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ViewAnyWare: a common view of your process anyplace, any time . . . anyware!
Until recently, dedicated operator interface devices and supervisory level HMI software solutions were worlds apart. Customers utilizing both types of solutions were forced into learning different products, configuration tools and capabilities, to name a few. Clearly these products evolved from different origins, solving different application problems by different vendors. Proprietary operator interface devices or machine level interfaces evolved as real-time I/O devices connected to PLCs to replace pushbuttons, pilot lights and annunciation panels. Supervisory level HMIs, on the other hand, were designed for data acquisition, monitoring and control of multiple PLCs and controllers over a data network. The ability to blend these visualization and control technologies has evaded the industry for years . . . until now!
By Joe Bartolomeo, Marketing Manager HMI Business Unit, Rockwell Software
Today's manufacturing environment requires that companies have access to the right information, in the right place, at the right time and in a consistent manner-customers want a common user experience throughout their enterprise. Our answer has been to develop a strategy that bridges the gap between machine level and supervisory level HMIs in order to improve productivity by reducing the development and implementation effort, thus resulting in a lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
This strategy is known as ViewAnyWare, a common visualization environment that spans the entire operator interface continuum from operator interface devices to desktop computers. ViewAnyWare is our strategy to provide a scalable, unified and extensible HMI architecture.
We have a tremendous expertise and market presence in (3) critical areas, and for sometime now, Rockwell Automation has been offering a variety of HMI components and solutions for these markets. Each of these components has evolved separately and collectively such that each is in the top three of its respective market. They represent open and dedicated (proprietary) HMI solutions. ViewAnyWare is about leveraging our expertise, technologies, and product solutions in a consistent, common and uniform manner.
ViewAnyWare solutions are platform independent, sharing common attributes across all products and reducing a customer's total cost of ownership. These solutions support an interface that closely matches the application, offer integration capabilities for lower cost and better performance, offer backward compatibility and forward-friendly features, and act as a single source of accountability for hardware, software and networking portions of the application.
ViewAnyWare solutions share these common attributes:
- A common development environment, application re-use & portability, interoperability with other RA products and scalability from simple displays to highly sophisticated supervisory systems
- Leverage the full range of robust Allen-Bradley hardware platforms including both highly optimized embedded systems and open, Intel-based industrial computers
- Use of Rockwell Software open, flexible, robust visualization software technologies based on RNA (Rockwell Software interNet Architecture)
- Adoption of an open and flexible architecture founded on Microsoft's DNA for Manufacturing
ViewAnyWare allows data to be accessed by individuals at varying levels within the enterprise - from a machine operator on the factory floor to a manager viewing live production data via the Internet halfway around the world.
The road to ViewAnyWare began at the 1999 Allen-Bradley Automation Fair in Long Beach, California, US, with the debut of Rockwell Software RSView Machine Edition HMI software and the Allen-Bradley family of Windows CE- and NT- based industrial computers. A winning combination as judged by our customers for an open, machine level HMI solution.
Built with Rockwell Software RSView32 technology, RSView Machine Edition is a Microsoft Windows NT- and CE-based, machine level HMI package for designing and supporting PC-based operator interface solutions for individual machines or small processes. Graphical objects and functionality provide operators with the power to monitor and control from the machine. In addition, built-in OPC and Microsoft ActiveX support increase flexibility through endless customization possibilities.
So what's next? Look for the launch of the RSView Enterprise Series, our next generation of HMI software which takes advantage of a distributed architecture, our leading edge industrial computing platforms to support CE and NT, and finally our next generation PanelView products which leverage a common design time environment with RSView. This capability is unmatched in the industry.
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