20,000 point-per-second level.
Support for Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated companies
The introduction of iHistorian also adds another piece to Intellution's ongoing 21 CFR Part 11 strategy. This strategy was initiated to support the unique record keeping and electronic signature requirements of those businesses that are regulated by the FDA. As with Intellution's iBatchä 4.5 and iWorkInstructionä 1.0 applications, iHistorian was "designed for 21 CFR Part 11™" and includes enhanced security and user verification functionality to help ensure that all data is acquired and stored in a manner that is consistent with the FDA's recommendations.
System Requirements
Intellution's iHistorian can be used as a stand-alone historian or as part of the Intellution Dynamicsä platform. iHistorian runs on Windows NT, Windows 2000 and non-double-byte operating systems are also supported. Configuration can be executed from within iHistorian itself or via the web using iHistorian's optional thin-client support. For thin-client web access, no additional client-side software is needed.
iHistorian is currently available from your local Intellution sales representative. For more information, visit www.intellution.com.
About Intellution
Founded in 1980, Intellution (Foxborough, MA) is a leading supplier of industrial automation software, with more than 145,000 installations worldwide. An Emerson Process Management business, Intellution provides an industry-standard software platform that collects, distributes, controls and manages information from the plant floor throughout the enterprise, supplying customers with scalable solutions that deliver increased productivity and return on investment. For more information visit www.intellution.com.
About Emerson Process Management
Emerson Process Management (www.emersonprocess.com), an Emerson business, is a leader in helping businesses automate their production, processing and distribution components in the pharmaceutical, chemical, oil and gas, pulp and paper, power, food and beverage, and other industries. The company combines superior products and technology with industry-specific engineering, consulting, project management and maintenance services. Its brands include: Intellution; Fisher; Rosemount; Micro Motion; Performance Solutions; Westinghouse Process Control; PlantWeb®; DeltaVTM ; and AMS.
About Emerson
St. Louis-based Emerson (www.gotoemerson.com) is a global leader in bringing technology and engineering together to provide innovative solutions to customers in process control; electronics and telecommunications; industrial automation; heating, ventilating and air conditioning; and appliance and tools. Sales in fiscal 2000 were $15.5 billion.
©2001 Intellution®, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Intellution, FIX, FIX Stats, Intelligent Solutions, Intellution's Stylized i, PlantTV, Plug and Solve, The FIX and VisualBatch are registered trademarks of Intellution, Inc. FIX Dynamics, FIX HMI, Intellution Dynamics, iBatch, iClient, iCore, iDownTime, iFIX, iHistorian, iLogic, iVisualize, iWebCast, iWebServer, iWorkInstruction, VisiconX, The Intelligent Solution, powered by iCore, Secure Containment, and the Designed For Logo are trademarks of Intellution, Inc. iGlobalCare is a service mark of Intellution, Inc. All other brands or names are property of their respective holders.