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Linde AG chooses Proficy for 350 sites worldwide

04/24/2009

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- April 23, 2009-- GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, a unit of GE Enterprise Solutions, today announced that Linde AG of Munich, Germany, has chosen Proficy Historian and Proficy Plant Applications, part of GE Fanuc’s Operations Management software suite, for use in its plants worldwide. The order, which also encompasses GE Fanuc’s GlobalCare support services is worth more than $1 million and will be deployed in 350 sites worldwide.

The Linde Group is a gases and engineering company with almost 52,000 employees in approximately 100 countries. The company’s strategy is geared towards earnings-based growth and focused on the expansion of its international business, based on forward-looking gases applications and plant construction solutions.

Linde expanded through several acquisitions in the last few years, which brought along legacy commitments to manufacturing systems from other vendors. While Linde had experience with GE Fanuc’s Proficy HMI/SCADA iFIX product, each part of their business was satisfied with the solutions they had installed and were resistant to significant change. The company’s management realized the need to standardize on a global historian infrastructure as the data foundation upon which to standardize operating practices, production reporting and information flow across their enterprise. Based on their experience with iFIX they invited GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms to participate in the bidding for the new system.

The Proficy solution is the basis of a Plant Line Information Management System, consisting of a centralized historical database installation. Proficy Historian provides a robust and effective plant data repository to collect, archive and distribute large volumes of real-time, plant floor information. Several ROC (Remote Operation Center) systems access data via Proficy HMI/SCADA - iFIX on a terminal server basis to evaluate production data and to control processes. 

The Linde Plant Information Management system is completed with GE Fanuc’s Proficy Plant Applications to process raw data, calculate and evaluate key performance indicators (KPIs) to act on current business data. These KPIs will deliver insights into the company’s production performance information to optimize the efficiency of the gas production and increase the quality of the processes.

In addition, GE Fanuc will install Proficy Real-Time Information Portal to enable Linde management to retrieve production data and determine cost influences caused by certain production events. Novotek, a solution partner of GE Fanuc’s in Europe, supports the entire solution with its Trendview and Alarm Analysis tool for data evaluation.