When you’re evaluating competitive alternatives, do you keep your sights on the end goal?  For example, with respect to information delivery (compliance reports, performance reports, corporate dashboards), there are solutions that will deliver it all in one package.  The basic generation of data isn’t all that you are concerned with.  The delivery of information is critical as well, and will typically encompasses printing, file generation, email, FTP, Web Portals, archiving and archive management.  Many solutions are focused primarily on the generation of information and don’t deliver with regard to the extended needs that will accompany the final installation.

Your IT staff will likely say “it’s not a problem, I have an application for that” each time an extended requirement comes along.  Maybe you’re using Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and you want a Web Portal.  Yes, SharePoint works nicely and you are now down the path of supporting a myriad of technologies, with their own IT configurations, patches, updates and learning curves.  The same holds true for Crystal Reports, a fine business reporting tool that has no understanding of automation data sources, typical statistics for automation, or the requirements for follow-on delivery and user interaction.

Another area of complexity comes from a common need for manual data entry and interactive reporting.  Often, with BI tools, this requires database interfaces and data entry forms manipulation to augment a reporting application.

“One and Done” refers to the selection of a solution that, in the case of information delivery, incorporates all the features you’ll need in one solution.  IT staff with tasks for product integration to include; emailing, robust printing, file management, archiving, and the development of interactive Web Portals should not be required for a complete solution.

A “One and Done” solution will have a major productivity and TCO advantage over user integrated solutions.  The savings will come through reductions/elimination of configuration and long term support that comes with an integrated solutions of a report generator with technologies for subsequent delivery, access and archiving, as mentioned in the previous paragraphs.

A One and Done solution will provide:

  1. A simple configuration environment that does not require specialized domain knowledge, programming or scripting to effect an outcome.
  2. Connectivity to all your data sources, and the ability to integrate their results, regardless of type – automation source vs. business system source.
  3. Report development in a Pixel Perfect, What You See is What You Get (WYSIWYG), easy to use Designer Studio.  That Designer Studio should configure all aspects of your project, from data access to calculations and statistics, data representations, report triggers, report processing, report generation, delivery, and interaction, without the need to incorporate additional products.
  4. Statistics relevant to the task at hand.  You can imagine the loss of productivity in using business tools to implement what is extremely foreign to them, industrial calculations.  Can they handle missing data?  Do they understand Historian data formats?  Will they generate automation relevant statistics such as run-time, percent availability, OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), energy statistics, address vertical market calculations for the water, waste water markets, building industry or the life sciences industry.  How do you easily address reporting on data with indeterminate start and stop times or batch data?  And will your business tools understand the statistics associated with alarm and event data?
  5. Report triggers based on date and time, work shifts, etc., but also need to be based on process conditions such as alarms, equipment run-times, and equipment status or operational actions, the latter of which often require real-time connectivity to data sources.
  6. Report formats including formats that; are tamper proof – such as encrypted PDF, Excel, CSV, and HTML-5.  Reports can be output in an, “any or all” configuration and as you add more and more reports in your application, for their various purposes and you will encounter requirements for all formats.  While PDF is excellent for archival storage, Excel is often for what-if analysis, CSV is required for data exchange with other systems and HTML-5 is required for use in a Web Portal and for access by all web devices – full browsers and well as mobile form factors.
  7. Report delivery to include file storage, ftp delivery, email, and access through a secure and interactive Web Portal.  All too often, additional applications and utilities are needed to fulfill these requirements and while not challenging to engineer, integrated solutions greatly increase system complexity, raise the total cost of ownership and reduce reliability.
  8. Interactive Web Portals to support flexible triggering of reports, the recall of past reports, and the entry of report parameters or manual data that often accompanies and must augment automated data collection.  Manual Data examples include operator judgments or laboratory data.

There are many other potential requirements of a One and Done solution that should be considered. They are often categorized under miscellaneous, but depending on the application, the importance of these requirements can become very significant.

They include:

  1. Local and Enterprise, Security combined with language localization.  The ability to configure simple node based security (users, passwords and privileges), and combine that with enterprise level security managed at the domain level, and include local language as a selection criteria.
  2. Report version management offers the ability to roll back to previous versions of reports or work on new reports.  Version management also couples with an audit trail and user authentication in order to track who does what, and when.
  3. Electronic Signatures are an important part of many applications.  This includes the ability to authenticate a user, approve or disapprove a report, and apply an electronic signature image.  HIPPA and 21CFRPart11 regulations impact these requirements.
  4. High Availability means your reports are always there.  What if you are out of ink, paper or the printer is simply broken?  Then you need a backup.  This is where a One and Done solution will have integrated primary and secondary printers, and even primary and secondary reporting nodes that will work in tandem, ready for an automated fail-over.
  5. Productivity Tools deliver major cost savings.  These can include templates for reporting, the ability to reuse statistics (define once and use everywhere), reuse reports with differing data sets, and the ability to reuse complex data queries.  Productivity can also be gained at project deployment time, through tools that will assist with product installation and automated start-up, or incremental enhancements.

Dream Report is a “One and Done” solution.  Unlike other solutions that are delivered as a suite of technologies, or rely on the integration of third party solutions for a complete report generation and delivery strategy, Dream Report is delivered with all the features described above, and is purpose built to meet the needs of the industrial automation marketplace.  It’s complete, easy to use and cost effective.