HMI/SCADA Solutions


 GE Intelligent Platforms is a worldwide leading supplier of supervisory HMI and SCADA systems. The power, flexibility, and expandability of our products has made them a standard in nearly every conceivable industry and application. From process to discrete to system monitoring and control, we have helped our customers become more productive and reduce their operating costs, with systems that deliver the flexibility and performance they need to succeed.

The Evolution of HMI

HMI applications have come a long way since their inception in the 1980s as a means of interfacing with plant floor processes. To be sure, traditional HMI/SCADA applications have met the needs of discrete, process and hybrid operations reliably and consistently over the years. However, with companies seeing increased global competition, tighter regulatory standards and significant advancements in production management software and other related productivity tools, there is unprecedented pressure to remain as efficient, productive and profitable as possible. And as the margin for error has shrunk, the need to draw more value from installed HMI/SCADA technologies has grown.
The HMI/SCADA Evolution

“HMI/SCADA suppliers that support the exchange of data between factory floor systems and Enterprise tiers will be postured to grow their HMI/SCADA business…. Strategies for success include expanding the portfolio by adding RPM (Real-time Performance Measurement) software, OEE and Web visibility.” Craig Resnick, Research Director, ARC Advisory Group

The manufacturing and production software space is evolving. Applications continue to mature while user demand for continuous improvement continues to grow. HMI/SCADA solutions are increasingly becoming a component in a much broader automation strategy. The pervasive use of this technology is enabling a focus on the natural progression of automation, providing the ability to take data collected by HMI/SCADA applications and put it to greater use.

This level of sophisticated analysis has historically not been available to HMI/SCADA users. At best, customized solutions could be engineered to provide certain low level analytics. But when advanced higher level analytic and production management tools are added, the value of HMI/SCADA information increases substantially.

The ability to add those tools on an evolutionary basis (fitting seamlessly into an existing infrastructure) rather than a revolutionary basis (requiring a “rip and replace” approach for current systems) is a tremendously appealing strategy. It is a strategy that GE Intelligent Platforms strongly believes in, and we have designed our technologies to allow customers to adopt that approach throughout their operations, regardless of what other systems they may currently have in place.
Extending HMI/SCADA with the Power of Proficy

Proficy is an open, scaleable and functionally complete family of software products, delivering HMI/SCADA applications along with new capabilities that provide a natural extension of functionality to those solutions. Proficy is a broad set of software solutions designed to deliver value to everyone from the plant floor operator to the plant manager to business decision makers throughout the organization.

Most importantly, Proficy provides you with the unique ability to leverage real-time information, and to analyze and optimize your production operations, according to the needs of your business.

In this way, GE Intelligent Platforms Proficy production management products provide capabilities that go well beyond our market-leading HMI/SCADA functionality. These solutions deliver information that spans the automation systems you already have, combining the various data sources and delivering results for use back into your HMI/SCADA systems.

And, more importantly, this full suite of solutions is not available from any other HMI/SCADA vendor. The addition of production management to our three market-leading HMI/SCADA applications enables GE Intelligent Platforms Proficy to provide you with an evolutionary approach to driving unprecedented value and performance across your enterprise.

Supervisory Calculation And Data Analysis: The New Definition of SCADA

Originally, SCADA systems were designed for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, providing a reliable means of aggregating the analysis being performed by multiple RTUs. But with today’s high-speed production demands, SCADAs are required to perform Calculation and Analysis in real time on the plant floor, effectively combining the once disparate worlds of HMI and SCADA. This enables your SCADA system to act as a Supervisory Calculation and Data Analysis tool – a capability that poses a huge advantage for manufacturers.

Using SCADA as an HMI: Closing the Gap

In the past, Human Machine Interface (HMI) applications were simply that – the interface that existed between humans and the machines running the plant floor. Early HMI engineers would program HMI screens onto as many individual RTU panels as existed across an enterprise. The RTUs could be spread out across a single plant or around an extended facility, provided they were connected via a LAN (Local Area Network) or a WAN (Wide Area Network).

Data being compiled by each individual RTU would be fed across that LAN/WAN pipeline to a centralized SCADA system, which compiled the collected data from all the HMI applications and performed a series of macro-level analyses of the information collected. This approach worked fine for many continuous process applications that didn’t require a great deal of real-time data analysis. But as systems grew more sophisticated and manufacturers’ productivity and efficiency requirements became more complex, this model was no longer sufficient in many cases.

As a result, HMI systems that also provided SCADA functionality were at an extreme advantage over those that focused exclusively on graphics packages – in effect, providing the HMI only. As high speed systems quickly grew to require much of the SCADA-level calculation and analysis capabilities on the plant floor instead of through a remote engine, mere HMIs were no longer sufficient.

Today, that model certainly holds true. To be most effective, HMI and SCADA must be available on the same system to perform analysis and calculations at the device level, in order to maximize the speed, accuracy and scalability required by a real-time data-driven production environment.

There are four key reasons for this shift.

  1. Plant floor operators need access to more detailed information than in the past. Instead of simply recording when and for how long a system went down, they need to have significant insight into why it happened in order to install safeguards to protect future performance.
  2. Operators need greater access to information across the enterprise. Operators can no longer focus exclusively on one particular area of the plant. With fewer personnel doing a greater share of the work, this simply isn’t possible. They need access to other areas of the plant, related equipment and other contributing variables that can affect the overall performance of the production line.
  3. Feedback is needed NOW. Gone are the days when an operator could wait until the end of a day or even the end of a shift to know if a line or piece of equipment was underperforming. In order to maintain today’s production requirements, they must know immediately if a breakdown in productivity is occurring, where it’s occurring, and how significant of a problem it is.
  4. Greater functionality is needed. By leveraging a SCADA’s connectivity to higher level applications, users can take advantage of inherent compatibility with historian and change management tools, as well as the higher level Production Management and ERP applications needed at the business level.
In this way, today’s SCADA users are looking for far more than Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. They need a Supervisory Calculation and Data Analysis tool that can empower them with the extended real-time capabilities that have literally redefined this standard industry term.

The Top 10 Unbeatable Reasons to Select GE Intelligent Platforms for Your HMI/SCADA Needs

While there are many choices in HMI/SCADA technologies, it should by no means be considered a commodity purchase. There are many factors, from usability, connectivity to other systems, and strength of the supplier's support offering that can mean the difference between buying a product that will be obsolete in two years and buying a solution that will help your business compete globally for many years to come. Here are 10 reasons why GE Intelligent Platforms provides a differentiated solution for your business.