An industrial automation software from Inductive Automation.
Ignition Perspective is an industrial automation sofware that lets you build powerful, mobile-responsive applications for your plant floor. By collecting all of your data, the designed industrial application can instantly be deployed to anyone in your organization via easy to use web clients.
Ignition provides fully integrated modules for SCADA, IIoT, MES, and more. All modules are hot-pluggable so they can be installed, removed, and upgraded without impacting your operations.
The cost of Ignition Perspective starts at $2,620/one-time. Ignition is sold by the module and allows customer to build their own package, customize an existing package, or get personalized recommendations based on their needs.
Ignition has two visualization modules: Vision and Perspective. Perspective leverages HTML5 to allow users to build mobile-responsive industrial applications that run natively on any screen. While both Vision and Perspective support desktops, HMIs, and control room displays, Perspective also offers visualization and control on any mobile device.
We find that we can overload our users with new features. It’s so easy to build stuff. We’re way ahead of the user-curve. We have found that we have to wait for them to digest what we’ve built, and then wait for them to start asking for more.
Now, all of a sudden the data is all there. It’s the keys to the kingdom. We’ve now been able to manage some pretty heavy workflow problems.
We approached the software with skepticism. There was no support among our automation engineers for using it as a control system for both philosophical and practical reasons: Philosophically, because we treat our control system as a stand-alone system—completely unconnected from any other network—and practically, because our corporate Windows-based PC network had such a rotten reliability record.
Fermentation is a 24/7 process, so our plant controls staff were in no mood to introduce Windows-style downtime to their lives. The Inductive Automation software was so inexpensive, however, that we decided to try it for data acquisition and production reporting—two areas where there were no good alternatives on the market.
It was easy to configure. The reason it’s easy is because I only had to install it on the server—one install. It took me no time, except installing it on the server. Its easiness comes from the client-side because there are no clients to install individually. There’s not a lot of overhead work to get it out to everyone in the plant.
Most of it seemed intuitive. All these functions are well documented. Python is clean and concise; which makes Jython really familiar. Jython is super easy to learn because it was familiar to what we learn in school.
But I think everyone agrees that the changes are good. We’re a growing company. Five to ten years ago when we had to make a production decision, we would simply walk over and talk to someone… but now, you can’t always find that person. Using Inductive Automation’s software, we can always find the screen. Operation is much easier than before.