Electronic information, automation, and control systems are the heart and soul of today's industrial manufacturing processes, and more importantly they are becoming the business’s bread and butter by providing the differentiating competitive advantage. But today’s control systems are a dizzying array of competing standards (devicenet, controlnet, foundation fieldbus, profibus, modbus, HART, 802.11x), an alphabet soup of systems that truly should integrate to share information with one another (ERP, MES, CMMS, SCADA, SPC, DCS, CRM), and all confused by armies of vendors (Siemens, Rockwell, ABB, GE Fanuc, and more) each presenting white papers proving that their exclusive product line is the automation holy grail which will tie it together to improve your plant’s bottom line.

     What do you face? Whether you are simply upgrading the antiquated control cabinet for an existing machine or line, implementing a complete stem to stern retrofit of an entire area of the plant, or building a completely new plant from the ground up, in today’s competitive environment you must consider how to integrate the project into the plant’s overall business strategy in ways that straddle disciplines. You need dimensional checks for discrete items to feed your SPC software, but it is also useful to feed the maintenance management software to flag required tooling refurbishment. You want your SCADA system to feed back to the MES system when a production order is complete without requiring manual entry, and your customers want that same order status to be visible through your ERP system on a secure website. Perhaps you bought out a smaller competitor, and their plant is filled with Rockwell’s Allen Bradley controllers and RS View, which is completely incompatible with your Foxboro IA / Wonderware system to make the same product line, but your VP of Manufacturing wants a combined production report on his desk every Monday morning.

     Unlike a manufacturer’s representative, Industrial Informatics, Inc. is an independent systems integrator with no product line to sell, therefore we are not obliged to find creative ways to make a solution from our line card fit your circumstance. Our expertise is in project management, system planning, and implementing industrial automation systems for plants across multiple disciplines and multiple vendors. We have worked with steam control systems, environmental remediation systems, oil recovery systems, wastewater systems, paint booths, injection molding, QA acceptance test systems, and others, all with a data-centric focus. A simple alternating sump pump duplex controller can, and should, become a data entry device for pump runtime hours into your Maximo CMMS. A paint booth scheduling system can, and should, also be both a performance monitor for Statistical Process Control and a data collection portal for the MRP system. An ordinary environmental remediation pump and blower control panel can become a site's regulatory discharge compliance monitoring and reporting system.

     Many firms do not have the in-house capacity to develop interfaces, data handling, or even PLC applications. Experienced maintenance and controls engineering staff will advise you that the controls system is not the place to cut corners. At Industrial Informatics, Inc. we design and build advanced controls systems for projects of all sizes. We are not the low price leaders because most of our costs are incurred during the design, documentation, and testing phases of the project. Our systems are properly engineered and reviewed from the beginning. Work on interfaces and logic begins on day one, not in the field while the customer racks up downtime. Documentation is our first priority. We realize that the end user will one day take ownership of the system and our intimate understanding of the design and operation must be passed on. Before the first piece of hardware is ordered Industrial Informatics, Inc. provides initial detailed electrical, mechanical, and process documentation along with loop and logic drawings all meeting the latest ANSI, ISA, ISO, and IEC standards.

     At Industrial Informatics, Inc. we do not avoid new control technologies. Our design team enjoys the challenges and benefits of maintaining familiarity with the latest industry techniques and hardware. If properly implemented, modern control networks and field bus technologies can provide operators, engineers, and maintenances staff with valuable system diagnostic data that can warn of impending problems and serve as a rapid troubleshooting tool when failures occur. Industrial Informatics, Inc. includes failure mode analysis in our initial design to ensure that alarming and diagnostics are fully implemented in our final product, so that the plant maintenance staff can adequately diagnose and maintain the equipment.

     Hardware assembly and construction is completed under the supervision of our design team regardless of whether manufacturing occurs in our construction facility or in the field. Upon completion, all systems are tested under our stringent quality control policies, eliminating OEM hardware defects and manufacturing errors.

     Industrial Informatics, Inc. maintains a professional and well trained staff that can meet the requirements of any system. We have experience working with hardware and software solutions from a variety of manufacturers. We also offer custom solutions and in house software packages including desktop and web based HMI development tools along with telephone based SCADA systems. If we do not already have the software to meet your need, our development team will go to work building a custom solution for your process.