Managing Automation - May 2008 - (Page 11)

key is that the testing can be done even in very loud manufacturing environments,” Mazza said. SenSound’s first product, based on the same acoustic holography technology used in SenQC, is used at the product engineering level in R&D labs working on engineering quieter products. The idea for SenQC came from customers, who wanted to apply the technology for quick, go/nogo diagnostic decisions on the manufacturing line itself, Mazza said. SenSound is currently working with assembly line systems integrators and customers testing the product at their facilities. “SenQC will offer a novel and cost-effective way to screen products for defects before they leave the factory, resulting in the reduction of expensive warranty, support, and repair costs,” said Wayne Schultz, a division president at assembly line integrator Assembly & Test Worldwide. SenSound will market SenQC in North America directly and through partners involved in building test equipment related to noise vibration and hardness (NVH), Mazza said. The company will also work with a global distribution network to market the product internationally. Pricing for the SenQC systems starts at $25,000 for the software. SenSound also provides microphones and resells other OEM data acquisition equipment used for the sound testing. Mazza confirmed that SenQC can be used to test any components, subassemblies, or finished products that produce sound during operation, including consumer appliances, industrial machinery, automotive, and aerospace products: “If it makes noise, that’s our target.” — Diane Himes INCUITY EMBARKS ON A VERTICAL MARKET STRATEGY iming to augment its horizontal sales approach with products tailored for specific industries, manufacturing intelligence provider Incuity Software Inc., the maker of the IncuityEMI platform, has created a new position, director of business development for the company’s new vertical market programs, and named Edward Kubiak to fill the role. Incuity’s mission historically has been to help manufacturers glean value from data locked within silos of multifarious control systems and business applications. “Every manufacturer in the world is facing a financial crisis based upon the inability to access the information buried in their own systems,” said Dave Smith, vice president of marketing at Incuity. A And the importance of having ready access to actionable data is more critical than ever as manufacturers face pressure to reduce energy consumption, compete globally, and fashion agile organizations, Smith said. Now, Incuity is hoping to help them do so, one vertical market at a time. Not long after the company made components of IncuityEMI available as Web services used to build custom applications, officials said, Incuity began working with organizations such as Houston’s Rice University, which sought a way to improve its campus-wide energy management (CEM) efforts using a centralized system. Incuity partnered with Rice to build an application that provided visibility into various factors affecting the university’s energy consumption. When the university reported an estimated 22% savings in annual energy costs as a result of the Incuitybased manufacturing intelligence application, Edward Kubiak Smith said, “We said, ‘Let’s productize this,’ and Ed was hired to manage that vertical concept.” Fueled by the success with Rice, Kubiak will focus first on the campus energy market and then identify other areas where Incuity can leverage repeatable, market-specific best practices. Incuity’s founders developed the manufacturing intelligence product known today as ActiveFactory, sold by Wonderware. Following the termination of its reseller agreement with Wonderware, the company launched IncuityEMI in 2005 in response to customers’ calls for a product that could support multiple sources of data. The resulting product, officials said, was an information modeling tool designed to access virtually any kind of data across the organization, residing in plant floor systems such as SCADA systems and data historians, or within enterprise business applications and databases. Users can build reusable, object-based models to analyze manufacturing processes in real time and create configurable graphs, dashboards, and other visual aids via a drag-and-drop interface. Using campus energy management as an example, “companies need a predictive modeling tool to be able to predict energy consumption at an individual building level and have this forwardlooking knowledge on hand before setting up new facilities,” Kubiak said. “They can also see in real time whether a system is out of spec, instead of waiting for the bills at the end of the month. And after addressing a problem spot, they can see Quote of the MONTH “When something doesn’t work, you have to acknowledge it.” — Otabo founder and CEO Howard Shaffer, about the company’s failed effort to keep shoe production onshore in the United States For the Continued from page 8 Record lean production facility. A rollout to 10 other North American sites is planned. Honeywell will upgrade Qatar Vinyl Co.’s plant in Mesaieed Industrial City, Qatar, to the Experion Process Knowledge System. Synthos S.A., a chemical company in Poland, selected IFS Applications to manage a range of business processes. NCR Corp. chose Servigistics’ Service Parts Management software to improve customer service levels and cut inventory. Koninklijke Nooteboom Trailers picked Siemens PLM Software’s NX and Teamcenter software to help reduce development costs and time to market. M&As Agility purchased a 10.82% stake in B2B service provider Industriaplex Inc. Consona Corp. acquired Configuration Solutions Inc., which sells add-on tools for Made2Manage and Intuitive ERP. Supply chain management supplier TAKE Solutions agreed to acquire Four Soft Ltd., a logistics supply chain provider. FINANCIALS Agentek, which offers real-time, mobile field force software, closed an $8 million Series A round of investment, led by Edison Venture Fund. PA R T N E R S H I P S Apriso is partnering with AICOMP to extend its reach into the packaging manufacturing industry. JDA Software is teaming up with Logicalis to enable customers to access JDA’s supply chain software running on HP servers. Omnitrol and Texas Instruments Inc. will deliver an RFID real-time traceability for printed circuit board manufacturing. RedPrairie will integrate Telogis’ GeoBase software into its transportation and fleet applications. 11 May 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managing Automation - May 2008

Managing Automation - May 2008 Contents Take 1 Award-Winning Shoe-Maker Otabo Alters Course, Shifts Production to China IBM Partners with Universities for Cloud Computing Getting Noise in Production Under Control Incuity Embarks on a Vertical Market Strategy Foundation Intensifies OPC Standard Testing Mailbox Notes PM Roundtable Cover Story: The Business of Going Green Special Report: Night and Day Delivering on Promises Finding the Right Fit for Wireless Driving RFID Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - May 2008

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