TPA in Lithuania Standardizes on Dream Report
TPA, a system integration company located in Lithuania, specializes in projects for major global manufacturers. 20 years of experience has enabled the company to have a deep knowledge of automated systems, in all project phases, from design to implementation and customer support.
TPA’s specialties include but are not limited to:
- Electrical engineering and automation system design
- Software design and development (PLC, HMI/SCADA, & Data Analytics)
Traceability for Clean In Place (CIP) Operations
OperationsTPA’s team can design unique automation solutions for specific client needs. Ocean Data Systems (ODS) software, Dream Report, is now TPA’s chosen solution for industrial reports and dashboards. Dream Report enables TPA to easily address custom requirements for their varying customer needs.
TPA completed their first Dream Report project with one of the largest still and sparkling mineral water manufacturers in the Baltic states – “Baltic Mineral Water Company”. This company also produces various soft drinks, functional drinks as well as specialized products for children and sports activities. The client owns a well-known brand called “Tiche” and requires high quality standards for production traceability and composition.
In earlier experiences TPA has implemented various reporting systems using AVEVA (Wonderware) InTouch SCADA system’s scripting together with an external spreadsheet tool – Microsoft Excel. This solution was not a “user friendly” or reliable experience desired for the operators and managers of the plant. The solution also lacked a comfortable user interface. It did not support the easy generation and manipulation of CSV files, another requirement of this application. Finally, this kind of reporting required advanced knowledge in Microsoft’s Excel software.
Benefits over Competitive Reporting Solutions
TPA has experience in implementing other industrial reporting software solutions, and all had the major flaw of being too difficult and complex to develop without having significant experience with the tools. A major learning curve was a deal breaker for TPA as they and their customer wanted to focus more on the technological process itself, without wasting time on learning how to use new and complex tools, or training their personnel on a new reporting solution. Reports and dashboards should be a simple addition to an automation solution, and not the main task.
TPA chose to use the more “user friendly” and much more intuitive Dream Report software by Ocean Data Systems. Dream Report offers excellent connectivity to AVEVA – Wonderware products.
The customer goal was to have a plant clean in place (CIP) reporting tool which would generate various reports for:
- All CIP’s done in the last 24 hours
- Detailed CIP reports with all the program sequences that would show what happened during the cleaning procedure of each CIP together with the trend of most important plant variables
- All the events that occurred while running the CIP
- Generate separate Comma Separated Variable (CSV) files for post analysis
Dream Report offers a browser-based portal for accessing report and dashboard data. TPA encapsulated the Dream Report web report functionality in Wonderware InTouch SCADA via a web browser element. Users can easily access reports through the existing HMI displays, without needing to switch applications. The HMI delivers all the functionality of generating PDF or CSV files from desired CIP lines or procedures. Filtering by time or by unique CIP ID is easily selected through the operator interface.
Learning Dream Report
With the help of detailed manuals and a little bit of technical support, TPA was able to become familiar with Dream Report software and develop this application. As application development progressed, engineers were able to build on their knowledge and were very pleased with the extremely intuitive design of this software, and their ability to configure the solution for their customer. Despite the fact that the application development was quite easy, TPA had a couple of questions regarding the licensing of Dream Report, but this issue was immediately resolved by reaching out to the ODS support team. Refreshing that in today’s world, ODS support answered the questions rapidly and provided an excellent support experience.
One of the main advantages of Dream Report is its ability to easy access the Wonderware Intouch Historical Database. The SCADA system logs all important data to its history files and Dream Report is able to access that data and deliver advanced reporting functionality with a great deal of flexibility. The client found this solution to be extremely useful and were happy to have a tool to quickly and easily visualize and analyze data from their critical clean in place process variables.
Summary – Reporting Software
Reporting is an additional skill set to TPA’s core competency of process automation. TPA says, “It’s very important to have a tool like Dream Report that can compete in the low-price range on the global market. Dream Report stands out in the market with its very powerful capabilities and competitive pricing.” Dream Report offers scalable pricing based on application size. This enables TPA to start small in a customer application and enhance the installation over time, as value is delivered. Dream Report is even a great fit for the smallest of applications.
As TPA gains experience in automation projects, they’ll create report templates that can be reused from application to application, delivering even more cost effectiveness over time.
TPA has asked their customer about their experience in working with Dream Report and have been assured that the user interface is clear and aesthetic, navigation is intuitive, and the tool is easy to use. “Baltic Mineral Water Company” is another of the many satisfied customers who use Dream Report on a daily basis.
To learn more about TPA, please visit http://www.tpa-automatika.lt/