Aucotec, Hanover, Germany – working in collaboration with Endress+Hauser – has created an online link from engineering department to the current device information of the measuring technology manufacturer. This gives users of the Engineering Base (EB) software system direct access to data throughout the service life of the measuring devices concerned.

 

Endress + Hauser supplies this information via its W@M Life Cycle Management Portal, which houses the details of some 24 million devices. Thanks to the online portal, EB users are just a mouse-click away from quick and direct access to any specific device.

 

Aucotec uses the portal to provide a link to EB. The three-layer architecture of this cooperative engineering platform make the link-up "as quick and simple as with any other system", in the words of Endress+Hauser’s process manager, Andreas Schiefelbein. “EB uses mostly ‘on-board’ resources to connect to web-based services, with no need for individual programming in .Net/VBA”, explained Norbert Ott, product manager at Aucotec. A single plant system may contain tens of thousands of measuring devices. Direct access does away with any need for duplicate data records, while making audits significantly easier to carry out, thanks to the online availability of all the certificates concerned, thereby also making bulky paper files and laborious searches a thing of the past. This shortens engineering schedules, accelerates procurement processes and increases operating times.

 

An online link from the engineering department to manufacturer data is going to be up and running as early as next year at a large international plant operator from southern Germany.

 

Andreas Schiefelbein, process manager at Endress+Hauser

 

Norbert Ott, product manager at Aucotec