"Be careful what you ask for" is good advice, but asking system integrators to build solutions is just asking for it. Still, that's exactly what Inductive Automation did at last year's Ignition Community Conference in Folsom, Calif. Well, this year on Sept. 21-23, those projects came home to roost.
In fact, ICC 2015's Discovery Gallery contained more than a dozen major control and automation projects using Inductive's Ignition SCADA software, and pursuing its three goals of open connectivity, unlimited storage and agile applications. Some of the projects included:
- Tamaki Control, which helped Colorado-based Sinton Dairy implement Ignition as a centralized SCADA system, adopt Tamaki's Plant Replay function to review past operations, and use Ignition's unlimited history to store tags history for all displayed tags.
- ILS Automation developed two modules to extend Ignition in chemical plant and oil refineries. The first is Diagnostic Toolkit, which uses a block language based on IEC 61131-3 to find and fix complex problems in a maintenance-friendly framework. The second module is the SFC+ Toolkit, which implements many of ISA88's guidelines for batch recipe control.
- Trimax Systems Inc. worked with Inductive and its partners to help oil and gas producer Pioneer Natural Resources develop a SCADA system and gateway area network module (GAN) for about 45,000 devices and 4-6 million tags across 14,000 sites.
End users at ICC 2015, including (left to right) water district consultant Henry Palechek, Ted Krevis of Sherwin-Williams, Bill Clark of Diamond Foods, Hugh Roddy of Chobani and David Lewis of Sierra Nevada Brewing compare best practices on using Ignition SCADA software to meet the needs of their growing applications.
"Last year, we also started Inductive University, and it now has 550 instructional videos on HMI, SCADA and MES development. More than 4,000 people have signed up as new users, and 549 have earned credentials in Ignition," says Travis Cox, Inductive co-director of sales. "We also established Certified Training Centers, which experienced integrators can open in their regions with our support. These are part of our knowledge-transfer efforts, which is a continuing priority as our community grows. We're always most excited to see what users come up with that we hadn't thought of."
Don Pearson, Inductive chief strategy officer, added, "What you do as a community has the greatest effect. Its members know that when you remove barriers to creativity, then the horizon for innovation becomes unlimited.
"The Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial IoT (IIoT) are going to affect everything, and Ignition software is positioned to bring into reality what IoT and IIoT portends. We also know that the future of manufacturing isn't just connecting systems, but is connecting and empowering more people."
Steve Hechtman, Inductive president, CEO and founder, added, "Ignition fits right into IIoT because it's an ideal way to harness data with its open connectivity, unlimited storage and agile applications. And, with embedded OPC-UA at its core, we have near seamless connectivity to hundreds of other protocols."