GE-IP Releases Proficy Historian 4.5

The latest 4.5 release of Proficy Historian expands on the unparalleled power of our 4.x series Enterprise Historian platform with significant scalability, performance, and functionality improvements.  This release allows our customers to fundamentally change the way they use Historian to aggregate and accelerate information across their enterprises.

For customers new to the product, this is an ideal opportunity to take advantage of Proficy Historian as a foundation for operational excellence, and for our existing customers, a chance to upgrade their Historian implementations and take advantage of the powerful new features.  Start thinking about the expanded role Proficy Historian can play in improving your competitive advantage!

The following outlines the high level benefits of the latest version 4.0 release:

Major Scalability & Performance Enhancements

Proficy Historian scales to significant new levels, allowing customers to leverage data across their operations, both in plants or across global enterprises.  Across-board gains have been made in volume of information that can be collected per server, data throughput, and connectivity.

Expanded Functionality

New functionality required to deliver next-generation solutions in a wide range of operating environments, including condition-based collection, unsolicited tag compression timeout, and a new hybrid retrieval mode for enhanced data analysis.

Improved Compatibility & Integration

Proficy Historian empowers administrators to reduce operating costs, with flexibility & agility to support dynamically changing business conditions.  Key enhancements include a powerful new client access API, enhanced application examples,embedded applications support via Windows XPe, continued support for the latest Microsoft technologies, and full backward compatibility with 32-bit operating systems.

Ease of Use and Reduced Overall Cost of Ownership

Proficy Historian empowers administrators to reduce operating costs, with flexibility & agility to support dynamically changing business conditions.  Features such as enhanced archive management, improvements in system monitoring and management, and enhanced support for intermittent/low-bandwidth networks help our customers rapidly realize business benefit and sustain their advantage in a cost-efficient manner.

Migrating from older GE PLC’s

CIMTEC Automation  has been selling GE PLC’s since the mid-eighties introduction of the Series Six. Many of the PLC’s are still running factories today but there is an ever present fear that should they fail a replacement would not be easy to find. Many controls engineers also recognize that a proactive migration while the system is functioning would be less costly, less risky, and less stressful to all those involved.

While it can be easy to push the latest and greatest technology there can be roadblocks on the path to a newer control system. CIMTEC has developed and executed many migration projects using these steps to ensure a migration can be done with no surprises and for as low a cost as possible.

1. Customer provides current program running in old system
2. GE product specialist will review program to develop comprehensive proposal
3. Upon acceptance of proposal migration begins and involves many steps:
   
   1. Hardware evaluation:
      
      1. What modules can stay as is?
      2. What modules require new firmware or chips?
      3. What modules need to be replaced?
   2. Program evaluation:
      
      1. How many rungs of logic are we dealing with?
      2. How many instructions won’t convert well?
      3. Are the rung comments in the right place?
      4. Do tag names follow current software rules/conventions or will they need to be manually changed?
      5. How complex will the I/O map change be?
      6. Should functions that are available now but were not historically be used to simplify logic?
      7. Are there portions of the program that should be removed entirely as they won’t be necessary?
      8. How much manual intervention will be required?
   3. Program conversion
   4. Proof read of converted program (3 hours to 3 weeks depending on length)
   5. Manual intervention of converted program
   6. Acquisition of proposed hardware
   7. Testing of program in proposed hardware

Delivery and installation of new hardware and converted program.

For more information please contact us

Looking for GE Field Control?

Through our authorization as a GE Energy distributor, Cimtec now has access to a large inventory of legacy GE Field Control products.

For details,  please review our  Field Control Parts listing or contact Cimtec Inside Sales directly  1-866-599-6507 - Email: sales@cimtecautomation.com

Field Control was designed as a distributed I/O system that could be used with GE IP 90-30, 90-70 and PAC systems, and was used in a wide array of industrial applications where rugged, high performance distributed I/O was required. The heart of the Field Control system is the Bus Interface Unit. The Bus Interface Unit provides intelligent processing, I/O scanning, and feature configuration for a group of up to eight I/O modules. Together, the Bus Interface Unit and its modules make up a Field Control station. All Terminal Blocks must be mounted on a DIN rail. The DIN rail, which serves as an integral part of the grounding system, can also be mounted on a panel.

Field Control Features

Features and benefits of Field Control include:

• Wiring savings, Better up time
• Easy installation and maintenance
• Open architecture / adaptable to a variety of networks  distributed I/O
• Small, compact I/O modules with generic terminal wiring bases

The GE Intelligent Platform’s Field Control product was introduced in the early 1990’s and they formally discontinued manufacturing in 2008.  It is one of the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and I/0 systems of choice for many GE Drive systems, Turbine Control systems and stand-alone automation systems. There is a significant installed base of the Field Control product and GE Intelligent Platforms is trusting GE Energy to provide remanufactured parts and repair services for our mutual valued customers. Many customers will transition and migrate to other control and I/O